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mans illustrates, the limits to that hubris, however fragile they may have
become under the assault of progress, still “exert their power and arouse
a certain dread of what will be found beyond these limits” (Back 1995, p.
328). Thus, it can be expected that this myth plays an important role in
popular culture in general, and in films in particular.
If one wants to gauge how deep the roots of the critical myths of sci-
ence actually reach, one needs to go back to their origins and trace their
changes through time. Then it becomes understandable how the represen-
tation of science in film follows certain patterns.
2
The persistence of the
figure of the alchemist as the embodiment of the scientist is best ex-
plained with the deep conflict between modern science and religion. Al-
chemy is foremost a metaphor for the pursuit of material goods and im-
mortality. Authors of the late Middle Ages and early modernity contrast
the 'crazy alchemist' with admonitions for a frugal life guided by moral
and religious values. In the Christian romantic literature of the eighteenth
century criticism was directed against the amoral pursuit of mere knowl-
edge about nature. The true alchemy of the search for God is contrasted
with the false alchemy of modern science. Goethe's
Faust
represents the
limitations of the new experimental science whose far-reaching abilities
empower it to manipulate nature but which then loses control over its
own products because it lacks a deeper understanding of a holistic natu-
ral philosophy.
The division of science into 'two cultures' has its origin in this ro-
mantic contrast, the core of which is the religiously motivated critique of
materialism, nihilism, and hubris. The critique of materialism in modern
science is directed against the fact that it no longer needs a God as crea-
tor. Materialist science is atheist. To commit the sin of hubris means to
give in to the ambitions of modern science to unravel the secrets of di-
vine creation. Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
marks the birth of the mad
scientist, whose hubris not only leads himself into ruin, as was the case
with his precursors, but now above all also the people in his environ-
ment. In the course of the nineteenth century the critique of modern sci-
ence's hubris coincides with the moral critique of the obsessed scientist
2
For the following I rely on Schummer 2006 for some detailed references to literary
figures as well as on Haynes 1994.
