The Institute of Physics’ ‘Bin The Boffin’ campaign

PHYSICS is a glorious exploration of how the universe works that can equip students with practical skills to solve problems in everyday life.

But let’s leave all that to the nerdy egghead mega-geeks in white coats – our boffins! – right? One of the country’s most respected scientific societies went on a media offensive this year with a campaign aimed at bringing the curtain down on a decades-old stereotype.

The Institute of Physics in Islington wrote to tabloid editors pleading for an end to the use of the term boffin – and to show greater respect to researchers and experts.

The red tops hit back in traditional fashion  with the Daily Star running a defiant front page story about how the “mega brainiacs” at the IoP have got it wrong and that – to their journalists – the word boffins still commanded the utmost respect.

But the IoP says there is a serious issue at stake with young people being put off studying physics due to “outdated portrayals” connected to the word. As part of a “Bin the Boffin” campaign, launched in March, it commissioned a survey of 2,500 people who said the word conjured-up a deeply stereotypical image: a posh, male, often bald and almost certainly wearing a long white coat and thick rimmed specs. In the survey, 80 per cent of young people said they saw boffin as an insult.

The IoP – which has 21,000 members – called on supporters to publicly challenge newspapers that use the word with “polite” tweets with hashtags and by putting “Bin the Boffin” stickers on their profiles.

The response from  the Daily Star

Its campaign literature said: “This is not about censorship or demanding that politicians force the editors of The Sun, The Star and The Mirror, to scrap the word boffin. We are asking them – politely – to remove it voluntarily, because it mocks and disrespects scientists. “The media is a huge influence on young people’s lives, and by improving the accuracy and accessibility of the reporting of physics and physicists, like avoiding terms such as boffin, more of them can see and feel that physics is for them.”

The New Journal has used the word in past articles. It is believed to have come into popular use after Charles Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend that has a character called Mr Boffin, who is mature student. “Boffin” was used as a term to celebrate technical heroes during and after the war but in the 1980s became derogatory and associated with “mad” or “nutty” scientists.

The IoP says instead of “science boffin” newspaper could say simply “scientist” or name the specific profession, like astrophysicist.