In this age of science and technology, we accord far more respect to scientists than to artists but, conversely, we remain far more forgiving of scientific illiteracy than we are of gaps in more traditional ‘cultural’ knowledge. Science still has the capacity to capture the public imagination: take, for instance, the genuine excitement over the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle three years ago. But we marvel at the news as we might gawp at a tiger in a zoo, awed by its majesty but essentially alienated, looking in with wonder rather than comprehension.