Speaking of Public

Today PZ at Pharyngula has a post discussing what he views as the failing of the scientific community at large to "popularize" their views and message. I've often wondered why we don't have more "public scientists" these days. I grew up in an era when it was fairly common to see people like Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman on mainstream television. They also had more widespread popular name recognition. Now we have, uhm, Michael Crichton, or even worse Michael Behe, neither of whom are really scientists(although one does play a scientist for the ID movement). Luckily, scientists like PZ have blogs and are willing to spout off about anything that suits their fancy, including their area of expertise. It's not great, but at least it's a start.