Seeing GQ's Rock Stars of Science campaign for the first time gave me the same sort of instinctive reaction that I got when I saw OK Magazine's Jade Goody Tribute Edition released before she'd actually, y'know, died; or when I boarded the train to Windsor & Eton a few nights ago to find that somebody had sprayed bright-pink vomit on the floor of the carriage. I felt disgust, repulsion and hatred, but I couldn't immediately figure out why it bothered me so much.

The premise is pretty simple, as you'd expect from a Mens' Magazine. Scientists do some of the coolest things in the world, yet they don't get the recognition of their rock star peers. So why not set up a kind of weird cultural-exchange buddy system, where scientists pose with rockstars?

Except, what's the logic here? It's eerily reminiscent of the first days of the Blair administration in the late 90s, when a succession of rock stars were invited to Number 10 for... well nobody really knows what for. Is the rock-stariness supposed to somehow rub off on the hapless scientists? Is coolness contagious? How does standing someone next to a rock star in any way promote them or their profession?

So I spoke to some fellow writers and spent some moments in quiet contemplation of the pictures. Ah, the pictures. Here's one of them now.

The rock star, in case you were wondering, is the one in the middle. Sheryl Crowe her name is, and she is unquestionably cool. The other two, the ones who are fawning over the guitar-wielding goddess, are the scientists. As test-tube-wielding goddess Dr. Isis notes, images like this promote rock stars, not scientists. Crowe's expression isn't one of respect, it's saying: "Who are these losers, and why do they have to stand so close to me?"

In fact it's hard to look at the picture and not imagine that you're watching 'first contact' taking place between two species on some even-lower-budget version of Star Trek. Things look to be going reasonably well, but one of the suit-wearing aliens appears to have stolen the blonde alien's guitar pick, and it's probably only a matter of time before the phasers come out.

We get a similar effect from Seal. Here, the photographer artfully plays on racial stereotypes by having Seal pose with a menacing expression, holding the microphone cable as though he's about to strangle somebody with it while the two clever white folk cower in the background. The one of the left bravely does an impression of Seal, with a pose that may get him further fame on a laxatives commercial.

Being serious for a moment, let's just look at the statistics here. GQ assembled 11 scientists, and 5 rock stars. Of the rock stars, two are black, one is a woman. Of the scientists, 11 are middle-aged white males. For a campaign that wants to attract new young people into science in a country where around half of young people are women and probably nearly half are from ethnic minorities, that's just moronic.

But, okay, you've got your middle-aged white guys in suits into the studio and you're ready to take some photos that promote science. It doesn't take a marketing genius to tell you that the scientists should be in the centre, and the rockstars should be fawning over them. I'll repeat the words of Dr. Isis here because she's right and I'm too lazy to bother rewriting it in my own words:

"It seems to me that if you want to have an effective campaign then what you do is put Sheryl Crow in a lab coat and take pictures of those guys teaching her to pipet or culture some cells or use a microscope. Don't take pictures of talented, gifted scientists -- scientists whose talents make them as unique and talented as the rockstars they are pictured with -- trying to be musicians. Take a picture of a musician aspiring to be a scientist."

To paraphrase Marvin the Android, it hurts to think down to the level of the guy that put these photos together.