Do science spectacles help or harm the field?

It's been a wacky week in science. First there was that computer
that supposedly passed the Turing test, a 50-year old benchmark in
artificial intelligence research. Then, on Thursday (12 June), a
29-year-old paralysed man in a robotic exoskeleton took the opening
kick in the World Cup in Brazil.

In both cases, the researchers behind the demonstrations have
made grand claims about their importance as scientific
breakthroughs. And in both cases critics have complained that
they're little mor