There sure seem to be a lot of ‘oogah-boogah’ shows on TV. I like UFOs and ghosts and mysterious creatures. In concept. But I don’t believe they exist. If I want to watch a history programme, then I’d relly like The History Channel to have one. Instead they have an annoying tendency to show credulous ‘documentaries’ about Nostrodamus or the Loch Ness Monster or space aliens flying over England or the U.S. or South America. Well, let’s try The Science Channel. Nothing like a nice bit of science, right? Wait a minute! This show is pseudoscience! More monsters and aliens. Well, there’s still Discovery. Whoops. More bogie men.
If people want to watch dramatised Weekly World News stories, that’s okay. But why do all of the ‘educational’ channels have to show these things on the same night?
I just caught a show about “Police Psychics” on the National Geographic Channel. It was much less credulous than similar shows that are on TLC or the History Channel. They spend a lot of time showing some of the so-called psychics telling their stories, but they also had Joe Nickell and another guy from CSICOP being rational and skeptical, and in the end, they basically said that there was no evidence that any psychic had ever helped the police solve a case or find a missing person or body.
I’ve also seen a National Geographic show about the moon landing hoax that included commentary from Phil Plait, and I’ve seen listings for other shows on spontaneous human combustion, etc.
The National Geographic Channel may not be widely available, but it’s nice to know that someone is sticking up for real science.
That’s what I get for assuming. I saw that that show was on last night. Based on the shows on other channels I assumed it was more of the same. I’ll make a note to tune into NGC next Monday.
I did watch one show about ‘The Kecksberg Incident’ (or something like that) a year or so ago. But that was only because a friend of mine played the reporter in it.