But the show gives conclusions based on their testing. It IS passing judgement on the validity of the experiments done in the episode.
For example the other way, the test of the Hindenberg disaster seemed well done. Different theories were tested, using actual experiments. They are capable of doing proper tests. They* choose* to dumb it down, probably on some incorrect “guidance” from the producers.
No, they choose to make it watchable. “Real” science is boring as fuck.
“Watchable” is not a measurable standard. Many posters here disagree on the “watchability” of recent episodes.
Real science is only “boring as fuck” to people that don’t understand what is going on.
Maybe we should perform an experiment on watchability of MB episodes? Well have two groups - one group watches Adam and Jamie do pure science, with real controls, and the other group watches poorly thought out no-science fluff tests hosted by Kari in a bikini, and then see which are more “watchable”. We’ll use sciencey-sounding tests, like tracking eye movement, and counting how many times the viewer yawns. But we’ll realize halfway through that the air was very stagnant in the room during the A&J tests, and we’ll pump in fresh air for the Kari tests. And provide free beer for the Kari tests.
That sounds like a test we can draw meaningful conclusions from, right?
Nielsen would disagree with you.
No he wouldn’t. Nielsen, especially in the early days, provided a count of how many TVs were tuned to a specific program at a given time. They had no way to measure how many people in a given household, if any, were actually watching it, let alone how many liked the program. Some Nielsen households had diaries that added such information, but most just had a set tracker box that recorded channel information and time.
Demographics were never tracked, such as how many people of different age groups watched each show. This came later. (see: Star Trek, cancellation of).
A Nielsen box might have shown that a household had the TV on CBS from 7-10, but the family was only watching Here’s Lucy at 8 and Sonny and Cher at 9 and was leaving the room to shoot hoops during Doris Day at 8:30. But the Nielsen figures would list them as watching Doris Day.
See, there’s that “experimental rigor” coming in again. Gotta have the complete facts, plus know what they mean. That both includes knowing who is watching, but also how Nielsen ratings work.
And now, of course, the notion of viewers reporting what they watch is as absurd as, say, sending in a list of all the groceries they bought in the past month.
One of my favorites, and not because of any scientific vigor because I wouldn’t know a well constructed experiment if I was the cadaver they were experimenting on, but because it looked so cool when they were done. The golf ball car.
Speaking of car myths-- which do you think is a more accurate? The same amount of gas and drive until the car stops or the added hoochimabob they add to the tank to measure the amount of gasoline used?
Agreed. Great demo, great lesson, busted because it didn’t make exactly 30 feet? :rolleyes:
This was specifically a movie myths episode. There are plenty of movies that show people with bombs using impromptu containers for bombs, which is where they drew their examples. I think they had already done a refrigerator in a previous episode - or maybe that was bulletproof, now that I think about it. And no, a regular refrigerator is not bulletproof.
Could they have done other options? Sure. But they picked three. And it was a filing cabinet, not a microwave. And the bed was surprisingly effective. And the garbage truck worked about as I expected - stand in front of the opening and still get hit, duck to the side and the truck is think enough to block the blast.
Yeah, that was more a case of “we have an old garbage truck we bought to blow things up in, why not?”
Nowadays people are embalmed, but that wasn’t always the case.
Hollywood would have you believe it is a common means for a kidnapper to use, i.e. keep you in a buried hole so if the ransom isn’t paid or the kidnapper gets arrested, the victim dies.
The first time was before they invested in high speed cameras, so they didn’t film it with one.
Yeah, I can’t recall examples at the moment, but I’ve seen that.
Because of a popular viral video.
They neglected to mention the part that the “buried alive” thing was more of a 19th century myth. Enough to where there were plenty of “safety coffins” developed to counteract the supposed fear.
(emphasis added) In the 19th century, I might’ve been afraid of being buried alive too.
But anyway, the experiment they designed wouldn’t have answered any questions that I could see.
Just to clarify the “blowing up a garbage truck” thing from an episode this season:
They were testing out “What to do with a bomb?” stuff. They tried putting one in an aquarium, under a mattress bed and in the back of an old-style garbage truck. (They were all effective to a certain extent, depending on where you were standing. If you were lying down, you had a good chance of surviving relatively unhurt.)
After the garbage truck test: They had a busted up garbage truck, were at a wide open test site, had an explosive guy. So let’s blow the crap out of it! That wasn’t part of the actual test.
They *proved *a sinking ship doesn’t suck swimmers down by having Adam sit on a small tug boat that sank. :dubious: (I miss the eye-roll emoticon)
I’m solidly on Zombie Feynman’s side of the argument. Mythbusters gets people interested in “Knowledge Through Experimentation”. And that’s awesome, even if they sometimes get it wrong.
As for measuring watchability… forget Nielsen. Ask Netflix. Most TV these days is delivered through some device that can keep track of exactly what you watch, when, and for how long. Streaming services, cable and satellite boxes, etc.
The show has viewer ratings that allow it to still be on air after ten years. Nielsen and others devote themselves to measuring watchability. Meanwhile, other scientific or scholarly programs, on the same network and its competitors, have been discarded for reality crap and long-debunked nonsense about aliens and shit–because that gets better ratings than actual science television.
You’re entitled to your wrong opinion, of course. Just know that you’re quibbling over how good the science is when no other television program shows science in action like Mythbusters does. They just don’t let it get in the way of a good time. And it shouldn’t. Blowing stuff up on high speed cameras for dubious ‘experiments’ is just plain fun.
Nova and its ilk will touch upon active science, but is usually content being reporterly. Mr. Wizard and Beakman’s World use controlled experiments with already known results.
You’re not helping your case here. That is exactly what we are discussing - that Mythbusters sometimes shows the exact level of science as shows about “reality crap” about “aliens and shit”, rather than proper science. (Maybe that’s why they are still on the air?)
As are you.
But, it can be better, without a lot of effort.
All this quibbling over ratings is assumes facts not in evidence. Who knows for sure if it is “dumbed down” because scientifically-rigorous episodes get bad ratings, or because the bosses are too stupid to understand them?
I think the part that bugs me the most isn’t necessarily the scientific rigor, but when their basic assumptions are wrong, or they draw the wrong conclusions/measure the wrong thing.
To wit; the episode with the giant-scale Newton’s cradle. Clearly the toy relies on having very close to elastic collisions between the balls- it displays conservation of momentum and energy.
They proclaimed the myth busted because their jack-legged rig didn’t have balls that were able to have elastic collisions, not because there’s anything inherently wrong with scaling it up.
Had they had solid steel spheres of that size, the thing would have worked. Having buoys filled with concrete is about on par with inserting lead weights in malted milk balls and trying to make a desk-scale Newton’s Cradle with them.
Or… the episode where they proclaim that motorcycles don’t beat cars as far as emissions are concerned. This may not be true overall nowadays, but the idea is something with its genesis some 30 years ago, when emissions controls on cars were far less sophisticated. It’s misleading to say the myth is busted; it would have been better to explain that when the myth originated, it was true, but that modern cars have very sophisticated emissions control systems, while motorcycles do not. However, motorcycles burn far less gas, and IF equipped with comparable emissions controls, would certainly beat a car.
What a ridiculous comparison. The Mythbusters are the exact opposite of the things you mention: They are skeptics who show us that we need to test things for ourselves and rely on the scientific method.
You are holding them to an impossible standard. Two guys under time pressure to turn in a weekly show are simply not going to be able to think of everything that the crowd watching them can. They are sometimes going to make mistakes, or cut the odd corner. Or perhaps critical info gets left on the cutting room floor by the editors. And everything they do has to be done within the constraints of a show that’s only an hour long and which has to have wide popular appeal. If they did the kind of meticulous, exacting work you seem to want, the show would have an audience 1/10 the size. Like it or not, the explosions and overly-dramatic experiments are necessary to draw the masses in to a show where they might be exposed to some actual science.
I maintain that their attitude is right, and what they do is within the spirit of the scientific method. To compare them to Nigerian scammers, anti-moon landing idiots and anti-vaccination cretins is offensive. In fact, the Mythbusters busted the ‘we didn’t land on the moon’ conspiracy. If anything, they are some of the few voices speaking out for critical thinking, the scientific method, the importance of learning how to build stuff, test hypotheses, and in general not taking questionable claims at face value.
They scaled up gradually, using solid steel balls, and demonstrated a clear trend - making it larger reduced its efficiency.
That’s why they tested 3 cars, including an 1980s model.
Which is precisely why I don’t like them getting rid of the build crew. That’s what let them throw in a bunch more myths into the run time, so it wasn’t so dadblasted slow. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and was still repetitive, but it’s only going to get a lot worse.
The build team stuff also would make for good YouTube clips, which is the way a lot of people are consuming media these days.
Let’s wait and see what their ‘new format’ brings before condemning it, eh? I hear they’re planning to show more detail of the builds and the process of coming up with them, and that might mean less repetition. Or it might not, but I don’t think it’s possible to know that now.