I was wondering if that had gone unnoticed.
I watched a bunch of them on DVD, and they are more debunkers than popularizers - more Randi than Sagan. However, they had a nasty strawman habit, of interviewing only losers for the side they opposed and well spoken, intelligent people for the side they supported. That’s something I noted whether or not I agreed with them.
The water episode was indeed awesome.
Not at all. 
I adore this thread and I wish to subscribe to the newsletter. I have thought a lot about the folks mentioned in this thread and after thinking more about Mythbusters, I realized the value of what they are doing, which is science in the most basic form.
I’ll make sure that I properly credit the folks that got me thinkin’ in the future. No harm, no foul.
Funny thing, I was listening to an interview with Buzz Aldrin this morning and he and the interviewer both went out of their way to credit Johnny Carson, particularly Carson’s chats with Carl Sagan, as going a long way to popularize science.
They also mentioned Walter Cronkite and Hugh Downs.
Jeez, I didn’t mean to offend! I like Mythbusters! And I did say they were doing science. Of course there’s nothing wrong with demonstrating scientific principles, and the do a good job of demonstrating. But when I watch a science show I like to have more theory and discussion of the underlying principles behind the experiments. That wouldn’t work on a show like Mythbusters because it would probably bore the crap out of people. That’s why there’s Mythbusters and also other shows that get into the ‘lectures’.
Of course they don’t blow something up every show; but they do go a bit overboard. ‘The myth is that a guy got rid of the dried cement in his truck with a stick of dynamite. Let’s see if it’s plausible.’ boom ‘Nope, didn’t work. Let’s try a bigger charge.’ boom ‘Still didn’t work. How much dynamite would it take to knock off all of the cement? Who cares! Let’s pack the thing with as much explosive as we can jam in there!’ BOOM ‘Ha ha ha! The truck’s gone!’ While the myth was busted, the question of how much dynamite can knock off the cement isn’t answered. Blowing up the truck made for good TV, but it didn’t serve a scientific purpose.
I’m not offended. You said they glossed over the science and they just plain don’t. They gloss over explanations of scientific knowledge. And this OP is about what shows promote science, not “what science shows are good science shows”.
The cement truck was perhaps the most over the top thing they’ve ever done. It’s not a representative example. But that sort of thing is the entertainment aspect.
I guess I’m most partial to Asimov. His writing was somewhat pedestrian, but it had passion nonetheless. His greatest strength, to me, was his ability to come at a question from different angles. For example, I remember an essay he did on the world’s highest mountain. Well, how are you going to measure that. For height above MSL, it’s Everest, of course. For distance from bottom to top, Hawaii. For distance from the center of the earth, some mountain in South America. Etc. Good stuff.
I always found pronouncements from on high to be annoying, and I thought there was far too much of that in Carl Sagan. But his stuff was well written and well produced, and did represent the scientific consensus of the time. So, yeah, Carl’s okay.
I don’t care for Gould at all. He seemed a scientist in reverse: he reached his conclusions, then got to work justifying them. He probably would have fit right in in the Soviet Union. Also, he was just so full of himself. I always thought he should be in a giggle-off with the Maharishi.
As far as current stuff goes, I like Mythbusters the best. Their main problem is coming up with ideas that are worth their time, and that a TV audience would sit still for. But when they get their hands on a juicy problem, like the airplane on a conveyer belt, they usually do solid work. And they’re fun.
On the one hand, zombie Feynman’s does have a point regarding Mythbusters, but as long as we’re throwing around web comics, I think this is relevant.
Except of course that Mythbusters use multiple data points and controls regularly. The more I hear, the more I think that a number of Mythbuster critics have never watched the show.
The Mythbusters don’t need to use a lot of data points. There is no requirement for statistical analysis in most of what they do; they’re after a yea or nay answer. It only takes one data point to disprove the null hypothesis.
I don’t think Roddenberry promoted science as a philosophy very much, as per the OP. His “science” was more like mysticism shrouded in scientific-sounding terms, but never coalescing into a properly testable cause and effect (aka “Pulling technobabble out of your posterior every episode”). Which is not to say he didn’t make people want to be scientists, he just didn’t promote science and if you were to just go into a scientific field based just on Star Trek you wouldn’t know a thing about what you were doing. Even moreso than many CSI-like investigative shows.
Absolutely true, and yet…
Talk to real astronomers and aerospace engineers, and I bet you’ll find a LOT of them first got interested in their fields because of “Star Trek.” The acual science depicted in that show was often nonsense, but if it sparked the interest of numerous people who went on to pursue REAL science, then you have to give Roddenberry some credit as an importan science promoter.
Real medicine is nothing like what you see on “Ben Casey,” real law is nothing like what you see on “Perry Mason,” and real police work is nothing like you see on “Starsky and Hutch.” But those shows, silly as they often were, inspired countless real people to become doctors, lawyers and cops. That’s no small feat.
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are REAL scientists, but I’d be astonished if either could ever inspire as many future scientists as Gene Roddenberry (a mere entertainer) did. Abandoning God is NOT the same thing as pursuing science.
I’m not sure I would call Sam Harris a scientist. He’s more like a writer who eventually plans to finish his Ph.D. in neuroscience. He became known for his writings about religious belief, and only later did he do anything significant in science (assuming that he’s done anything significant at all). Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, clearly became known as a biologist well before he became known for his writings about religous belief.
But again, no disrespect toward Dawkins, but… is he really inspiring people to study biology? Or just to mock God louder? How many of the people who bought “The God Delusion” even know what Dawkins’ real accomplishments in his field are?
I’d wager Marlin Perkins inspired more young people to study biology than Dawkins ever will.
Good lord, Marlin Perkins. I’d forgotten about him, but honestly he probably was the central inspiration for me getting into biology.
And let’s not forget Jim Fowler, who actually went into the river and wrested the anaconda! :eek: (I’m sure Marlin did a few rounds with wildlife in his younger days, he was nearly 60 when Wild Kingdom started.)
Fowler’s also been on Leno’s Tonight Show according to IMDB.
Gary Larson.
Some people have promoted science and some people have attacked religion, but there’s little if any overlap between the two groups. Science and religion usually go hand and hand. Just consider that the United States is the most religious industrialized country and compare our funding of science to secular Europe.