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Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" [...] "Mythbusters" [...] I like both shows, but really they are no more trustworthy than TV wrestling. Urm... no.

TV Wrestling (the WWF sort) is mock-combat in which the actors pretend to fight, but are actually just performing a series of well-rehearsed stunts. This is the sort of lie that we accept because it is presented as entertainment. Exactly like PTB, in which every interview is staged, every presentation edited, and every data point carefully selected to eliminate any semblance of a valid opposition viewpoint.

P&T's Bullshit! is an advocacy show that attempts to promote Penn Jillette's arguably libertarian political and social ideas. It's honest about what it presents, and has never sought to present itself as news or anything of the sort. Although everything Penn Gillette is involved in does serve as a vehicle for his oil-industry sponsored right-wing views (a few of which I share) PTB is dependent, like every other TV show, on funding that will cease to exist if nobody watches. Presenting a balanced view of tantric sex practitioners, recycling, or environmental science would not be as entertaining as locating a select few nutbags willing to allow their foolishness and ignorance to be filmed, and then dubbing in voiceovers so that Penn can have a totally one-sided conversation with said nutbags. How can you call that "honest"? I certainly agree, though, that they've never presented themselves as other than what they are - completely biased stage magicians with some axes to grind. I very much like that about them - I especially like the running gag about finding excuses for female nudity on the show.

Mythbusters is a reality show of sorts about a group of technical, but scientifically relatively untrained people attempting to validate or debunk urban legends. Again, the show has never pretended to be anything that it isn't, and for the most part they get their mythbusting right. Occasionally they take on a topic that has more hidden complexity than they realize (I recall frozen chickens hitting windshields being an example), but they certainly know more about basic engineering and physics than their average viewer. Which is the problem, in a nutshell. They make an entertaining show, but unless you know more than they do about engineering, physics, and history than they do (which actually isn't too hard - they mostly know about machining and crafting) you should assume that anything you see on their show has the same validity as TV wrestling. Unfortunately, unlike PTB, the "mythbusters" do present their activities as though they were real authorities (...Myth... BUSTED!...) which makes them considerably less honest than Penn & Teller's more blatant self-acknowledged manipulations.

I guess I'm saying that Penn and Teller are honest about their completely biased and unfair (but entertaining) presentations, while Mythbusters presents their excuses for contrived (but entertaining) video stunts as though these events were actually meaningful experiments, when they almost never are (usually due to a total disregard for the scientific method). Their Archimedes' mirror episode is pitiful, and a topic of much hilarity among scientists, but their presentation leaves no doubt that the viewer is expected to accept the show's conclusions.

PTB's best episode is where they have the Mexicans build the wall...