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Science Television: Does Joe Public Care?
AVIDJockey writes "Wired News has an article about a new science television network. As someone who is a fan of TV shows that lack a shiny veneer of stupid, such as those found on UWTV, UCTV and ResearchChannel, I've wondered if hard science or technology programming will ever catch on with the general public. What do you think?"
...from Star Trek.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Before it became the Discover Motorcycles Channel
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Thats why Star Trek is so popular. It has nothing based on science, but says that it is, and has good special effects.
IF the program is compered by the like of late Feynmaann or late Carl Sagan. One of the thing that attract people to scince is the style of narrator. A good narrator can spell bind you to the beauty of cosmo, scince.
"shiny veneer of stupid..."
Then you wouldn't be watching the Presidential debates, would you?
I stopped tuning in when it became the Discover Gay Men's Taste in Decoration Channel.
there is a channel that is soley devoted to really boring science. One day I saw a dude doing Fourier transforms on TV, another molecular bio, and yet another they were talking about software engineering.
But then again, at the same time, I didn't think I could see anything dumber on Japanese TV than I did on American, but boy was I wrong....
Monstar L
Science and the knowledge of it is a threat to those in power. Those in power are pretty much setting an example for how people should live their lives. So I would say no, it is unlikely that a great thirst for the knowledge of science will happen very soon.
But does she really have to? I mean, does Joe Public care whether Perl is better that Pythin or vice versa? Of course not! But Real Programmers care, and that is what really matters. Likewise with science, philosophy, religion, art etc. Some people care, and for those few it is worth doing.
Honestly, people do like the Discovery Channel and hearing about "Mysteries of the Universe". Topics which can grab people's attention include:
- Explaining Nuclear Space Propulsion Methods
- Investigate Red Mercury, whether it exists, and its potential uses
- Explain how Fission and Fusion actually work
- Explain Relativity, String Theory, etc. (Oh wait, someone did that.)
- Investigate the Ancient Vimanas
The secret to making these subjects interesting is to place them in the context of the common person. Lay low on the mathematics, and go heavy on the computer graphics.
As long as the public isn't hearing the same 50 year old science AGAIN (look, it's a Saturn V), they'll be interested.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I've always found science fun and interesting, though I am not Joe Public.
I enjoyed watching TLC before it was all "OMFG! Trading Spaces is on!" However, it was a whole lot of reruns on things they did before. Like Shark Week always seemed to be the same. And the dinosaur special. And the.. well, pretty much all the sciencey stuff.
Discovery Channel wasn't so bad, but then they deviated from hard science to other things.
If I had two good science channels, I'd get cable. Until that time, I'm content with Google. ^_^
"their goal is to produce the C-SPAN ... of science"
Sure-fire recipe for success!
Lets hope this gets off the ground quickly! I am for anything that will off set the vacuum of intellect that my local cable company provides. Can I please get something other than Sports and another women's network?
I am already a fan of the Discovery Science channel - however it needs a better programming - but I'm not complaining! At least it's something.
I am still in disbelief of what happened over at TechTV...
Instead of raising your voice, try strengthening your argument.
If it can be made into a date rape drug, or something that will harden his member, then Joe Public will be all over it. 95% of the population is of (counts on fingers for a bit...) below-average intelligence. So that means there's only 5% of the population that can bitch about the rest of the population on Slashdot. And of course, I'm in that 5% that's of above-average intelligence. Right?
But seriously. If you like hard science... don't go to television to find it. Television is all about branding dumbed down entertainment as something it isn't. Science. Law. Journalism. Even shows that are about dumb topics (like bikini babe lifeguards) aren't realistic in any sense of the word.
fifth sigma, inc.
Not to sound like a horrible pessimist, but I think this channel would have a great deal of trouble if it were Nation wide. For far too long, science has become stigmitized by popular culture, and the education system, into being something regarded as work. It's too bad that when people watch TV and see something that tries to show them how beautiful the world is, their eyes gloss over.
Of course, I am generalizing a lot of people in the US. But Americans don't place as much emphasis on science and mathematics anymore. Unlike during the Cold War, where science was encouraged to kids (to beat the Russians), science today has become another class you have to take for your report cards. I don't think people would want to bring what they regard as work into their vegetative times.
Another problem I see with the youth today is that they tell themselves "Math is hard. Science is hard." If they keep telling themselves that, how would they ever watch a channel devoted to it? There's a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy at work. It doesn't help that the popular culture likes to impress onto kids that being bad in math or science is something to be proud of.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
The Science Channel is available on DirecTV. Watched a decent show a couple weeks ago on the science that goes into the construction of a new house and it's materials. Actually made watching paint dry interesting :p
Michalangelo Progr
A hard science show that delves into the minutia of the matter, the math, the statistics, the detailed physics or chemistry, is not going to be enjoyable for anyone other than those already in the know.
I am of above average intelligence (however slightly). It isn't that I want to still watch Mr. Wizards World, but I also don't want to follow a statistics lecture, or inherently understand some anscillary chemical reaction, before I learn about a new technology.
My sister, doctorate in chemistry in hand, will not see the same utility in, and will, in fact be quite bored with, a chemistry show that holds my interest. I, on the flip side, wouldn't be able to follow a chemistry program that she would enjoy.
Where do you draw the line of "veneer of stupidity"? I think that is the question that needs to be asked, and the problem that needs to be solved.
Note my examples: both current topics and historically significant figures and subjects would be equally welcome. It would be cheap, too, and far more likely to glue me to the TV than, say, COPS or M*A*S*H reruns.
I think my demographic is just too small, though. Otherwise it would already be there -- it would be so cheap to do a good job of it, and there's so much potential material available. I suspect they need source material that not only draws advertisers but spawns action figures and other marketable materials, and pi-mesons and sorting algorithms just don't fit the bill.
Just a matter of time before I can just pick up the remote, find which category and specific type of program I want to watch, choose which episode/installment, and there I go.
As the number of channels grow, the niches that a channel can focus on profitably grow smaller, allowing channels to choose programming that isn't dumbed down to the least common denominator. Someday with video on demand we'll be able to watch linear algebra proofs 24-7 if we want.
Eh, I'm bigger than he is :)
Every time I hear his psycho dad talking about "size 12s" I look down at my size 13 steel toes and laugh...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This is an extremely popular TV show, which now runs three times a week (the Las Vegas original, Miami, and the brand new New York series). Each show focuses on the scientific gathering of evidence to catch criminals. This includes explanations, with heavy computer graphics.
It's not that the public doesn't care about science. It's that the public wants Drama. Drama with science works great, it's the dry science only stuff that fails.
Bye,
Ori
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Am I the only one who finds nearly everything said here rather elitist and rude? This attitude of"only we Slashdotters are smart and cultured enough to appreciate science programming. The general public is too stupid, uninterested, and incapable of understanding it." It's utter nonsense.
It is possible to have self-confidence and be proud of your achievements without assuming that everyone else is a blathering idiot. Putting down everyone else makes you a smaller, not a bigger person.
People like science, and will watch anything they can grasp. If a channel not only dedicates itself to presenting truly in-depth scientific shows, but also brings them up-to-date on the background science that leads to it and can give people reasons why it is useful science, they will watch.
One of the reasons people keep watching the same kinds of shows they do on the Discovery channel is that the topics are usually that which they have the background on already and so can grasp. I watched Cosmos when it originally aired during my first year of high school, and I had only the barest inkling of the topics he covered, but Sagan presented each episode in a way that helped me get up to speed quickly on what he was talking about before he fed out the hard science. In effect, making it all pretty easy science.
A hard science channel won't succeed if it's not willing to get people up to speed on the topics like that. If you want a channel that just dumps hard data on people's laps that they have no background information on, no, I don't think it will succeed.
And this doesn't mean that those who chose not to be viewers of such a channel are "dumb". The truth is that a lot of people - really intelligent people for that matter - don't particularly find subject matter that leads to a lot of thinking an appealing use of the time where they don't have to. A lot of people are under a lot of stress, between work, jobs, family, etc.; and don't want to do a lot of extra mental heavy lifting in their leisure time.
The other thing is that, for many people, hard science is difficult. This, again, doesn't necessarily mean that they're dumb; just that they've gone through life without having a good education about science. Call it a problem with the education system, or the way many children are raised, but the sad truth is many people just don't 'get' science.
So will it be a mainstream success? If I were a gambling man, I'd almost certainly say no, mostly for the reasons outlined above. But I don't think that high ratings is the point of putting together a hard science channel; rather the point is to attract a core demographic of people who are interested. And, assuming that the channel can find advertisers who are willing to pay a premium for people who spend their leaisure time thinking about hard science, it can be a success.
http://amishthrasher.blogspot.com/
Back in the 50s, TV was going to be the innovation to herald a new era of education, enlightenment, and completely new entertainment. It never really achieved any of that. Most of TV's history has been political agenda-making, or brainless crap (and often both).
I don't see what would make it change now. Just look at the direction the internet has been going for the last decade.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Get thee to a statistics class!
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
There are shows out there that are science based, but how many people watch them?
Nova has been around for ages, as has Nature. Both are excellent shows, but what kind of audience do they have? Sadly, not enough. Even with such excellent programs as this: The Elegant Universe. (Note, you need to downgrade your version of quicktime if it is new to view it due to a quicktime bug. I reccomend the full screen version BTW.)
Up here in Canada I have been watching The Nature of Things for as long as I can remember. We also get Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio, which is actually quite popular up here. (I reccomend downloading some episodes in MP3. Jay Ingram from Daily Planet used to host this show.)
So, there are good shows out there for such a network, but the question becomes, would people watch? I know I would, hell, I would subscribe to a cable channel of that nature in an instant. However, as it is, I use my ATI All-In-Wonder and the PVR software that came with it to record and play back these shows, so I have a "custom" science channel of my own.
Michael Schermer has been working towards this for some time: as shown here.
I think though, that one VITAL thing to add would be along the lines of what Schermer already does (and the Mythbusters TV show does to some degree as well): Teach Joe Sixpack the nature of scientific thinking, specifically critical thinking as outlined in Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark. Once more people begin to understand this concept, they will likely become more open to scientific televison, well, that is what I hope for anyhow.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
You're asking this about a viewing public that thinks The Swan, Fear Factor, and Switching Mommies are the paramount of real TV.
Programs that actually involve thinking and heaven forbid - perhaps learning will be about as popular as math class was, to these same people, in school.
The only ones to watch would be the ones who would just as well read on the same topics.
Television that informs? What a silly idea!
...to the sea of stupid, we won't see this kind of thing catch on at all. Before shows like this can become popular, we have to make sure that intelligence is something that is pushed as being positive in popular culture. Right now, being stupid is what's seen as being cool. My wife read something last week that said that in England, the person that most boys idolize after Beckham is... Stephen Hawking. What do you want to bet that in the U.S. it's Kidd Rock or Eminem?
Un-news
If you really have an abiding interest in "hard science," (which I take to mean the nitty-gritty details) go back to school.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think a good source of Science television is good for children and adults alike.
For children, it inspires.
For adults, it explains really cool things in layman's terms.
I watch The Science Channel all the time... well, when the wife lets me have the clicker.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Until Comcast ruined TechTV with their annoyingly mindless G4 drivel. The quality of the programming on G4TechTV is hopelessly pathetic. Many of the great shows they did have on there have been dumped for reruns of Arena, Filter and PLayers.
Also, the majority of people who made the original TechTV worth watching have already jumped ship.
Who knows... maybe if were lucky, the Discovery channel will create it's own version of what TechTV once was... but for now, the outlook is pretty grim.
8==8 Bones 8==8
The only problem is that many people don't get those channels. As a result, the regular Discovery Channel programming seems boring. :-(
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That is unless they blow lots of things up like Adam and Jamie do on Mythbusters.
I doubt any kind of hard science channel will take off. Joe Public doesn't like to think. He just wants to be passively entertained.
Look at how far downhill the programming on TLC has gone. Shows that were mildly entertaining on BBC are highly irritating on that channel. Shows like Trading Spaces and such fill their daily programming now, and not because management there "guesses" people will watch.
Outside of academia and industries that have hard sciences as their backbone, people are pretty damned stupid. Seriously. Joe Public is an idiot and will do whatever it takes to keep from having to think too hard. Joe Public seems to have enough sense to keep himself alive for 70 some odd years and little drive to pick up any more knowledge.
You been thinkin' son?
Yeah, but I don't think I'm thunk.
You've got an easy breezy wind at your back...most of the time.
About 30 years ago BBC Radio started an evening program Mon-Fri, billed as covering current news in the Arts & Sciences. But because the BBC was filled with arty types, and (back then) many scientists were not good communicators, the arty types soon took over the whole thing, so the 50:50 arts/sciences split became 95:5 So let's forgo the glitz and have some substance, and to hell with the ratings.
Those of us with an interest in science, engineering or technology can help by pointing out to others that "Yes, we need artists & poets to point in some new directions and to distil the deeper meanings, but without the sciences etc we'd all be in poverty or dead".
Last weekend the American Science Channel was doing a classic Science shows marathon, with "The Secret Life of Machines," "The Ascent of Man", "The Day the Universe Changed," and Walter Cronkite's "The 21st Century" from the 1960s.
I put in a season pass for for the first three on the TiVo.
"The Day the Universe Changed" is current enough that I had already watched most of it on my TiVo.
It occurred to me that I actually have the complete "Ascent of Man" buried somewhere on VHS tapes that I made when it was first broadcast in the 1980s. I had no life.
They say in the modern commentary that some things we know now contradict what we thought the but that doesn't hurt the enjoyment of the show.
"The Secret Life of Machines" is great mostly because they pull off amazing demonstrations of how the components inside work. The host Roy Hunkin said he amazed himself that were able to make an electrostatic copy like a Xerox machine. In almost every episode, even though I have decent knowledge I learned some new aspect of how things work.
The most amazing is "The 21st Century" which I remember watching when it was originally on in the 1960s. I remember it was the first time I heard that Raytheon had a prototype oven that cooked with microwave radio waves. They called it a RadarRange.
In one they absolutely torture some poor volunteers with Gs, heat and cold to check aspects of putting men in space. One guy was put into a 400 degree oven for 6 minutes.
I heard several times that we are scheduled to put men on Mars by 1986.
By the year 2000 we will have much more leisure time because we will work only a 30 hour work week.
They showed the home of the future. One cutting edge California engineer had a computer terminal (a LOUD clanky TeleType) in his own kitchen that connected by phone line to a computer all the way in New York. The kids could even do math homework on it.
The home would have a TEN FOOT 3D Television with a HIGH FIDELITY STEREOPHONIC SOUND system. There was a control panel about 8 feet wide that had huge knobs to control it all. There was desk where the homeowner could work. One screen had the weather and stock quotes. The one next to it was a video telephone. The next one could do the finances. (It never occurred then that we would have one screen that did all that and more..)
I went to a presentation at the Chicago Consumer Electronics show about 15 years ago where it was predicted there would be 10 foot flat screen "hang it on the wall" TVs in ten years time, and a panel member said "I've been hearing that we'd have them in ten years for 20 years." We still don't have em.
It occurs to me now that the QUADRAPHONIC SOUND we thought was white elephant fad in the 80s was actually ahead of it's time. It was only one or two speakers from modern surround sound systems.
Guests to your house will bring their own inflatable furniture, inflate it to use in your house, and then deflate it and take it home. (only until the end of the 1970s. |-{)
I felt like I was a visitor from the future looking in to see what they got right.
Mostly they couldn't imagine the drag that politics and other interests would be on progress in space and elsewhere. They didn't note that things got smaller as they got newer. I think at that time the miniaturization of electronics was just at its birth so they had no way to note what it would mean to things in the future.
It was very cool. I'm saving the "Home of the Future" episode permanently.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
To take your example: if you present Fourier transforms as a series of integrals, then it might not be too interesting. But as a way of moving between time and frequency domains, they're something we use without knowing it all the time.
Your inner ear effectively does Fourier transforms! It takes a sound wave in, and has tiny hairs that vibrate at different frequencies, each one triggering a different nerve impulse. Similarly, the spectrum analyser, tone controls or graphic equaliser on your hi-fi system are working in the frequency domain. Piano keyboards, radio tuners, synthesisers, and many other things are all concerned with Fourier transforms and their effects. Most of use think of sound in the frequency domain!
Even if you restrict yourself to the mathematics, they underpin MP3 and pretty much all forms of audio compression; JPEG, MPEG and many forms of graphic compression; the circuitry behind CD players (those digital filters), and so on.
I'm sure a good director could come up with a really fascinating programme about them!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I think it comes down to the people making the programmes. In the old days, the people who made the programmes understood what they were telling you. They designed the programmes to inform, to explain, to convey knowledge -- and that was what made them interesting.
These days, most programmes are made by people who clearly don't have a clue about their subject matter. The idea is just to interview a few professors and hope that some information will leak out somewhere... Which rarely happens. Or, alternatively, you get the whizz-bang style, the 'Hey, wow, we don't understand any of this stuff either, but doesn't it look good??!!' approach.
And then they wonder why people don't get as much out of such programmes...
Personally, I'm happier watching old Open University programmes than most prime-time science programmes, even those on the BBC. The thrill of learning something new, of having your horizons broadened. You can't beat it.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Want more people in the US to watch science related shows? Get David Suzuki back on the air in the US.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Joe Public, Joe Six Pack, The Great Unwashed, ID-10-T Errors, l-users...
People aren't nearly as stupid as most geeks like to think. A big problem is that most "smart" people seem to be unable to communicate properly and that science really does come off as boring.
The reason most people find science boring is because it's so poorly presented. A Brief History of Time, and The Elegant Universe were both NYT Best Sellers. They explain amazingly complex topics in a way that's interesting and understandable.
Create some programs that deliver science with respect for the viewer and understands that if it doesn't seem interesting it's a fault of the show, not the viewers. Bring out the human and social factors and don't just dryly spout technical jargon.
When I first got TLC it was great. They had shows like The day the universe change and Connections. Both of these James Burke shows were great. TLC even produced their own version called Connection 2 and Connections 3. They made you think. But now all that is on there are people redecorating other poeples houses and some guy building weird cars. I guess you have to program what the public wants more stupid "reailty" shows.
just my $.02
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang , but a wimper
There is no boring science. There are only boring speakers. And you're quite wrong about Fourier transforms. If you don't have an interest in the world around you, that doesn't make the world boring, it makes you boring.
UWTV, UCTV and ResearchChannel, are sometimes interesting, so is the NASA channel. However, PBS-U has the best in my view. My only displeasure with it is that a lot of the shows they put on were made in the late 70's to mid 80's and are extremely out-dated. I always get a chuckle watching these 80's geeks talking about state of the art computer equipment with wire-frame graphics that tick along at a speedy 1 frame per second. Whoo! Seriously though, I found that the Annenburg CPB organization has a 'video on demand' that was at one time a free deal. You could watch any number of topics about physics, chemistry, language, economics (which the president needs to watch), and more. I guess for some people learning is an addiction and we need to get our fix someplace. As for whether or not a science tv show/channel would be popular my guess is that if they made 'The Science Channel' a free channel on basic cable, you'd find a ton of people that would watch it. The problem is that this station is only available in the max/premium packages for all the networks, including satellite. Any chance I could get to sit down in front of my tv and see what scientists do when they're not doing boring lectures would be more than entertaining, it would be learning.
A few years back there were some physicists trying to get the TV world to put together a TV show about scientists, much like all the police and lawyer shows. One of the jokes in APS News was that they should call it NYPhD. Given the popularity of lawyer shows (I imagine work for most lawyers is quite dull) it's got to be possible to put together a dramatic show with a non-forensic, non-medical science backdrop.
My mom suggested a science geek version of "Cribs"-- I know a lot of scientists that have some weird projects at home, or things like a full machine shop in the living room.