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Pentagon Wants Screenplays From Scientists
Aix writes "According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is funding classes in screenplay writing for 15 scientists. The idea is to encourage kids to go into science and engineering through mainstream media and thereby presumably bolster long-term US national security. While it sounds like a lot of fun for the researchers involved, and anything that stems the spiral of the US into a culture of anti-intellectualism is a good thing in my book. Will glamorizing science in the movies make kids pay better attention in chemistry class?"
The astro-physicists would all be wearing low-cut gowns.
Does anybody really think there is any shortage of glamorous mathematicians or two-fisted archaeologists in Hollywood? Not to mention they are frequently written as the Voice of Reason, Saving the Day, Etc. The era of scientists being depicted as whining and dreary eggheads who cowardly scamper about in the shadow of the macho leading man left vogue with Doctor Zarkov.
Oh, and not for nothing, you can teach science, but you cannot teach creativity. The government would be better served rounding up a couple dozen young but semi-established script-writers and giving them a crash course in astronomy. Of course, commissioning some Haiku from a bunch of Quantum Physicists would be pretty cool, in a Mondo 2000 kind of way...
Also, ask anyone who provides a course on forensic science what the effect of CSI has been...
Stargate SG1, while being sci-fi, does try to adhere to real science and real scientific theory in many ways. Granted, some aspects can't simply to maintain the story. But a lot of the stuff they discuss and use is based in real theory. If more sci-fi shows would at least try to do that, I think it would be helpful.
.com boom, tons of kids where going into computer science programs and there was a sudden overflow of programmers, right around the time it went bust.
The thing is, I don't know that this kind of stuff really brings kids into science, no matter how much real theory they use. And frankly, when it comes to higher degrees, where the money is can be a big driver. During the
I was a chemistry major my freshman year. Certainly not because of the money. The reason I left it was I had this sudden vision of what life would be like as a chemist and I thought, "Oh God, how boring." And that was the end of it for me.
My girlfriend in college went into comp. sci. because of the money. When she graduated and got her first job doing it, the first thing she said was, "God, this is so boring." I said, "Well, didn't you like it in school?" She said, "No." I said, "Well what made you think doing it for a living was going to be any more fun?"
Needless to say, her career as a programmer was short-lived.
So I guess my point is, money will attract people, but it's the interest that keeps them. I think glamorizing it might bring some kids to find interest in it, but the fact is, most science jobs aren't all that glamourous and getting hit by the reality of that may make careers short-lived.
In a word, YES.
Agreed. And shows like Futurama are awesome for this purpose as well, considering the brain mass they had.
I personally can't see anything but benefits from taking mainstream media and making it mathematically and scientifically sound. You don't lose any wow factor, but you also don't present preposterous information. Real science can be spectacularly amazing, especially some of the newer physics theories dealing with dimensions (string theory, etc.) and space-time as the fourth dimension.
I love science.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Anyone who seems to be interested in science in this country was and still is a "nerd" and thus unpopular and a social outcast. Everyone wants to be friends with the athletic football jocks, the nerds and geeks are the ones who get picked on.
The only way kids are encouraged to be succesful (read=make tons of $$$) by the society (media, family, friends) is to go to college, join a fraternity, party 4 years while taking some business classes then join daddy's or uncle's company with a $80,000 starting salary. Well, that seems to be working so far but for how long?
So yeah, glamorizing science is a good step in the right direction, but I wonder if it too late.
I think you should read Asimov's "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline"
First Published In: Astounding Science Fiction, March 1948, pp. 120-125 a very good read and it accurately teaches a lot about the scientific process. The thing I found most amusing about it is it chronological context, it was published the week before Asimov gave his oral defense of his PhD thesis and he was terrified that one of the examiners would take a dim view of a "real" scientist writing SciFi. What happened was after they were done grilling him on his thesis work, they made him defend his fiction, so he not only got his PhD, but became confident that writing fiction didn't taint his as a scientist.
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