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?"

Comments

Isaac Asimov

[infonography]

Sorry to tread on some popular illusions but Scientists do not always make good writers. It's a alien Skill. If they were smart then they would tap William Gibson, Neil Stephenson, Bruce Sterling or John Shirley. However I suspect that John Shirley would be arrested before he got within 20 miles of the Pentagon. Vernor Vinge and Rudy Rucker also write well within the field. Avoiding obvious bad science. I bring up Isaac Asimov because everytime he wrote it close to theory it didn't sound right. When he was writing Scientist Fiction is sucked.

I am half way thru Sterling's Zenith Angle, it talks well about the scientists as heroes. It's been a while since that's shown up in SciFi. Too Long.

Come On

[Mark_MF-WN]

I loathe the concept of "karma whoring", but come on -- George W. Bush is an illiterate retard, and everyone knows it. Pull your kisser away from his ass for a while and pay attention to the rampant anti-illectualism his administration has been breeding.