One Minute of Science Per Five Hours of Cable News

ideonexus writes "The Pew group has released its annual study into the state of news media. They conclude that science and technology content is a rare treat for cable newscast viewers; some five hours of programming could pass with the average viewer seeing only one minute of science news coverage."

Comments

Why is it so bad?

[Evil Pete]

I know that TV fosters a dumbing down of society and trashing of the image of those in the sciences. But here in Australia we actually had a period of time when science and science reporting was highly regarded. It has slipped a bit lately but the ABC still has a Science Week where almost every TV and radio program tries to inject Science into the format. And TripleJ still has Dr Karl answering science questions every week (unless he's too busy doing Sleek Geeks). Maybe it is the non-existence of a strong equivalent of the ABC or BBC. Because science reporting is popular, just not as popular as other things. What I guess I am trying to say is the current situation wherever you are is not inevitable. Just as the current slide here is not inevitable -- science has given way to the unbelievably boring discussions on 'renovations'. Crap.

Re:junk science at that

[SpecTheIntro]

There are religious people who are sensible and considered, and there are scientists with strong biases. But science as a system promotes the biases being noticed and removed from the understanding of a subject, whereas religions in general do not promote that kind of understanding - a few individual religious thinkers have shown good sense ( Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo come to mind - but their philosophies were derived from Platonic thought) but most end up integrating dumb ideas in to what usually starts as a decent religion and turn it in to a self-contradictory mess.

You are assuming that religion does not promote the exercise of reason and free will, when in fact this is patently untrue. Nearly all of the greatest scientists in history, prior to the modern era when we decided religion was for "teh craziez," were deeply religious men, and in fact their religion was a bulwark in how they approached science. The early Christian thinkers (I'm talking early, as in 2-300 A.D.) consistently stressed the necessity of exercising reason in faith. Early Islamic thinkers operated the same way, believing that the gift of free will and reason were not only blessings from the Creator but obligations to humanity in their exercise. (Although the Islamic question of free will is a very nuanced one, and honestly a bit confusing--this coming from an Iranian Muslim, mind you.) There is, nowadays, an overriding sentiment that because a.) religious institutions were corrupted and b.) people are generally stupid, that somehow this means religion promotes closed-mindedness. But any actual study of scripture and theology will often quite clearly paint a different picture. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are not theologians. Neither is Ahmadinejad, for that matter, and even Khameini, fundamentalist as he is, is remarkably pro-science. (Again, a consequence of following the doctrines of his religion. His sin is that he interprets as narrowly as he can when it comes to the social order.)

It annoys me to no end that the world is becoming both anti-religious and anti-intellectual. And the longer we go, the more "religious" science becomes, with any dissidents in the community ostracized because of their beliefs, rather than their evidence. This movement towards "consensus" in scientific thought is absolutely horrifying: I don't give a shit if one hundred million scientists "agree" that it looks like x is happening; consensus is the antithesis of good science. Either the studies support you, or they don't--and the methodology of those studies should be attacked with such virulence that there can be no doubt remaining that they are valid. Instead, we have a cartel of scientific bodies that exists solely to insulate its members from real scrutiny, and react with the vehemence of the Inquisition if anyone dares to question the results they provide. It's disgusting.