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Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists?
Hugh Pickens writes "MSNBC reports on a recent panel that discussed studies showing that people, especially children, often model their behavior on what they see on the big (or small) screen and science shows up in many Hollywood films. In fact, 22 of the 60 top-grossing movies of all time are science-fiction or superhero flicks, including history's No. 1 box office hit, Avatar. The movie science doesn't even have to be entirely accurate, some of the panelists added when asked to consider the role and impact of science in cinema. As long as it plants a seed of curiosity in viewers, it may spur them to investigate scientific issues on their own — and perhaps consider a career in science down the road. 'It's not an educational medium, it's an emotional medium,' says Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'Kids get turned on by the emotion.' Interestingly enough although movies work hard to get the science right, many make errors ranging from the understandable to the egregious, but that's ok, say the panelists. 'Even if a film or media product is not very accurate, that becomes a teaching moment,' says Arvind Singhal. 'So there's room for everything.'"
Avatar is a modern fantasy, not science fiction. There's barely anything plausibly speculative about Avatar. The few pieces of plausible fiction (cold sleep, avatars, aliens, and mechs) are plot devices, not plot points. All of the actual plot is implausible speculative fantasy.
I know Avatar inspired me to be a one dimensional money-driven corporate manager.
The media also strongly discourages participation in science when it depicts it as a field that only socially awkward people would ever have an interest in. We really see a lot more of that, coupled with a strong push for everyone to become some kind of businessman, than we see of movies that might encourage children to become scientists. Welcome to American culture.
Palm trees and 8
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Palm trees and 8
Why become a scientist in the US today? You go to school forever, spend years in a dead-end postdoc, and then can't get a tenured position. You're then 35, a decade behind in starting your career, and overqualified for most jobs.
How about we inspire them with actual science rather than wasting their potential trying to condition them to be passive consumers. The latter is the ultimate goal of popular entertainment. This just sounds like an attempt to use science as a fig leaf.
How many folks (of a certain age) were so blown away by Tron, that they wanted to do something with computers? Having the PC revolution right around the same time really helped, but there was a huge influx of geeks thru the 80s and early 90s that helped fuel Silicon Valley.
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Or a basketball/football/baseball player. Or a rock star, or supermodel, or simply a celebrity, which is even better since you don't have to have any appreciable talent. (Snooki, Paris, Charro, etc.)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Many Slashdotters have admitted, in various articles over the years, that Mr. Scot (the chief engineer of the "Enterprise") motivated them to become engineers. He out-engineered all the adversaries (of the Federation) by making the "Enterprise" nearly invincible.
Indeed, some of the engineers who were inspired by Mr. Scot participated in the construction of the first, non-functional, prototype of the space shuttle and gave it the insightful name: "Enterprise". This prototype was used to test the ability of the spacecraft to glide back to earth.
Kids that choose science as a future are doomed. Why would you want to be scientist anyway? Besides, the portrayal in movies is absolute nonsense. Another lesson these brats need to learn is Hollywood is fake! Its like deciding to become a lawyer based on watching Perry Mason episodes!
The work is not always as great as you first imagine, the reception is unappreciated no matter what you do and the pay is poor.
Let kids become doctors, lawyers, and business people. They will be smart and have lots of money! America gives a rat's ass about science. If you discover something, it will be stolen and misused. Look at the Wright brothers. Wright had to sell out to Curtis because the gov't broke their patents.
Someone else will make a fortune based on your discovery. Howard Hughes made a fortune based on the oil drill bit, and had very little to do with its actual design and funding. He bought it from someone else.
Intelligence is not fixed at birth. The brain is a muscle that can - and must - be exercised to fulfil its owner's potential.
And only the top percentile of humanity gets to have a job in the medicine/science professions? What sort of Gattaca-fueled world do you live in?
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
It's not just about inspiring kids to grow up and become scientists. It's also about how much the next generation will care about investment in a new fancy science fiction future. There are plenty of reason to want to cut government spending. And if you care nothing about space exploration and travel, you could easily see the budget of a government organization like NASA or the National Science Foundation as completely superfluous.
Pure science needs pure funding. If your lab is forced to spend more time worried about how to monetize an idea than to explore it's scientific ramifications, you end up in compromising positions of wanting to cut corners and fudge the numbers.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Good *science* movies are much harder to find. There's some vaguely interesting scientific issues raised in films like 2001 - where did life come from and what would extra-terrastrial intelligent life be like? Solaris perhaps? And film's like Lorenzo's Oil show science in a positive role. I did like Apollo 13 though for showing the engineers doing the almost impossible to save the astronauts. Can anyone help me make a list of others?
This is not a sig
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Guidance counselors are telling them that from Junior High. They're telling them to go to college. Then when they get to college and want to study 'underwater basket weaving', the colleges aren't kicking them out, they're actually offering PhD's in it.
What's nearly as bad is the science career advice children receive at school. Almost no teachers anywhere have ever met a professional scientist. Even the few who might be married to one have no real idea what their partner does on a daily basis and they are in no position to advise on either the suitability of a child to try to become a professional scientist, nor on what that child could expect from a career in a scientific job.
The single biggest failing of science is that it does nothing to prepare the next generation for work in the field. Meaning that those children who leave school to attend a university science course, assuming it will be like the science they did in school, have one hell of a big surprise when it turns out to be completely different from what they expected. The surprise is nearly as big as the one science graduates get when they discover, in turn, that working as a professional scientist is again, nothing like what they thought it was when they were students.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Furthermore, being smart isn't everything in the sciences or the professional world. Being knowledgeable and creative will take you just as far, if not farther. I think that anyone with a passion for science could do very well in it, even if they're IQ is ranked fairly low during grade school.
What I see, is that people who seem dim are the ones who lack passion for any form of knowledge. Simply being interested in things makes the difference between being suited for working at Wal-Mart and being a doctor, a lawyer or a scientist. IQ doesn't play that big of a role.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
You can't win by fighting popular culture. Today science and technology are very, very low on the pop culture totem pole. Drug dealers aren't that great, but they score better than scientists. Hip-hop rappers are way, way up. Rock stars are out. Supermodels aren't cool, but pseudo-idol teens are in.
And none of them are getting A's in school.
Avatar is a horrible examine of a pro-science movie. The scientists for the most part got kicked off the planet in the end. The chief scientist for the Navi cause died. No, I don't think it is inspirational to present the idea of dying on a far off planet in a feud with a paramilitary force.
Face it, in the US today isn't respected to be a scientist. It is respected to be a drug-addicted rap singer that can't use the word "woman" but instead says bitch constantly. It hasn't been respected to get good grades in high school and to spend time studying. There are popular songs with phrases like "Should I be a straight A student? If you are then you think too much." This is the culture we have created and what we are going to have to live with for the next 20 or 30 years.
Look at Asian families where if the kid brings home a B they are beaten. The kid knows it, studys and doesn't get the beating so there is no awful social stigma. In the 1950s white middle class families did the same thing which is why we have science and technology companies in the US today. As a society we have lost that motivation and it is going to hurt.
Um, if you mean Charo, she is actually an amazingly talented flamenco guitarist.
While you are completely correct in this, however, it is not why she is a celebrity nor what she is primarily known for. I hesitated before including here, but decided she belonged solely because the vast majority of her public appearances have nothing to do with guitar, and many people who know who she is don't even know that she is a very good guitarist. To quote wikipedia: best known for her flamboyant stage presence, her provocative outfits, and her trademark phrase ("cuchi-cuchi").
I knew she played and have heard her many times, it was a judgement call. Basically, if she didn't have a giant rack and yell "cuchi cuchi", you likely would never had heard her play guitar, as she is pretty good, but not good enough to obtain celebrity for that alone. But technically, she *does* have an worthwhile talent, granted.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
So in the next 20 years we are going to have a bunch of scientists needing grants to study vampires and werewolves?
I have heard many times, for many different nerdy professions stories or surveys that show countless nerds were inspired to their professions by some work of fiction. Yet, I rarely hear that about non-nerdy professions.
I have never heard a police officer point to a cop movie as a source of inspiration, nor a fireman, nor a teacher, nor an athelete, nor a soldier...
OK, I can think of one exception to this, I have heard some pilots point to movies, but other than that it always seems to be nerds. What gives?
I think the question is being asked backwards. Nerds are nerds because they are interested in nerdy things. If a movie presents that proclivity in a positive light, the nerd is pleased and remembers the movie warmly. I don't think scientists were "inspired" by movies - they might have gotten some sort of idea or new image in their minds, but they were always going to be scientists/hackers/whatever. The movies are beloved because they showed something positive coming out of it.
Most people don't identify with their jobs so closely (secretaries rarely see themselves as secretaries first and foremost), and their fields don't have an image problem to begin with; firemen don't need a Hollywood film to make heroes out of people in their field, for example.
And only the top percentile of humanity gets to have a job in the medicine/science professions? What sort of Gattaca-fueled world do you live in?
Ok, top 2 or 3. This has little to do with IQ (although you need that). It's more about willingness to work.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Hogwash, economic starting points are a bigger indicator of success than raw brains - when you're poor and smart, getting ahead is HARD. When you're rich, you don't have to worry about paying for college, summer jobs, or much of that - you have a lot of free time for sports and networking, which helps you get ahead later on.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
No, actually, when you're poor and smart in the US, you apply to the Golden Dozen of colleges and universities, and get a full ride -- all elite universities currently essentially provide full rides for admits with familial incomes less than $75,000/yr, which isn't exactly "poor." When you're a little less smart, you go to the next tier and get a "merit scholarship" and actually get PAID to attend. When you're rich-- well, the money can help a little, and that upsets the meritocracy a bit.\
The problem comes when you're poor, and stupid. This makes you willing to take on $50K in debt, to spend eight years at Lower Nowhere State University.
I think you're seriously underestimating what it is to be poor in the US.
When you're the oldest child of a junky single mother, living in a neighbourhood where you're either in a gang or you get beaten up every day, go to the kind of inner-city school nobody goes to unless they have no other chance and in the evenings when you get home have to do some kind of work and help take care of your kid-brother(s)/sister(s), you'll be lucky if you finish high-school, much less be able to "get a full ride" to a good University.
Life fucks up the really poor from the cradle onwards: no amount of brains alone will make up for being born deep down in the shit pit.
Personally I'm fucking priviliedged for having being born in a country where education was free, for being raised by both parents and both valuing education (even if they came from a poor background), for them to have chosen to have only one kid 'cause they knew they couldn't afford to get more than one through University, and for me to be good at it and a risk-taker type.
None of my parents (both from poor families) had anywhere near the chances I had and I'm damn proud of both for having pulled themselves out of the shitty situations they were born into. I can also guarantee you that at least one of them is more intelligent (IQ-wise) than the vast majority of people out there in this world and would've gone far if the deck wasn't stacked against her.