And then I remembered: The majority of science is mundane, boring, tedious number crunching. It's not exciting. It doesn't fit in Hollywood. It's like putting a round peg in a square hole. So what can be done to try to make the science exciting enough for Hollywood?
As I see it, there's two options:
1) Skip all the boring bits and get straight to the "Whiz Bang" bits and "Eureka" moments.
OR
2) Find things that aren't really tested anyway and are crazy fringe science.
My problem with this is that either way, it's still misportraying science. The article gives a perfect example:
[MacFarlane] just finished making a Family Guy episode based on the possibility that there are multiple universes, prompted by a documentary he saw on the subject.What's wrong with this? Where's the good science in multiple universe hypotheses? Where's the testing? Sure multiple universes sound good and sciencey, but when you get right down to it, it's not. It's a possible branch of science that's still in its infancy. It is a nice construct to start working from, and then develop ways to test it as we go, but chances are, like so many other things, it's quite likely that if/when we ever do test it, it will turn out to be bogus. And do we really want to be showing the public more bits of tenuous science that in all honesty, are pretty hollow?
"I didn't really know that that was a real thing, that it was possible [and] being theorised about," he said. "So we did a story about it."
While I see Hollywood's reasoning for doing it (it draws in the geeks), I also see the problem: It continues to confuse the picture of what science really is. We already have folks like the Discovery Institute hard at work doing that.
So while I appreciate the attempt from MacFarlane and Hollywood to put a bit more scientific rigor into their work, I just don't think it will work out too well for the simple reason that the two have very different intentions: One seeks to entertain, the other seeks to discover.
Meanwhile, I do like what the Zuckers said in the article about how science saved their daughter's life:
"They gave here a shot of insulin and this was like a miracle, because she was laying there on the examining table, and within a few hours she came alive again, her lustre came back," Janet Zucker said.That's right. Science.Saves.Lives.
3 comments:
I somewhat disagree with you on this. While Hollywood has done a poor job with science, if they are looking for assistance to increase their accuracy, I see no harm in providing it.
Sure they may ignore any advice given, but they do that when it comes to medicine, police work, the legal systems, etc.
Perhaps, as scientists, its not enough to just provide scientific insight but also be able to understand the intricacies of plot, character, drama, and so forth.
Eric Aitala
One of the things that i like about Star Trek is that, within the extensions to science that they have, they're more consistent than most shows. So, the suspension of disbelief isn't so difficult. And it got to be more consistent by having science advisors. Now the advisors can't save every plot, but they can reduce the pain. And, sometimes these guys end up writing their own scripts. And they're entertaining.
I've read quite a bit of Jennifer's stuff. She's not ignorant. This can only help.
Eureka moments aren't terribly interesting. Discovery is. And discovery happens by accident, by sleuthing, and so on. Even biographies can be interesting.
But let's ignore science for a second. What about music in the movies? I mean, movies with musicians in them. Was Amadeus (Mozart) accurate? Not terribly. The trouble is that Hollywood thinks that since most people are ignorant of the details of Mozart's life, that they can get away with it. But they really needed a musicologist to help keep them from driving it over the cliff. That way the music community could get behind the movie. Some writer gets an idea that's clever, but clearly wrong, a good musicologist could say, "it's wrong, but there was something just as exciting that isn't wrong..."
One of the things that i like about Star Trek is that, within the extensions to science that they have, they're more consistent than most shows. So, the suspension of disbelief isn't so difficult. And it got to be more consistent by having science advisors. Now the advisors can't save every plot, but they can reduce the pain. And, sometimes these guys end up writing their own scripts. And they're entertaining.
I've read quite a bit of Jennifer's stuff. She's not ignorant. This can only help.
Eureka moments aren't terribly interesting. Discovery is. And discovery happens by accident, by sleuthing, and so on. Even biographies can be interesting.
But let's ignore science for a second. What about music in the movies? I mean, movies with musicians in them. Was Amadeus (Mozart) accurate? Not terribly. The trouble is that Hollywood thinks that since most people are ignorant of the details of Mozart's life, that they can get away with it. But they really needed a musicologist to help keep them from driving it over the cliff. That way the music community could get behind the movie. Some writer gets an idea that's clever, but clearly wrong, a good musicologist could say, "it's wrong, but there was something just as exciting that isn't wrong..."
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