Science TV should it be forced to post disclaimers.

[Magic Man]

Funny How nobody has problems with it but most comments agreed with this quote.


Misinformation is bad for all.
As Kilgore points out it would be ignored by most anyway.

So because it would be a minor inconvience that would try to correct bad information and be mostly ignore. Just ignore it.

Why do most of you debate online. Is it to correct bad information that is just a minor inconvience and mostly ignored. Maybe TV can help. Just ignore it.

The point is we don't really need these disclaimers. You started this thread with a rant about how we need them in this case. I don't see why. How many people actually watch these shows and get the wrong impression of the visuals they use?

 

[outhouse]

Funny How nobody has problems with it but most comments agreed with this quote.

thats because some shows are gross misrepresentation.

what your talking about is not, its accurate

do you have a problem with real science????

 

[doppelganger]

Though I have no idea why it's on "The Science Channel" I did enjoy watching "An Idiot Abroad."

 

[Quagmire]

The History Channel would need to follow suit. Something like:

"This show is based on wild speculation . . . entertaining wild speculation . . . but wild speculation nonetheless."

Actually, they would have to expand that to include something like " and many of the theories---even those that go against contemporary scholastic consensus--- presented as fact in this program reflect this stations desire to please a specific demographic".


I stopped watching the History channel when I turned on a program about the Book of Revelation and it started off with something like "Sometime in the late 1st.Century, the Apostle John, then living an isolated life on the Greek island of Patmos, received a vision about the end of the world...".

 

[meogi]

I always enjoyed the Battlestar Galactica take on this problem:

Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star supernona?

Ellen: No.

Cavil: No. Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe, other stars, other planets, and eventually other life, a supernova, creation itself. I was there. I wanted to see it, and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull. With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum, with ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.

Ellen: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.

Cavil: I don't want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly, because I have to -- I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I'm a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I'm trapped in this absurd body. And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.

The issue I have with these shows is more often the science they're actually trying to depict, only very rarely the images. It's rather difficult to sell science as entertainment, especially in this 'american idol'-ized world.

[edit] Observation leads to scientific predictions, that allows us to make models. Computers are great at expanding models based on these predictions. That's why I don't have an issue with the CGIs.

 

[Revoltingest]

They show these great graphics of how the stars form blow up and what they look like after. The showed white darwf stars, nutrino stars and etc. The showed close ups of these stars spinning in full color with representation of land masses.

Are you telling me that these aren't actual movies of stellar phenomena in real time?
That movie of the Milk Way colliding with Andromeda isn't real?
What next....are you going to tell me the HBO series Deadwood didn't use actual film footage from the 1870s?
I demand disclaimers!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

First, I want to see disclaimers at the beginning of sit-coms letting people know that just because there's canned laughter after "jokes", it doesn't actually mean the show is funny.

 

[Willamena]

There was never any indication of this being artistic versions. Isn't this bad science. We are premoting a vision of something that doesn't exist.

Many people are buying this art as fact and shows do not discourage this. All the scientists are identified by name and position but the pictures are not identified as art. Isn't this lying to the public.

Shouldn't these shows be forced to label artistic version's?

I firmly believe that there are more people who understand that a documentary is a form of (the art of) film-making than would be misled.

 

[Revoltingest]

First, I want to see disclaimers at the beginning of sit-coms letting people know that just because there's canned laughter after "jokes", it doesn't actually mean the show is funny.

You mean all that laughing isn't always real either?
Criminy! I'm such a dupe!

 

[Falvlun]

My stance is that while this isn't a huge issue, I don't think it would hurt to remind people now and then, that these visual depictions are just our best guess, based upon data, but may not actually reflect reality.

 

[Looncall]

My stance is that while this isn't a huge issue, I don't think it would hurt to remind people now and then, that these visual depictions are just our best guess, based upon data, but may not actually reflect reality.

Why are people using the word guess in this discussion? A presentation based on our current best understanding has nothing to do with guessing. Here, the word guess is offensive. Just religiously-inspired propaganda.

 

[Falvlun]

Why are people using the word guess in this discussion? A presentation based on our current best understanding has nothing to do with guessing. Here, the word guess is offensive. Just religiously-inspired propaganda.

Visual representations of things we have never seen or can never see-- such as the skin of a dinosaur-- are in fact guesses: educated, substantiated ones, but guesses nonetheless.

 

[chinu]

One of my loves is watching scientific shows on tv but of late it has started to concern me.

More and more of it is being shown and they never post the inaccuracies of it. Last night I watched the making of the universe concerning stars. They show these great graphics of how the stars form blow up and what they look like after. The showed white darwf stars, nutrino stars and etc. The showed close ups of these stars spinning in full color with representation of land masses.

There was never any indication of this being artistic versions. Isn't this bad science. We are premoting a vision of something that doesn't exist.

Many people are buying this art as fact and shows do not discourage this. All the scientists are identified by name and position but the pictures are not identified as art. Isn't this lying to the public.

Shouldn't these shows be forced to label artistic version's?

Anyhow what's the benifit, Fighting with them ?

_/\_
Chinu

 

[Oneatatime]

One of my loves is watching scientific shows on tv but of late it has started to concern me.

More and more of it is being shown and they never post the inaccuracies of it. Last night I watched the making of the universe concerning stars. They show these great graphics of how the stars form blow up and what they look like after. The showed white darwf stars, nutrino stars and etc. The showed close ups of these stars spinning in full color with representation of land masses.

There was never any indication of this being artistic versions. Isn't this bad science. We are premoting a vision of something that doesn't exist.

Many people are buying this art as fact and shows do not discourage this. All the scientists are identified by name and position but the pictures are not identified as art. Isn't this lying to the public.

Shouldn't these shows be forced to label artistic version's?

The purpose of these animations is to convey information in a manner which is visually appealing, easy to understand and holds the attention of the audience. Such an approach is quite common and doesn't require a disclaimer to make the user aware that the shouldn't take what they see as being a literal representation of reality.

Here is another example of the approach of conveying information clearly without neccessarily being true to physical reality. It would be unreasonable to expect the producers of such maps to include a disclaimer that this map isn't a true representation of the position of rail way lines. Equally its unreasonable to expect the producers of science programmes to include a disclaimer whenever they use animations which aren't true representations of reality to convey information.