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The science fiction, skepticism in the media

© Carl Sagan

I hope no one considers me too cynical when I say that a good summary of how the programming is commercial and public television simply this: money is everything. At peak times the difference of a single point in the hearing is worth millions of dollars in advertising. Especially since the early eighties, television it has become almost entirely motivated by profit. (...)

paranormal almost never turns out to be a hoax or a psychological aberration or a misunderstanding of the natural world. It would be much more in line with reality, and a much larger public service, a series for adults (as does "Scooby Doo" for children) which systematically investigate claims of paranormal phenomena and was in each case an explanation in terms prosaic . The dramatic tension lie in discovering how the misconceptions and deceptions could generate apparently genuine paranormal phenomena. Maybe I could see a researcher always disappointed with the hope that the next time a case could survive paranormal unambiguous skeptical scrutiny.

There are other obvious defects in the programming of television science fiction. "Star Trek", for example, despite his charm and sharp international perspective and across species, often ignores the most basic scientific facts. The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a way of life of independent evolution on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less likely to successfully cross a man and an artichoke. The idea, however, serves as a precedent in popular culture the hybrid alien / humans who later became a central component of the history of alien abduction. There must be dozens of alien species in various television and movie series "Star Trek." Most are minor variants of human. The cause must be an economic necessity, the cost is reduced to one actor and a latex mask, but it is a slap in the face of the stochastic nature of the evolutionary process. If there are aliens, I think almost everyone will have a devastatingly look less human than Klingon and Romulans (and will be on totally different levels of technology). "Star Trek" faces no evolution.

in many television shows and movies, even the casual science-phrases that are not essential to an argument devoid of science and are made with incompetence. It costs very little to hire a lawyer to read the script for achieving scientific accuracy. But, as far as I know, why does almost ever. As a result, we have blunders like mentioning "parsec" as a unit of distance rather than speed in the movie "exemplary in many other respects, The Wars. If these things done with minimal care, including the argument could be improved, certainly, could help convey a bit of science to a wide audience.

On TV there are a lot of pseudoscience to the gullible and a reasonable amount of medicine and technology, but virtually nothing about science, especially in large commercial channels, whose executives tend to think science program means a decrease in hearing and loss of benefits, and do not care about anything else. There are employees of stations with the title "science correspondent, and occasional news program was devoted to the science says. But almost never talk about science in them, only medicine and technology. I doubt the channel has one employee whose job is to read the weekly issue of Nature or Science to see if you have found something worth mentioning. When announcing Nobel Prizes in the autumn of Science, there is a "hook" perfect for science news: one possibility to explain why they gave the prizes. But almost always, the most you hear is something like: "... hopefully they will come soon to discover a cure for cancer. ...". Today in Belgrade (...)



Among the trends that work at least marginally by the introduction of a very limited set of attitudes, memories and opinions include the control of major television networks and newspapers for a small number of companies and powerful individuals with a similar motivation, the disappearance of competing newspapers in many cities the replacement of substantive debate the squalid political campaigns and episodic erosion of the principle of separation of powers. It is estimated (according to media expert Ben Bagdikian American) that less than two dozen corporations control more than half "of the global business of newspapers, magazines, television, books and movies." Trends such as the proliferation of cable TV channels, cheap phone calls long distance, fax machines, networks and computer bulletin boards, low-priced desktop publishing computer and examples of university programs in traditional liberal professions could work the opposite direction.

is hard to know what's going to end everything.

function Skepticism is dangerous. It is a challenge to established institutions. If we teach everybody, including for example to high school students, habits of skeptical thought, probably not restrict their skepticism to UFOs, aspirin ads and the prophets channeled 35,000 years. May begin to ask important questions about the economic, social, political or religious. May challenge the views of those in power. Excerpted from

"The Demon-Haunted World" Science as a candle in the darkness
Carl Sagan, Ed Planeta, 1997.