Re: YA JUST GOTTA LUV THESE MODERN DAY BUCK ROGERS (Lousy Sci-Ed TV)

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 28 Aug 2017 23:19:09 -0700 (PDT), john simmons
<jonz...@gmail.com> wrote:

>YEP the science channel has a new series of fantasy stuff ..put to musich and everythings to entertain but not really take serious...in the beginning these science guys and girls talk all the way through these things...like the climate change hoax...saying...the earth will be destroyed by impacts from outter space and that we need to get to a region beyond the center of the galasy that would take us around 45 years to get there by a hydrogen powered vehicle that can go 15 percent of the speed of light...and then they argue a little about ...how we are going to control the social situation with a group of people and how their bones will deteriorate in zero gravity and how to overcome these problems...keep em in a coma...or invent and install a water container that revolves to allow gravity and then find the worm hole and go throuth that and we could be there in a few days..of course the later shows will tell us what we do when we arrive at this planet that is supposed to be like
>earth...and on and on...we need an al gore dude to sign off on all this stuff ...right...jonZeee


Ugh .... more "soft" science - if you can call it "science" at all.

This has been the increasing trend for a number of years,
and it's not a good thing. "Sci-tainment" is SO full of wild
speculation and borderline fallacies that it's no longer
"education" in any useful form. You'd be better off with
old "Trek" episodes ......

Even relatively good scientists have been sucked into
doing these things, to be the 'authorities' - Kaku and
Tyson are prominent examples. Sure, there's more
money in it than a regular academic job (a *lot* more)
but still ...... come ON now ! ... a bit *embarassing*
dontchathink ?

The other face of "soft" science ed is what I like to
call "Low-Information-Content" programming. This
is where little is actually stated/discussed and most
of the show is just pretty CGIs and pictures that
don't inform - may not even have much to do with
the subject at hand. Very "artistic" - totally worthless.

I'm sure the producers will say "Oh - it gets people
to think about science - excites the imagination !".
Yea ... sure ... I can "think about" horse manure
and the dragon-lady on Thrones "excites the
imagination" more effectively.

This programming is CRAP. It does NOT "inform",
worth a damn, it does NOT "increase science literacy".
Most of it is basically Sci-Fi junk with glossy varnish
and some glitter applied. A WASTE OF BANDWIDTH.

Ha ha ... oh yea ... we're gonna zoom off on our fusion
rockets - can't yet sustain an over-unity fusion reaction
on the ground here after trying for 50+ years. Oh, and
you've gotta SLOW DOWN too, so only a fraction of
your trip is "15% light-speed". You'd also think Mars
and several big moons are just *teaming* with life,
probably playing epic games of D&D down there. We've
been digging up Mars since the 60s ... not ONE shell,
not ONE fossil anything, not ONE complex organic
or lipid likely to have come from anything alive. Life
*proliferates* ... there'll still be abundant signs of it
here 4 gigayears from now as the sun eats the planet.

"Warp drive" ? Extremely unlikely (and I hear the object
in the middle of the field heats-up to millions of degrees).
"Wormholes" ? Nope. Giant "colony ships" full of frozen
people or whatever ? Nope. IMHO if we're gonna get
there from here it's not gonna be by any of these sci-fi
approaches. Maybe if we can figure out how 'entangled'
particles are connected .... something kinda hyper-D ...
but there's no guarentee whole people can be squeezed
through such passages without disintegrating.

And now there's the 'flying saucer' stuff too ...

Ya know what's (almost) "good science-ed TV" these
days ... it's some little things done by low-budget PBS
affilliates. The other day I came across about a 5-minute
course on electric fields (WITH some equations !) done
by a fast-talking lady. It was actual Physics-101 stuff.
The only fault was the gimmick ... that the whole thing
had to fit into about 5 minutes. Too fast.

There was more programming near that level back in
the 60s - when we were still out to beat the Red Menace
by being smarter than they were. Numerous govt/NASA
and even corporate-sponsored sci-ed shows. Now ...
empty space filled with pretty CGI ... a hollow echo, the
shape and form of 'education' without legitimate content.

There is decent stuff on YouTube and such, but you
have to deliberately look for it. Few bother. Shows
you stumble upon while idly channel-surfing is gonna
draw in more people.

Yea, yea ... commercial TV is *expensive* - so a low,
but well-served, audience makes far less profit than
a large, but ill-served, audience. That's the economic
logic, and it'll drive us to ruin. Then nobody will have
money to buy anything (didn't put THAT in your
equation, didja?). Govt/corporate-subsidized material
has its own list of problems too. I suppose there is
no "perfect" solution, maybe not anything *close*
to "perfect" ... but I'd like to see more efforts.

I'll have to check around ... I wonder what's on in, say,
Japan, Singapore, China, India ? If we REALLY want
to make America "great" again we're gonna have to
get on the ball here !