Weird Science
Science in Media and Popular Culture
Matt Malkan
Astronomy UCLA
www.astro.ucla.edu/~malkan
Weird Science
Houston (New York, Hollywood…),
we have a problem…
And a fantastic opportunity!
Science (2) and Scientists (1)
Incompletely Understood
(1) Creative Exploration of new ideas, original situations
is becoming more feasible (and profitable), BUT
(2) are great F/X, CGI in “science fiction” a license for
bad writing?
(3) Much writing about science and scientists is:
Confusing, Illogical, Unrealistic, to point of stupidity
Misleading, Unfair.
Why do (some) scientists care? Because:
(4) Popular/Fiction probably influences public as much
as all our Prose/PR
Weird Science
Sloan Foundation will see more Science when it stops being:
Inhuman,
Incomprehensible,
Impractical,
Unreal,
Uncertain,
Uncreative
Guilty as charged!
Sort of….
But WHY?
Scientists /Intellectuals Cannot
Relate to People
(1) Learning science separates exceptional students from
humanities, communications
Requires an almost unhealthy obsession with the
esoteric; their way of being special
If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I
would have studied harder.
Pope John Paul I
“You don’t LOOK like a professional astronomer!”…
”I’ve been sick.”
Scientists Cannot Relate to People
Are scientists unbalanced fanatics?
Many of the best ones are (like film makers,
And other high achievers)
(2) They’d rather work than socialize or
“have fun”, since their choice of
research career
shows disregard for monetary, leisure benefits
“That post-doc is so gung-ho, his coffee mug at work
says “TGIM”.
Scientists Do Not Relate to People
(3) This accompanies intellectual arrogance,
impatience with those who are not duespaying members of “the club”
comment about 3rd caveman: “He’s become just
insufferable since he invented fire”
Human craving for prestige, authority
“Back off! We’re scientists.”--Ghostbusters
When they try relating, Scientists
are Naïve, Value-Free Drones
Striking analogies with markets, price
system “objective standard”
It’s NOT “Who you know”
Technology flowing from scientific
discoveries CAN be exploited by bad,
desperate politicians
and
it is harder to build up than to tear down
Guilty as Charged!
Sciences Cannot Relate to People
Scientific method is a relentless quest for
UNIVERSALITY, impartiality.
To protect it from human weaknesses,
Person who did the science should be irrelevant
Principles trump personalities (eg, Samurai code)
This is the core of “Western” intellectual tradition, at
least back to Galileo.
ie, its results should work for anybody
“What’s so great about computer standards is that there
are so many of them to chose from.” --- Anon
Physical Science is Impersonal;
lacks human references
(1) Human systems can’t be described by simple physical
laws; most important human ideas are normative
choices. Thus most problems do not have purely
technical fixes, contrary to what academics want to
believe.
“The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make
them unsafe.”
--- Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia
“The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law
of gravity is racist.” --- Marion Barry
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax”
--- A. Einstein
Physical Science is Impersonal;
lacks human references
(2) All scales of space and time are utterly
different from daily experience, making
it so hard to get a sense of perspective
My friend sent me a postcard with a satellite photo
of the whole Earth, and wrote “Wish you were
here”.
What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is
that there’s nothing to compare it with.
Science is Magic
(1) Huge amount of difficult preparation before
discussing it, since we’re building on an
enormous base of prior knowledge.
(2) Math, the natural language of the physical
world, is a huge barrier.
“Half of the world has NO IDEA how the other
three-quarters lives!”
--- Bertie Wooster
Science is Magic
(3) Just mention fancy-sounding “science”, and
ANYTHING GOES! Toss all physical laws
and write fantasy
ex: psychic powers, impossible accelerations,
sounds in vacuum (EXCEPT Clarke/2001!),
(backwards) time-travel
Writers don’t get away with that nonsense in ER or
LA Law
Science is Magic
(4) But actually, simplest is usually best—
science (if not technology) loves Occam’s Razor
e.g. Copernican Revolution naturally explains retrograde
motion; Eratosthenes, Olber’s paradox
“Everything should be made as simple as possible,
but not simpler.”
-- A. Einstein
Science is Too Unreal
(1) Vast extension of senses to unfamiliar realms;
intuition often inadequate,
analogies can be dangerous; intuition and
appearances deceiving
simple explanations require special talent!
At party, “you both have something in common,
Dr. X is working on a particle no one has ever
seen; Dr. Y is working on a galaxy no one has
ever seen.”
Science is Too Unreal
(2) Much current data and models lack a
satisfactory fundamental explanation, which is
why we’re working on it
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
--- E. Rutherford
“When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical”
Whenever anyone says, “theoretically”, they mean,
“not really”
Science is Too Uncertain
(1) Scientific method is almost obsessed with understanding
its own limits and uncertainties, so that they can be under
constant attack: if no error bars are given, and it isn’t
falsifiable, it’s lousy science.
“Creative destruction” -- we specialize in admitting we
were wrong
“When a scientific field starts paying a lot of attention to its
history, you can tell it’s on the way down”.
---- Wal Sargent
“I asked a scientist her phone number. She gave me an
estimate.”
Science is Too Uncertain
(2) Public attention goes to the first “discoverer”,
so there is a huge practical motivation to risk
jumping the gun, which erodes public
credibility over long run.
(ex: Taubes Nobel Dreams, Cold Fusion)
why don’t you scientists just make up your
minds and then let us know?!
Science is Too Uncertain
(3) Most people have little understanding of
probability and statistics,
Nevada vacation, Dr. Smith 1 to 5. “let’s find another
one, I’m sure we can get better odds.”
and regularly overestimate the significance of apparent
patterns.
“Random events tend to occur in groups”
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Science Stifles Artistic Creativity:
It’s Cookbook Formulae
That is how it is experienced in most non-scientist’s
education, and even for many scientists at many
times and places in their work.
Science Stifles Artistic Creativity:
It’s Cookbook Formulae
Revolutionary breakthroughs are as rare as in art or
other fields, often by newcomers. Many occur “by
accident”, when a well-prepared mind uses some
new tool (from Galileo to Penzias/Wilson)
Striking analogies with evolution, mutation and
natural selection of theories (survival of “fittest”)
Science Stifles Artistic Creativity:
It’s Cookbook Formulae
Aesthetics are important, but abstract (eg.
Symmetry), formal
(ex: physicists are musicians, not painters, used to
clearly defined rules).
Science is Boring
(1) Slow, abstract, rarely visually active (compare
Shakespeare in Love writing sequences: limited
material for a music video): how to show
problem-solving in a mystery.
Even most documentaries show little process of
science
As Chou En-lai responded to a question about the
significance of the French Revolution, “It’s too
soon to tell.”
Science is Boring
(2) Theoretical and impractical…. AT FIRST, but
unpredictable technological applications (ex.
Helium, nuclear reactions in sun, stars).
Properly understood, science is an
exciting human adventure
There is always something exciting about
pursuing a (surprising) discovery that explains
many things everyone previously considered a
deep mystery
But audiences CAN get
scientific insights about
science and scientists
AND be entertained
simultaneously!
Exceptional “science”
movies
2001
--A Space
Odyssey
Awesome attention to realistic details, most
Intelligent science show in history of TV
Many great classic biopics
Edison, The Man
More great Science Movies
• Heavenly Body (William Powell, Pasadena
astronomer, and his wife Heddy Lamar, who
dabbles in astrology)
• Madame Curie
• Fat Man and Little Boy
• Story of Alexander Graham Bell
• Colossus
• Contact minus the ending (always toughest part of
sci-fi)
• Most writings of Greg Benford
• Several screenplays written for Sloan Foundation!