Prime time isn’t ready for real science

Originally published 17 June 1996

Nobel prize-win­ning physi­cist Leon Led­er­man wants to bring sci­ence to prime time television.

Accord­ing to a sto­ry in the New York Times, Led­er­man is con­cerned about a ris­ing tide of anti-sci­ence in the mass media. “A recipe for dis­as­ter,” he says.

He has teamed up with TV pro­duc­er Adri­an Mal­one (Cos­mos, The Ascent of Man) to devel­op a sci­ence-based com­peti­tor to ER and NYPD Blue.

Led­er­man is right about the ris­ing tide of anti-sci­ence. Unsolved Mys­ter­ies and The X‑Files are just two prime-time shows that feed our appetite for pseu­do­science and superstition.

“The truth is out there” is the slo­gan of The X‑Files. What the show brings home is some­thing less than truth. The char­ac­ter Dana Scul­ly is sup­posed to be a good skep­tic, but her skep­ti­cism is no match for the non­sense from “out there” that mas­quer­ades as truth.

There’s noth­ing wrong with fan­ta­sy or sci­ence fic­tion, as long as we allow our­selves to be enter­tained by a will­ing sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief. The dan­ger comes when the line between sci­ence and fic­tion is inten­tion­al­ly blurred.

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of pseu­do­science derives pre­cise­ly from the blur­ring of this line, as tele­vi­sion pro­duc­ers undoubt­ed­ly know. Pseu­do­sciences inflate our sense of self-impor­tance — extrater­res­tri­als are inter­est­ed in me — while mak­ing us a part of a believ­ing com­mu­ni­ty — I’m not a nut, a pro­fes­sor at Har­vard believes it too.

The net­works rush in to feed into our insa­tiable hunger for pseu­do­science; mean­while, com­men­ta­tors from the net­work news divi­sions lament the coun­try’s decline in sci­en­tif­ic literacy.

Led­er­man wants to devel­op an alter­na­tive to prime-time pseu­do­science, some­thing that will feed our respect for real sci­ence, enhance our skep­ti­cism, and entertain.

Per­haps some­thing like the following?

Chesa­peake Bay­watch. A group of gor­geous young Ph.D. oceanog­ra­phers watch over the ecosys­tem of Chesa­peake Bay. In Speedo briefs and thong biki­nis, our cast of hunks and babes col­lect plank­ton, count the eggs of horse­shoe crabs, and band pip­ing plovers.

4615 Mel­rose Place. A group of Cal Tech physics grad­u­ate stu­dents share the apart­ment next door to the hip swingles of the Mon­day night soap. Their occa­sion­al ear­ly morn­ing at-home encoun­ters are charged with psy­cho­sex­u­al ten­sion as they dis­cuss nuclear scat­ter­ing cross-sec­tions and mul­ti­di­men­sion­al string theory.

NYPD White. A spine-tin­gling sci­en­tif­ic thriller set in the Foren­sic Sci­ence sec­tion of the New York City Police Depart­ment. Our bosom-enhanced hero, Dr. Jen­nifer Sweet, spills out of her white lab coat as she pits her DNA poly­merase chain reac­tion ampli­fi­ca­tion skills against per­pe­tra­tors of crime.

The Simp­sons: The Next Gen­er­a­tion. Lisa Simp­son has grown up and teach­es chem­istry at Spring­field High School. In Episode One, she pre­pares her stu­dents for the State Sci­ence Fair while strug­gling with the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of dis­con­nect­ing her father from life-sup­port. Mean­while, Bart embar­rass­es his sis­ter by claim­ing to be an alien abductee.

Square Wheel of For­tune. Math­e­mati­cians spin the wheel and com­pete to guess math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las. The grand prizes include a plat­inum pock­et pro­tec­tor, a two-week hol­i­day at the math depart­ment of Iowa State, and a fac­sim­i­le edi­tion of the col­lect­ed math­e­mat­i­cal papers of Got­t­lob Frege and Giuseppe Peano.

Late Show with Leon Led­er­man. Nobel lau­re­ate and racon­teur Leon Led­er­man inter­views guests from the world of sci­ence. The star-stud­ded pilot fea­tures Lee Smolin talk­ing about quan­tum grav­i­ty applied to space-time, Roger Pen­rose on Hilbert’s 10th prob­lem and the non-com­putabil­i­ty of con­scious­ness, and Lynn Mar­gulis on sym­bio­sis and the evo­lu­tion of the eukary­ot­ic cell. Led­er­man will begin with an hilar­i­ous mono­logue about up and down quarks.

OK, you get the pic­ture. None of these pro­grams will sweep the ratings.

Any tele­vi­sion pro­gram based on the sex or psy­chic lives of sci­en­tists is going to be either mind-numb­ing­ly dull or unre­al­is­tic. Shows in the Nova/Discovery Chan­nel genre appeal most­ly to the con­vert­ed. So what is one to do?

What can com­pete in prime time with In Search of Big­foot? Prob­a­bly noth­ing. But here are some sug­ges­tions for Led­er­man and Mal­one to consider:

An episod­ic fic­tion­al dra­ma with real sci­ence themes, but with­out any attempt to blur the dis­tinc­tion between sci­ence and non-sci­ence. Pure sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief in the like­ness of Juras­sic Park and Out­break. Maybe this is what Led­er­man has in mind.

A show that lets the arti­facts of sci­ence speak for them­selves. Pho­tographs from the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. Video images from inside the human body. Com­put­er rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the mol­e­cules of life — in col­or and in action. Frac­tal math­e­mat­ics. The visu­al equiv­a­lents of a laser light spectacular.

The Randi/Lederman Show. The famous magician/skeptic and the icon­o­clas­tic physi­cist go on a debunk­ing binge, bash­ing the X out of X‑Files, no holds barred, tak­ing no pris­on­ers, played for laughs.

Even as I make these sug­ges­tions, I know it’s hope­less. Good luck, Led­er­man, your motives are laud­able. But the truth is out there and it’s as old as the ages: Truth does­n’t sell.