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.