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Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further
January 26, 2010 | Issue 46•04
SILVER SPRING, MD—Frustrated by continued demands from viewers for more awesome and extreme programming, Science Channel president Clark Bunting told reporters Tuesday that his cable network was "completely incapable" of watering down science any further than it already had.
An ad for the Science Channel's easy-to-pronounce gourd-launching show, Punkin Chunkin.
"Look, we've tried, we really have, but it's simply not possible to set the bar any lower," said a visibly exhausted Bunting, adding that he "could not in good conscience" make science any more mindless or insultingly juvenile. "We already have a show called Really Big Things, which is just ridiculous if you think about it, and one called Heavy Metal Taskforce, which I guess deals with science on some distant level, though I don't know what it is. Plus, there's Punkin Chunkin."
"Punkin Chunkin, for Christ's sake," added Bunting, referring to the popular program in which contestants launch oversized pumpkins into the air using catapults. "What more do you people want?"
Along with Bunting's remarks, the Science Channel issued a statement claiming that it currently airs more than 150 programming hours that are tangentially, and often laughably, related to science, and that staff members are unable to bring themselves to make those hours even more asinine.
Test audiences responded poorly to the show's "overly-scientific" method of dropping a bear 300 feet.
Debbie Myers, general manager of the Science Channel, said the cable station has maintained a balance of 5 percent science content and 95 percent mind-numbing drivel over the past few years, and that this was as far as they were willing to go.
"At this point, having the word 'how' in a show's le is about as close to scientific investigation as we get," Myers said. "In fact, I don't even know how we can justify airing a show like Mantracker at all. A cowboy hunts contestants down using his trailing skills? I guess you could say it makes the audience use 'observation' by watching what happens on screen."
"Observation is a part of science, right?" Myers added. "Jesus Christ."
A survey of the network's current schedule confirmed Monday that on-air demonstrations of such basic scientific principles as "inertia" and "momentum" are mostly relegated to pushing a blindfolded participant strapped to an office chair down a steep hill, while other concepts, such as "sublimation," are regularly demonstrated by strapping dynamite to a large fiberglass Big Boy statue and then watching it explode.
As evidence of their refusal to further water down programming, network sources pointed to a number of proposed shows they've abandoned in recent weeks, including an animal-based bungee-jumping program called Extreme Gravity, and Atom Smashers, a series that was was roundly rejected by focus groups as being "too technical" and "not awesome enough."
"People liked that the particle accelerators were really huge, but apparently the show didn't have enough smashing to hold their interest," said a former employee who wished to remain anonymous. "In the end, it was either add a huge monster truck for no reason whatsoever or pull the plug on the entire project. Honestly, I don't think I'd be able to face my wife and children had we gone through with it."
While they won't be dumbing down their already crude lineup of shows, Science Channel officials assured viewers that the network will continue to cater to the lowest common denominator and will keep airing embarrassingly base content completely stripped of all intellectual integrity. Officials also noted that the cable channel greatly values the 18- to 45-year-old demographic of louts, clods, and empty-headed dumb s.
"I don't like it when the science people talk about things no one can even understand," said Rich Parker, an Ohio resident. "It's like, just quit your yapping and dip the chain saw into the liquid nitrogen already."
David Zaslav, CEO of the network's parent company, Discovery Communications, said he has not ruled out rebranding the Science Channel as the Stuff Channel.
Cebolla bueno
Maybe you should send this to mouse, seems like he wants to dumb down science with all his conspiracy crap.
How does he dumb down science though?
By foregoing it.
I know its satire, but I just might watch a show about chunkin' punkins.
Uh, that show is real. Only the article/presentation is satire.
So mouse dumbs down the science...
Good one
"While they won't be dumbing down their already crude lineup of shows, Science Channel officials assured viewers that the network will continue to cater to the lowest common denominator and will keep airing embarrassingly base content completely stripped of all intellectual integrity. Officials also noted that the cable channel greatly values the 18- to 45-year-old demographic of louts, clods, and empty-headed dumb s."
Gotta love the Onion (I'm guessing that's where this comes from).
When it comes to science, mouse doesn't know what the he's talking about most of the time. He doesn't have a clue about the evidence that supports the theory of evolution, which is multistranded and extremely complex, just like tlong doesn't know a ing thing about carbon and climate cycles, also multi-stranded and extremely complex. I would debate mouse on evolution, but what's the point - he has never read a book on it and refuses to accept the findings of hundreds of thousands of legitimate scientific studies (as does tlong), so there is actually no "debate" possible.
Their opinions, which are usually based on bull printed on websites that either straight out lie or cherry pick and misinterpret single sentences out of entire studies, are too entrenched to actually recognise that there are people in the world who know a lot more about the subject than they do (usually scientists who devote their lives to studying a specific issue within their discipline). Neither of them actually engage with the science at all.
Last edited by RuffnReadyOzStyle; 01-28-2010 at 01:32 AM.
Spoken like a very intelligent person!
"While they won't be dumbing down their already crude lineup of shows, Science Channel officials assured viewers that the network will continue to cater to the lowest common denominator and will keep airing embarrassingly base content completely stripped of all intellectual integrity. Officials also noted that the cable channel greatly values the 18- to 45-year-old demographic of louts, clods, and empty-headed dumb s."
Gotta love the Onion (I'm guessing that's where this comes from).
When it comes to science, mouse doesn't know what the he's talking about most of the time. He doesn't have a clue about the evidence that supports the theory of evolution,
Who died and made you Darwin's agent?
Looks to me like that tight little 10 year old Aussie ass of yours is still stinging from the last debate you had with mouse. Why not tell everyone how you flamed out and grabbed your ball and went home?which is multistranded and extremely complex, just like tlong doesn't know a ing thing about carbon and climate cycles, also multi-stranded and extremely complex. I would debate mouse on evolution, but what's the point - he has never read a book on it and refuses to accept the findings of hundreds of thousands of legitimate scientific studies (as does tlong), so there is actually no "debate" possible.
Their opinions, which are usually based on bull printed on websites that either straight out lie or cherry pick and misinterpret single sentences out of entire studies, are too entrenched to actually recognise that there are people in the world who know a lot more about the subject than they do (usually scientists who devote their lives to studying a specific issue within their discipline). Neither of them actually engage with the science at all.
Translation: Agree with me or your wrong and stupid.
You know FluffAndNotReadyOzStale when everyone is calling you a global warning and a tree hugging , I am there to have your back but not anymore, your on your own now you Foster drinking,crocodile loving Kangaroo smelling taint sniffing Aussie .
Spoken like a mouse.Spoken like a very intelligent person!
Pwned! Well almost. You'd have pwned him for sure if you spelled you're correctly. Ah.. it...PWNED!!!!!
You have never had my back, mouse, you've only ever ripped on me, and it is typical of your "debating" tactics to claim the opposite of what is actually true. Oh, and unlike some people, I don't need approval from you or anyone else when it comes to my understanding of the world - I research, I think, and I make a judgement based on the weight and voracity of the evidence at hand. That is what scientists do.
You don't know what the you are talking about when it comes to most scientific subjects, but you're too stubborn to actually go and learn anything. I spent 3 years studying evolution at a university, so I actually know something about it, but I'm not going to waste my time "debating" it with a closed minded fool who thinks the planet is 8000 years old and won't accept the massive physical evidence to the contrary because that might change the way he sees the world.
In short, YOU.
Ozstyle got dumped on
How do you figure that? He makes a few racial stereotype jokes about Australia so you think he's a genius? Check your head. It's the same, lame ad hominem crap he always has a go at me with.
mouse claims I debated him on something (I'm guessing evolution), but I have no idea what he's talking about because I stopped paying any attention to his garbage about 3 years ago. Why waste time on a fool?
When it comes to evolution, what is the point of "debating" it here? To have a "debate", both sides need to have a working understanding of the subject matter under debate. Want to understand what science knows about the evidence for evolution and a 4 billion year old earth? Start reading. There are literally tens of millions of pages written on the subject by hundreds of thousands of scientists over the last 2 centuries, each of whom has had his work peer-reviewed by the rest of his field. But yeah, I'm talking out my arse, the world is flat and 8000 years old, and we were brought into being by a mysterious invisible deity who loves us... that's far more plausible than observable physical evidence!
I don't understand how there can be creationist scientists if it's so clearly bull . I am not starting anything or finishing anything; just a confusing scenario for me.
That's a PR move by Creationists (aka those who believe in "Intelligent Design") to make you believe that there is some validity to their "science". There isn't. They were taken to court and lost. There is no scientific methodology behind their work at all.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/20/in...ign/index.html"We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," Jones writes in his 139-page opinion posted on the court's Web site. (Opinion, pdf)
"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions," Jones writes.
As for religious scientists, those who believe in God but also practice the scientific method, I guess they believe that their deity created the Universe (about 13bn yrs ago), while they do not deny that which is clearly observable. Science is all about what can be observed and tested, matters of faith are the opposite.
Personally, I have no problem with anyone who believes in a God or Gods of any form. However, I do have a problem with Bible/Koran/whatever literalists who ignore all of the scientific cannon and maintain that the planet was made by a deity in roughly 6600BC. That is just idiotic.
Why would you say he has never had you back and than say you don't need his approval...kinda sounds like you do.
You have never had my back, mouse, you've only ever ripped on me, and it is typical of your "debating" tactics to claim the opposite of what is actually true. Oh, and unlike some people, I don't need approval from you or anyone else when it comes to my understanding of the world - I research, I think, and I make a judgement based on the weight and voracity of the evidence at hand. That is what scientists do.
You don't know what the you are talking about when it comes to most scientific subjects, but you're too stubborn to actually go and learn anything. I spent 3 years studying evolution at a university, so I actually know something about it, but I'm not going to waste my time "debating" it with a closed minded fool who thinks the planet is 8000 years old and won't accept the massive physical evidence to the contrary because that might change the way he sees the world.
In short, YOU.
I said he never had my back to point out the fallacy in his post:
The thing is, he never had my back. Like most poor debaters, mouse loves to introduce faulty premises in the hope that people accept them as true even though the OPPOSITE is true.
mouse has used his various trolls to run the same smack on me for years now. I don't mind it, I just accept it as part of the forum, but it's a bald faced lie to pretend he hasn't done that or that he "has my back".
You know Ruff I hate to be the one to remind you but,........this is a public forum and on a Spurs website of all places. It's a place where soccer moms and out of work Enron employees can relax maybe share some personal information, or debate about subjects they feel strongly about. Show me where the rules say you have to have a masters degree from MIT to converse with others. Where in the rules before you log on does it say you must be a member of MENSA?
Just because you supposedly have taken every course collage has to offer and your an expert on almost every topic posted in the club doesn't make you any better than the average lonely web surfer looking for a place to interact with others.
So when your done sipping on your last warm Fosters beer over looking the beautiful Australian sunset and you get a good whiff of some that fresh Kangaroo on the back of your qualla bear skinned boots, remember your not better than anyone else here at SpursTalk.
except maybe ...RandomLie....KoriWhat...BaselineBum.....Blake.. ...Phyzix......
Ah, so now you pull the "I think I'm better than everyone card". How predictable. What you are basically telling me is that it's okay for you to spew your but I'm not allowed to disagree with it? Ahhhhhh, the hypocrisy.
Everyone is allowed their opinion. My opinion is that you spew a bunch of bull that you try to pass off as science, and as a scientist I find that offensive. Other people often say the similar things. Why don't you go pick on them?
BTW, I don't claim to be an expert on everything, and I stay out of discussions I don't feel qualified to enter. What I do know a lot about is ecology and human ecology because I have made these subjects my life, and when I see these topics twisted by ignorance and lies I feel the need to comment. Don't like it, put me on ignore. However I can't and won't ignore blatant misinformation on topics that are important to me.
PS Again with the lame Ausssie shtick? Really? Can't do any better than that? You are losing your edge.
then Mouse dumbed you down if you're a scientist
ST should raise the bar...then drop it on the rodent problem.
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