One man's struggle against impermanence
John Wilkins is an aged, eternal student, who thinks philosophy of biology is at least as interesting as politics or sport and twice as important. He has a PhD from the University of Melbourne and a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland, in Australia. After a varied career, involving factories, gardening, civil service, publishing, graphics, public relations but not, unfortunately for the CV, driving a truck, John finally completed his thesis on species concepts, which he is working into two books. One has been accepted for publication, and will come out in 2008; the other may be contracted soon. He is also interested in cultural evolution, philosophy of religion, Macintosh computers and his kids (they sort of make it a necessity, you know?).
If anyone knows of a tenurable, or even medium term, job in philosophy of biology, let me know. Have library, will travel. The contract runs out soon...
This blog is designed to host any random thoughts that happen to be passing through my forebrain at a given moment. So there will be errors...
Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion
Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine)
Foundations of Systematics and Biogeography
Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality
Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (Evolution and Cognition Series)
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Category: General Science • Humor
Posted on: May 4, 2008 10:05 PM, by John S. Wilkins
On a newsgroup that shall remain Nameless, one of the regulars, Bill Reich, just heard on the History Channel:
Smilodon is the ancestor of all the modern big cats.
Oy!
So this thread is for egregiously* wrong statements made on erstwhile factual television shows. Please state where you heard it, and if possible the show name and episode.
* Egregiously. Look it up. A cool and useful word.
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Comments
Does local news count? The local Health Beat reporter has never met an alt-med practice she did not love... and the justifications are egregiously wrong... (I certainly hope you are underestimating your readership if you think we had to look that up!)
Posted by: Anon | May 4, 2008 10:40 PM
On an episode of Radiolab (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/14), host Robert Krulwich said something along the lines of "if you believe in the theory of evolution, you believe that chimpanzees are our ancestors" and I was all like "whaaaaa?"
Posted by: Trevor | May 4, 2008 10:48 PM
BBC's "League of Gentlemen"
Posted by: stephenk | May 4, 2008 10:55 PM
It appears that one of the qualifications to be a Canadian journalist is to not have a clue about the difference between bacteria and viruses. As in: "the outbreak of MRSA virus" or "the recent upsurge in Tuberculosis virus".I don't know whether this is just a Canadian thing or whether it's more widespread, but I see it All the Fzzking Time in our newspapers, and it drives me nuts!
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | May 4, 2008 11:26 PM
Everytime the space shuttle goes into low-earth orbit some news reporter talks about its mission into outer space...
Posted by: Brian English | May 5, 2008 12:14 AM
I've been reading an otherwise good book about Darwin and his barnacles which claims that cholera is caused by a bacillus, and on the same page by a virus. I guess getting the shape of the bacterium correct was just good luck.
Oh, and this is very unfair, but I was watching Life on Earth recently, and David Attenborough talks about the Burgess Shales and the weird forms of life in them, whilst holding a piece of rock with Hallucegenia drawn on it. Of course, we now know it's drawn the wrong way round. As I wrote, unfair. But doesn't stop me shouting "turn it over!" at the screen.
Posted by: Bob O'H | May 5, 2008 12:43 AM
CNN subtitle in 2003, reporting on the re-entry breakup of the Shuttle Columbia: "Shuttle travelling nearly 18 times the speed of light."
Posted by: Ronan C | May 5, 2008 3:50 AM
Further to comment #4, British journalists are the same: MRSA is a "virus", malaria is caused by "a bacteria (sic)".
Posted by: Jonathan | May 5, 2008 6:48 AM
A friend of mine has a, in the meantime large, data collection of incorrect claims made in all forms of the media about Galileo that was started by the following case. The German commercial television channel has a programme called Galileo that used to be a popular science programme; it has now degenerated to a bizarre "knowledge" junk heap. On this programme they claimed that Galileo was the first to show that the earth is a sphere!
Posted by: Thony C. | May 5, 2008 7:38 AM
Yikes; that Smilodon error is pretty bad. Even good documentaries aren't above making some egregious errors, though. In the Life of Mammals series, Attenborough says that marmosets & tamarins are the most "primitive" (I hate that word) of the monkeys. The truth is that they have a number of derived features and were probably once a bit larger; the fact that they nearly always have twins is a sign that they body size shrunk, and when it did the primates could no longer give birth to one large baby (having smaller twins being the consequence of the decrease in body size).
Posted by: Laelaps | May 5, 2008 7:47 AM
TV program about the early earth. Statement made that "Photosynthesis produces oxygen out of carbon dioxide." Wrong, the oxygen comes from water. Same or similar program showed a three foot long scorpion moulting out in air. I doubt that an arthropod that size could moult without the support of water.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 5, 2008 9:24 AM
I've been reading an otherwise good book about Darwin and his barnacles which claims that cholera is caused by a bacillus, and on the same page by a virus.
That would be Darwin and the Barnacle, and argh but that blooper hit me between the eyes. But otherwise, yes: it's a fascinating book, for the portrait of Darwin at home, in the years between Beagle and the publication of OoS.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 5, 2008 10:47 AM
How about just the History Channel in general. I have a degree in history and continue to read voraciously on all sorts of history and pre-history. The History Channel is about as accurate as Fox News and has the same political leanings.
Posted by: Rev Matt | May 5, 2008 11:31 AM
Well, this one is not strictly science, more technology, but yesterday I heard a CBC news reporter say that the electricity was turned off in a certain (flooded) area because of "concerns about an electrical shortage"
Posted by: Theo Bromine | May 5, 2008 12:35 PM
I seem to remember that "virus" used to be the all-general term that applied to any "agent that causes infectious disease." Since viruses per se weren't discovered till 1892, Darwin using the term virus in connection with the cholera bacillus, at the time, wasn't incorrect.
Posted by: Wayne Robinson | May 7, 2008 7:44 AM
Tonight on Catalyst (science magazine on the ABC for you non-Australia dwellers), a biochemical engineer said something like "Crustaceans, including crabs and insects".
My wife and I looked at each other... then she said "it's ok, all the biologists in the lab will be ribbing him for that for weeks..."
Posted by: Charlie B. | May 8, 2008 9:09 AM
In fact, here it is, in the transcript of the segment:
"Associate Professor John Foster: Crustacea such as crabs and insects have, contrary to us, what's called an exoskeleton, so the the crab shell is not just an enclosing body, it actually acts as a support mechanism so the flesh inside the muscles, the tissue etc, actually binds to the inside of the skeleton itself."
Posted by: Charlie B. | May 8, 2008 9:20 AM
Perhaps the script had commas after 'crabs' and 'insects' that Prof Foster neglected to pronounce?
Posted by: P Terry Hunt | May 9, 2008 10:30 AM