Maintained by the ScienceBlogs Overlords at Seed Media Group, Page 3.14 points you in the direction of some of ScienceBlogs' finest offerings, plus the tastiest tidbits of science news and opinion from around the web.
About a week ago, ScienceBlogger Randy Olson (documentary filmmaker of "Flock of Dodos" fame) left a comment on Shifting Baselines suggesting that the best way to combat anti-science propaganda like "Expelled" is with a pro-science film festival. "Right now, if a high school kid makes a really great video about evolution, where is he or she supposed to send it?" he asked. "And more importantly, the presence of such a festival becomes an incentive to draw new talent into the subject."
Chad agrees, but makes the bold suggestion that bloggers could organize such a festival online.
The issue got us thinking about the best (most accurate, highest impact, most compelling) pro-science movies. A quick survey around the Seed offices got us down to a short list of four. Please vote below on your favorite, and leave any additional suggestions in the comments!
Want to know the results? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the previous week on ScienceBlogs. (Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.)
Comments
Contact is the better pick among these options. It is the only movie which has as its subject the idea that science and religion conflict. While An Inconvenient Truth is definitely a great 'science movie,' it assumes the legitimacy of science (as it should, given its subject), rather than explores the impact of science on society. I'm sure there are many other films that would be similar in conceptual impact to Contact.
Posted by: Chris | April 28, 2008 3:59 PM
By the way, since Contact is also science-fiction, I'd suggest Primer also. It is one of the most realistic portrayals (if one can say that about an as-of-yet unproven technology) of time travel. CB
Posted by: Chris | April 28, 2008 4:04 PM
What no "Real Genius"?!?!
Posted by: Dave Bacon | April 28, 2008 11:55 PM
Forget Real Genius, why not Independence Day? I think it's important for the public to know that we can count on satellite technicians to write computer viruses for alien computers to bring down their ships.
(I voted for Contact, but Gattaca was very very close...they had the best ad campaign ever for a movie. It certainlywoke people up to genetic modification possibilities in Toronto, for a couple of weeks anyway).
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | April 29, 2008 5:37 AM
John Carpenter's The Thing. Though more for its portrayal of scientists than for its science.
Posted by: Mark | April 29, 2008 9:17 AM
This is a terrible list of choices. Most fit into the Frankenstein category of out of control science.
Contact might be science vs. religion but it comes down on the side of new-age spirituality of the silliest kind.
Jurassic Park, like all Michael Chrichton books back to Andromeda Strain is fundamentally anti-science science fiction. I read many of the books before getting sick of the "Sciences make assumption X based on their scientific knowledge. Because the scientists rely too much on their scientific beliefs, they make a horrible mistake and people die." The theme has just gotten more explicit over time.
Gattacca is a good movie, but it is a complete dystopia created by science progress run amok.
I've never seen An Inconvenient Truth and it just doesn't sound like a movie that anyone would watch unless they were already sold on the argument.
Real Genius does show real experimenting in a fun manner.
Awakenings is not a great movie, but it really does show the scientific process of hypothesis, experiment, discovery, and success/failure.
Also a mediocre movie, but "And the Band Played On" definitely shows the scientific process in a positive light.
The Abyss is also science in a relatively good light.
Apollo 13 is also good science
Posted by: bsci | April 29, 2008 9:45 AM
I vote for The Day the Earth Stood Still.
(and I hope they dont ruin it on the remake!)
Its a grand old classic with a dozen lessons on how science works and how people should work.
Posted by: Britomart | April 29, 2008 10:09 AM
At a glance, it doesn't look as though "Deep Impact" has been mentioned yet.
Posted by: Sam Iredale | April 29, 2008 11:10 AM
Jackass does a really good job of showing Darwinism in action...
Posted by: Sean | April 29, 2008 3:07 PM
MY favorite pro-science film is _October Sky_. Based on the book _Rocket Boys_, a autobiography by Homer Hickam. Four boys is the rural south fight against ignorance and prejudice to compete for science scholarships. Really a great film.
Posted by: Avenel | April 29, 2008 3:27 PM
Dang, except for Jurassic Park, that was hard. The top 3 each had such different messages.
Contact almost won for me but I think I could have made a better argument for science than Foster's character. But the juxtaposition of faith vs science was a topic worth portraying.
Gattaca was such an excellent movie about the potential for science to be used negatively to decide for us what we believe is free will. But the latest nonsense in the movie, "Exposed", insinuating evolution theory necessarily leads to Eugenics makes it hard for me to consider the likelihood of such a scenario.
And JP was fun but too full of scientific flaws including the cliche plot of the bad guy making a mess of things over greed and ending up being killed by his actions in the end.
So that leaves Gore's movie and while some may consider the claims exaggerated, we really don't know that yet, do we?
Posted by: Skeptigirl | April 29, 2008 3:29 PM
What about Sunshine? or Outbreak ? A Beautiful Mind ? Gorillas in The Mist?
Forget it.
Ghostbusters wins, simply for one line.
"Back off... I'm a Scientist"
Posted by: jjbang | April 29, 2008 4:40 PM
My vote - Contact.
Brachiosaurus walking in "Jurassic park" is my best scene of cinema magic, but it is not science movie. Rather, it messes science and fantasy in viewer's mind. I prefer movies where everybody is clear what in the story is fantasy.
Posted by: Jerzy | April 29, 2008 5:36 PM
One thing for sure - we need more beautiful visions of progress, space exploration and discovery which inspired people until about 1980's. Most of recent films are sad and dark dystopias.
Interestingly, life was harder and exploration and science more dangerous then than now.
Posted by: Jerzy | April 29, 2008 5:37 PM
October Sky - second.
Or The Right Stuff.
Posted by: chancelikely | May 1, 2008 9:09 AM
In roughly decreasing order of preference:
"Real Genius" has got to be one of the more realistic films about science in academia. They get the physics mostly right, they show realistic laboratories, and skewer some of the sillier parts of the politics of academia. The ending with the popcorn is a bit silly (though satisfying) and it probably looks somewhat dated now, but it's still one of my favorites.
"Mindwalk" is written by Fritjof Capra, and while a bit artsy has a lot of the same thought-provoking ideas that made "The Tao of Physics" so compelling. It might also be somewhat dated.
"An Inconveinent Truth" certainly uses science to back up it's message, but isn't really about science per se.
"Contact" was a pretty good book, but I thought the movie decided to focus on the personalities and the ideological conflict rather than the science. It felt really dumbed down.
Posted by: Mitch P. | May 1, 2008 11:20 AM
October Sky, thirded.
"Jurassic Park" is in no way a PRO-science movie. It is, at absolute best, an adventure movie with some tangentially scientific ideas -- but overall, it is actually very anti-scientist.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | May 1, 2008 12:16 PM
Of those I like Gattaca the best but Inconvenient Truth is the most "pro science"
Gattaca, JP and to an extent even Contact had themes of science vs human nature which I'm sure some people see as anti-science messages.
These deserve mention as well, and are probably better
2001
Star Trek
Star Wars
Posted by: Sacoglossan | May 1, 2008 1:21 PM
Star Wars is not pro-science. I don't understand how you could suggest that. Even at it's most spiritually-pandering worst, Star Trek is Einstein to Star Wars' Fred Phelps.
Posted by: AtheistAcolyte | May 1, 2008 1:36 PM
I'm glad somebody finally mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey (let's get the title right). I'd throw in Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth), and The Time Machine (1960 version), since both have scientists as compelling heroes. And what a poor shortlist, which I suspect was drawn up by some young whippersnapper who thinks any movie made before 1975 is too old to be taken seriously. Jurassic Park does not belong on the list at all. That pretentious crap from Jeff Goldblum's character takes Jurassic Park into the postmodernist science studies zone. And that's a bad zone to be in.
Posted by: valdemar | May 4, 2008 6:22 AM
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Posted by: kabonfootprint | September 8, 2008 9:51 AM