Via PZ, a blog on biology and science fiction is griping that biology gets no respect, and links to a Jack Cohen article complaining that authors and filmmakers don't take biology seriously I was particularly struck by this bit:
Authors, film producers and directors, special-effects teams go to physicists, especially astrophysicists, to check that their worlds are workable, credible; they go to astronomers to check how far from their sun a planet should be, and so on. They even go to chemists to check atmospheres, rocket fuels, pheromones (apparently they're not biology....), even the materials that future everyday clothes (not only spacesuits) will be made of. They do go to self-styled "astrobiologists", who are usually astronomers or astrophysicists who remember some Biology 1.01 (or think they could if pressed). Between them they invent reptiloid "aliens" (who are cold-blooded enough to do all those dastardly things no warm-blooded American male could do...), feline aliens (who have the psychology of the household cat writ large, especially by more mature female authors...), dinosaur "aliens".... Or giant ants. Or were they mut-ants, I don't remember (but how many screen mutations have you seen that change the recipient, not its progeny?). Or a vast array of "alien" human actors with a bit of wax, as easy on the Special Effects Dept as the Pure Energy aliens, or the Aliens on mid-day TV shows who magic things out of the air and see through clothing (do their eyes emit or receive X-rays?), and which otherwise free the writers from having to produce a consistent plot. Or Vulcans who can produce viable offspring with humans (when even our cousins the fish can't - mermaids are even less breedable than Spock). These people know that they don't know about physics, or astronomy, or chemistry. Those disciplines are real science. So they get help. But the biology seems so 'obvious' to them ... and they don't realise that it feels just the same to be sure and wrong as sure and right! Of course, those of us that agree biologists can see that all those anthropomorphs can't be alien, they're vertebrate mammals and must share our ancestry here on Earth. They can't see that ET can't be e-t, that the 'Alien' doesn't work - except in its primary purpose, scaring the living daylights out of the audience with the bursting-out-of-chest routine (how can a parasite pre-adapt to immune-responses, and not being felt in the chest when it's bigger than your heart?). Biology questions don't seem professional to the people who design these scenarios; it's like folk psychology or philosophy - everyone has "a right to" an opinion.
It's striking, because I have to wonder what films, exactly, he's talking about. Most of the SF movies I see are lucky if they can get Newton's Laws right, let alone any of the finer points of astrophysics. There is, in fact, an entire site devoted to Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, which points out that even movies that aren't SF get some astonishingly basic things completely wrong.
I'm not going to attempt to claim that the movies actually do a decent job with biology-- that'd be crazy. The point is, they do a lousy job with everything science-related. Biologists are just more offended about bad biology than physicists. Cohen thinks that they do a better job with physics than biology because he knows more about biology than physics, but looked at objectively, their handling of both biology and physics sucks.
In the end, I'm not all that upset about the bad science in the movies-- the first time I linked the Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics site, I called them humorless dorks-- because they're generally not about science. Movie aliens look like humans with latex masks and alien planets look like California because it's easier to do things that way, and the primary concern is about the story, not the science, and I'm OK with that.
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I was annoyed by the "Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics" because they're so often wrong. For example, they say (correctly, I think) that bullets shouldn't make sparks on impact. This has more to do with metallurgy than with physics, but they "explain" it, in part, by showing that the bullet's kinetic energy is not high enough to heat it white-hot. By that argument, flint and steel can't spark either ... so why not stop by saying "Bullets are made of soft, non-sparking materials", rather than following up with a calculation which doesn't tell you anything?
And they "calculate" whether a person should survive a fall or not---by comparing his or her kinetic energy to that of a bullet. Again, totally irrelevant, since they conclude that falling one meter is the same as getting shot with a .45. So they discard their entire calculation and resort to intution: "you will probably have little trouble finding a friend or acquaintance who has suffered a broken bone from a fall of similar height." That's fine, but why pretend that we've learned anything by comparing falls to bullets?
There are a few neat things on the page---they show, for example, that a lit cigarette doesn't ignite gasoline under standard movie conditions---and their physical intuition is usually right---yes, action heros often fall further than is realistic---but their actual physics calculations are more wrong than right.
With Ben M.'s caveat, I basically agree with Jack Cohen.
I know and am at least distant friends with every science fiction author named in this.
I have appeared on panel discussions with Dr. Jack Cohen, and corresponded with him. The novel "Heaven" which he coauthored with Dr. Ian Stewart is one of the favorites of the past decade to me and my son, who made me buy an extra harcover copy for him to lend to his friends, and show them what REAL science fiction is all about..
[Bruce] Sterling and [C. J.] Cherryh and [G. David] Brin and [Vernor] Vinge are all friends of mine for many years, well, maybe Sterling a more distant acquaintance; [Larry] Niven had Jack Cohen as advisor
on at least one of his novels.
pharyngula, blogged by PZ Myers, is one that I read almost every day.
We're halfway through the year!
I am a High School teacher now, on top of everything else. My wife and I are both working, which means we ease back from the brink of bankruptcy again; our son is enjoying his last summer vacation before Law School kicks in. Our dog had her fur trimmed short for the hot summer dog days.
Other than pain and murder and war and suffering and injustice and ignorance and pollution and global warming (or Climate Chnage), all is well with the world.
High Schoolers Hate Math; Re: Why Math Teachers Get Grumpy
I asked 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade summer school students at a Pasadena high school to write a paragraph on (their choice) "Why I Love Math" or "Why I Hate Math."
Their responses (names removed for privacy, no spelling or grammar corrections)...
"I wouldn't necessarily say that I hate math, I just dislike it a great deal...."
Thank you for a voice of reason, Chad! You provoked me to write a lengthy book review (of Rainbows End) I scheduled to appear at 11am EDT, addressing a number of questions that popped up on that Pharyngula thread.
I agree, most movies get science wrong. I personally love to watch bad-science, particularly geology-themed, SciFi movies. I find them laughable rather than irritating - it's science FICTION, suspend disbelief. Watched a Bond movie the other day full of bad geology. It was great, although Roger Moore isn't my favorite 007. Only real complaint was the geologist/bond-girl who shrieked ever five minutes and was complete ninny, give me a break!
If biologists have it bad, computer scientists have it worse. At least biological messes in movies still vaguely look like living things.
The Jack Cohen essay is interesting, sort of... though I'd be a bit more impressed if he was consistent in taking his own advice.
(I'm thinking of a couple of places in the second Science of Discworld book, where it's clear that he and Ian Stewart felt free to make some dubious and sometimes downright silly remarks about intellectual history and the nature of folklore and mythology, clearly not having bothered to consult any professionals in those fields...)
The curious thing to me in this context, which neither he nor Myers comments on, is the question of medical shows. Is their science good? It wouldn't surprise me if the medical science in shows like House -- or even Scrubs -- is somewhat less flaky and impossible than the physics in most SF movies or TV shows. (But, not being a medical scientist, I don't really know...)
Medical reviews of House.
Kate @ 7:
Nifty! Thanks for the link.
What about the science on the show Bones, aside from the impossibly fast returns on test, or CSI?
Zoom in and enhance.