...TV shows featuring forensic science have resulted in more interest in forensic science at schools. The largest enrollment in any science elective at the high school in my district is for "Forensic Chemistry", whose teacher has established (ta daaah!) regular ol' Chemistry as a prerequisite. His students take that show apart at the joints with boning knives.
I realize that I present anecdotal evidence only, but I have also noticed, in the non-fiction catalogs of new publications for youth, an increase in the number of books on this topic as well, including project books for science fairs. The publishers of non-fiction aren't so adventurous that they would produce numerous titles on a topic with no market.
A lot of bad science finds its way into the fiction world, including drama and melodrama, which is what Numb3rs is. You look at it with a scientist's eyes, as a conduit of information, a lot of it bad. I look at it with a literacy specialist's eyes, as a wedge that piques interest in a subject that might have been condemned to the Things I Hate part of a kid's brain long ago. Even granted that we might not be as smart about distinguishing between truth and conjecture as we used to be, people, even young people, will still make a distinction between fiction and reality when the fiction is clearly presented as such. I see this every day.
A man I know took a nuclear physics course as an elective because he read Low Level Radiation by Ernest Sternglass. As a result of the curiosity piqued by that work of actual bad science (not even bad science in a work of fiction), he learned enough to reject Sternglass. He also discovered that nuclear energy interested him and later became a nuclear engineer. A good one, too.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a powerful thing.
Off Topic » in reply to Nope, but bad science in TV shows has real world implications...
Yet on the other hand...
The whole thread (61 posts)
- Most complex crop circle ever discovered in British fields
- COOL New Circle
- Don't the farmers get pissed?
- Progression
- Why "a seminal event?"
- Well, maybe it boggles some minds
- 8 segments doesn't work for our base 10 number system though.
- Sure it does. This isn't numbers, it's graphics.
- It's just for a freehand doodler to divide a circle in eight segments than ten. Try it.
- re: It's just for a freehand doodler to divide a circle in eight segments than ten. Try it.
- It's just for a freehand doodler to divide a circle in eight segments than ten. Try it.
- Humans?
- Woudl aliens have 10 fingers and toes? Or even fingers and toes?
- Sure it does. This isn't numbers, it's graphics.
- 8 segments doesn't work for our base 10 number system though.
- Why do you suppose they are getting more complex? (n/t)
- re: Why do you suppose they are getting more complex?
- Not complex, just irrational.
- They're just getting better at making them.