Shouting Heads of Science?

One of the links in the previous post was to Josh’s thoughts on the CNN science shutdown. Toward the end, he had an interesting note on why science doesn’t get more play:

This is especially bad for CNN, since so much of their airtime is taken up by talking heads yelling at one another. Science doesn’t work like that, and scientists fare poorly in a setting where rhetorical speed is valued over empirical evidence and fact-checking. This means that science is less likely to be covered at all, and when it is covered, it will be covered poorly.

He’s right about CNN, but I wonder about the science part. I’m reading a book about the history of quantum mechanics at the moment, and it’s striking how much of the progress (on philosophical issues, at least) was made through debates and conversations. And I’ve certainly been present for and even part of a number of serious scientific discussions involving raised voices.

It seems to me that vigorous debate has always been an important part of scientific progress. The question is, is there any way to fit this sort of thing into a tv-friendly format?

“On the right, I’m Albert Einstein.” “On the left, I’m Neils Bohr.” “And this is… Crossfire!”

OK, maybe that’s just silly…

13 comments

  3. “It seems to me that vigorous debate has always been an important part of scientific progress.”

    Certainly true. I think the problem is that true debate (discussion of positions, dissecting the point of your opponent, civil discourse) has never had anything to do with discussions on television.

  4. The vital difference between scientific discussions and political debates is that the former may lead to something. Einstein’s and Bohr’s arguments shaped a lot of the understanding of modern physics, as either of them was willing to let himself be convinced by good arguments.
    Politicians have a fix point of view which they would never change, whatever their opponent might come up with — or if they did change it, they wouldn’t admit so on the TV.
    We are talking about two different types of discussions here, one of which is unlikely to be presentable on TV.

  5. Well, it’s not unrepresentable on TV because it might lead to the people debating changing their minds. It’s unrepresentable because it involves issues that most people don’t understand (and don’t want to understand).

    It’s not so much the fault of TV as a medium, but rather that it won’t lead to high ratings.

    So it might be a good idea to tape some serious scientific arguments for something like youtube, where you don’t have to be interesting to millions of people to get a slot.

  6. “…it’s striking how much of the progress (on philosophical issues, at least) was made through debates and conversations.”

    This touches on the idea that science is a social institution shaped by the groups who helped to build it. The CBC has an excellent podcast series that explores science and it’s influence on society. The debates in the show often pivot on the social implications of scientific discoveries, where there is plenty of room for animated discussion. The podcasts are here:

    How to think about science

  7. I agree with Odysseus that political and scientific debates are two completely different things. In a political debate, the object is to convince the audience through rhetorical devices. In a scientific debate, the object is to convince the other party through factual and logical arguments. The classical Greeks and Romans understood this when they created canon of the seven liberal arts and made logic and rhetoric separate disciplines.

  9. I think something like the McLaughlin Group could be more fun to watch.

    HOST: Prof. Orzel, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is absolute impossibility and 10 is metaphysical certitude, what is the likelihood that the electron dipole moment experiments at UT Austin will find a null result?

    ORZEL: 9.

    HOST: Wrong!

  10. I read once that you can tell the intelligence of the audience a commercial is aimed at by how loud it is.

    In my experience, that’s true. In radio and TV ads for quack medicines or really, really cheap used cars they SHOUT VERY LOUDLY AT YOU AND THEY WOULDN’T DO THAT UNLESS IT WORKED!!!!

    Something similar must be going on for those shouting head shows.

  11. Debates are useful amongst scientists themselves when everyone involved has a strong grasp of the issues. They’re not a good format to inform a non-specialist public. In the latter case, rhetoric and charisma have far too much weight relative to the quality of the argument, and there just isn’t enough time to present all the background evidence that amongst experts is already taken as given. (My views on this subject are colored by the success of pseudoscientists in “winning” debates against actual scientists, e.g. creationists.)

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