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Tornados, Science, and Scientists?

rwguinn

Penultimate Amazing
rwguinn
Joined
Apr 24, 2003
Messages
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Location
16 miles from 7 lakes
Growing up on the edge of "Tornado Alley", and having had relatives in Dallas in the 50's, I have had a life-long fascination with (and fear of) Tornados. It didn't help that the first show I saw on TV was "The Wizard of OZ" either.
I have followed "Storm Chasers" on "Discovery Channel" since its inception.
When Sean Casey built the TIV, it added a bit of non-science motive, but the show was still about scientists trying to find out as much as possible about these beasts. The scientists were cooperating, working together.
This year it is way too different--almost unwatchable.
The Oklahoma (OU) Grad, Reed Timmer, has had built his own TIV-like vehicle, and the show is now mostly Smack-talk, and a competition. While I never had a very high opinion of OU graduates, it has now sunk to a real low.
Have we learned all we can about tornados, and now the race is to get the "best shot"? The way things are going, with the antipathy toward cooperation, it has become a question (to me) of who isw going to take the biggest risk and who will get killed first...
 
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The Oklahoma (OU) Grad, Reed Timmer, has had built his own TIV-like vehicle, and the show is now mostly Smack-talk, and a competition. While I never had a very high opinion of OU graduates, it has now sunk to a real low.
Have we learned all we can about tornados, and now the race is to get the "best shot"? The way things are going, with the antipathy toward cooperation, it has become a question (to me) of who isw going to take the biggest risk and who will get killed first...
Click to expand...
You do realize that science has always been a borderline cut throat competition that have resulted in weird things happening.
 
Wait, you mean reality TV shows don't accurately reflect reality?

What rot. Next, you'll be telling me that crab fishermen, lumberjacks, truckers, and wedding cake bakers actually care about their own profit margins, and not about whether they've caught more crabs/delivered more truckloads/hauled more loads/dropped more elaborate top-heavy cakes on the floor than the other fishermen, lumberjacks, truckers, and bakers working in their area!

Respectfully,
Myriad

PS although if the producers wanted to introduce conflict/competition into their tornado chasing narrative, I would have hoped they could find a way to do it without just copying the plot of "Twister"!
 
The scientists who want to learn all they can about tornadoes are not interesting enough for television.
 
Myriad said:
Wait, you mean reality TV shows don't accurately reflect reality?

What rot. Next, you'll be telling me that crab fishermen, lumberjacks, truckers, and wedding cake bakers actually care about their own profit margins, and not about whether they've caught more crabs/delivered more truckloads/hauled more loads/dropped more elaborate top-heavy cakes on the floor than the other fishermen, lumberjacks, truckers, and bakers working in their area!

Respectfully,
Myriad

PS although if the producers wanted to introduce conflict/competition into their tornado chasing narrative, I would have hoped they could find a way to do it without just copying the plot of "Twister"!
Click to expand...
Bull's-eye.
 
godless dave said:
The scientists who want to learn all they can about tornadoes are not interesting enough for television.
Click to expand...

There is a lot to this.

I was talking to a friend who is a tornado guy from NSSL a couple of years ago, and asked him about chasers and things like Toto, wondering if they were useful anymore. Not really, he said.

And that makes sense. If you look at the biggest advancement in tornado science (at least from a prediction sense), that is all in the advancement in radar. Analysis of wind patterns by doppler, coupled with some spotters (not chasers, but just spotters to confirm the presence of a tornado) and you have a lot more than any chaser ever gave you (except for cool video)
 
rwguinn said:
Oh, yea--But this is ridiculous...
Imagine, if you will, Steven Hawking and Phil Plait trash-talking each other...
Click to expand...
You do know that the most well known quote from Newton is a insult directed at another well known scientist Hooke. Shoulder of giants is an insult directed at him.
 
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rwguinn said:
Oh, yea--But this is ridiculous...
Imagine, if you will, Steven Hawking and Phil Plait trash-talking each other...
Click to expand...


I'd pay to watch that! :popcorn1

SmackTalkingScientists.gif
 
rwguinn said:
Growing up on the edge of "Tornado Alley", and having had relatives in Dallas in the 50's, I have had a life-long fascination with (and fear of) Tornados. It didn't help that the first show I saw on TV was "The Wizard of OZ" either.
Click to expand...

The closest I ever got to a tornado was in the spring of 2008 in Plano, TX. I did look outside and it looked like it would if you were to peer into a commercial washer washing dark clothes. The tornado itself got as close as a mile. I didn't wake up that morning until the storm was on top of me and a few minutes later the City of Allen sounded their alarms. Plano thought it would be too much trouble to sound theirs. I thought all of the studies of tornadoes should make for better weather alerts to the people storms affect.
 
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