William Shatner's Weird or What?

TheZebu said:
I wish this stuff did not "sell" so well. Real science is way more exciting. TV has an idea they have to dumb things down, but that is self limiting. Even when a show is proscience it minimizes things like statistics and thus lose out on educating people. (I am looking at you MYTHBUSTERS, I know you use stats, mention them more, and one of the tenants of science, repeatability. I know you are just needing it can be done, not reliability, but stash are your friend)
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This was the latest thread on Mytbusters. Hyneman doesn't claim to be teaching science, and is quoted as saying the show would probably not be successful if they did.
 
goodm0urning said:
If Admiral Kirk were to host a real, honest-to-goodness science show, maybe people would listen to him.
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He's perhaps one of the five or six most often used narrators of science and nature videos on US television. IMO, he's not the best one; he over-dramatizes his phrasing, filling it with portent.
 
shandyjan said:
My thought exactly. Theres a SciFy channel, so why is all this fantasy on Discovery and History? And the Bio channel has strange films and stuff on that have nothing to do with bigraphies any more. Add to MTV's no music, and 4 music shows with no music. I think the execs are the age who were too much 'there' in the 60s if you know what I mean!
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The problem is that these channels are all separate companies (or perhaps a few are separate income centers for a single company). Each must make a profit to stay alive, and executive bonuses depend upon attracted advertising. There is nothing in the company charter of any of these that they stick to their namesake content, and if ghosts are selling ads, MTV, SCI, TLC and HSN will all be working out angles on ghosts.
 
Emet said:
This was the latest thread on Mytbusters. Hyneman doesn't claim to be teaching science, and is quoted as saying the show would probably not be successful if they did.
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I am not asking them to "teach" science, just not to hide any stats that they use. Mention it in passing, so people see they are using it, every bit of exposure helps.
 
JohnG said:
Let's not get too sentimental about "In Search of...". I loved it as a kid, too but the researchers were every bit as shoddy as those working on modern day "woo" shows. "In Search of..." started to run out of subjects fairly quickly and even built one episode around the feeble premise that Sherlock Holmes might have actually existed.:jaw-dropp A witless time filler of a subject if ever there was one (and I say that as a Holmes fan) and yet they still managed to make three factual errors in just the first ten minutes of the program. I'm guessing it was Nimoy's idea as he was playing Holmes onstage around that time.
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I agree, the only reason that show worked at all was because it was 30 minutes long, and they only covered something one time (Erich Von Daniken, UFO's, Uri Geller, the Bermuda Triangle). I don't think there's more than 30 minutes of content to be said about any of these subjects. Also these things were a part of 70's culture, and there was a much stronger counterweight of real educational programming on PBS and the media in general than what we see today.

When the show was at it's best, it did an acceptable job of documenting the 70's cultural atmosphere, and it deserves credit on that level.
 
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Giraffe107 said:
The episodes (only 2) I saw started out in the usual paranormal "MYSTERY!" way, but in the end they presented a reasonable scientific explanation. I think it's aimed at people like my brother in law who love paranormal shows, and gently giving them the actual scientific information.
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I am conflicted about this show.
The format goes
1. Present a mystery
2. Have woo explaination one
3. Have the scientific explaination
4. Carry on as if the science does not matter and have a 2nd ever wooier explanation

What I like is that the science gets a pretty fair go.
What I hate is that the science is presented as on equal footing as the woo. But this is just my bias I guess. I don't think the woo and the science are equal. But at least it presents the viewer with the idea that there is a rational explaination for the mystery.

My 10 year old and 6 old watch this show with me. And they love it. I get to poll them about which explaination they reckon is the correct one. And mostly they pick the science. Which is as much as you can expect I say.

Afterall - as I kid I made pyramids from wire and sharpened knives with pyramid power.
 
Odd, I just saw him on youtube a few days ago talking to John Edwards, and I thought he was more skeptical himself. Then again, it's a paying job. I would do it.



Here he is asking Edwards if it ever occured to him he may just be psychotic.
 
Just stumbled on Is It Real on Netflix streaming. It's a Nat Geo show from 2005. Not too bad. They definitely take the skeptical approach, even had Randi in at least one episode.
 
I think In Search Of... was just about as crappy as any of that garbage we see on the History Channel today. Sure, lots of people look back on it with nostalgia, but look up some eps on YouTube and actually watch them. It pretty much sucks. It was just a lousy TV show hawking woo in a docu format.

The only thing worse about the shows now it that it's a much bigger business, there are far more books being published about it, so there are lots more "expert" charlatans to interview. At least the History Channel programs often show the crackpots like "Blinky" Birnes and Giorgio Tsoukalos actually looking and behaving like crackpots, so there's the humor factor that In Search Of... lacked.
 
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JohnG said:
Let's not get too sentimental about "In Search of...". I loved it as a kid, too but the researchers were every bit as shoddy as those working on modern day "woo" shows. "In Search of..." started to run out of subjects fairly quickly and even built one episode around the feeble premise that Sherlock Holmes might have actually existed.:jaw-dropp
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As I recall the typical "In Search Of ..." episode consisted mostly of "evidence" supporting the "woo" followed a short statement at the end saying something like, "but, of course, none of that's true."

-- Roger
 
You think that show sucks, try watching a show on Sci-Fi Channel called "Fact Or Faked: The Paranormal Files!" I swear I could kill myself if that show ever ran on a Marathon Special.....it's just a bunch of over-paid to look good actors with no scientific background who try to prove that UFO's don't exist.....every freak'n episode! They take the most Viral B.S YouTube Video's and take and hour just to say "It's Fake". Well no durrrrr........
 
I Am Who I Am said:
You think that show sucks, try watching a show on Sci-Fi Channel called "Fact Or Faked: The Paranormal Files!" I swear I could kill myself if that show ever ran on a Marathon Special.....it's just a bunch of over-paid to look good actors with no scientific background who try to prove that UFO's don't exist.....every freak'n episode! They take the most Viral B.S YouTube Video's and take and hour just to say "It's Fake". Well no durrrrr........
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That description actually sounds better than about half the other stuff on The History Channel.
 
John Albert said:
...or the Sci-Fi channel SyFy, for that matter.
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Canadian Sci-Fi, American SyFy. Oh and I forgot to mention, no, this show is really horrible, if you seen it you would agree. Yes, It's good that they prove these things fake, but seriously it's so stupid and cheezy and pop-culture I could gag....
 
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TheZebu said:
Well,

It is very sad to see a show on TV that is rehashing all the paranormal claptrap from the past and "exploring" new ones as well.

Why does this crap sell. It just get me mad when I watch and see them talk about the US military doing psychic experiments and even mentioning Uri Geller, yes they did have on two skeptics, but they did not come out and say it was all ********. They spend most of the story telling about the "Weird" and only mention the "What" for a very short time. The show seems to want you to make up your own mind, but the only conclusion is it is claptrap.

I would rather have a show on true science than on pseudoscience.

I see in the US it is on the Discovery network (which I though was supposed to be a Science focused network) Here in Canada it is on the History Channel and in my opinion has no business being shown.

Scott
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was eventually terminated in 1995, because it had failed to produce any useful intelligence information.
 
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