The Role of Pseudoscience in Popular Media
pseudoscience
from the roots of the word is simply
false science
but more specifically pseudoscience can
be defined as
theories ideas or explanations for
something
that are represented as scientific but
that are not derived from science or the
scientific method
while this definition can commonly be
applied to bonkers conspiracy theories
like
flat earth or anti-vaccine movements
pseudoscience
pops up more often in our general
culture than you might think
in popular forms of entertainment like
movies television shows and books
pseudoscience appears constantly to
illustrate this disconnect between
science and pseudoscience and media
first i will walk you through some
popular examples
next i will discuss what effects these
examples might have on the real world
then i will examine why these examples
happen before finally determining
what should be done about them so what
are some examples of pseudoscience and
media
there are countless examples of popular
culture getting science wrong
but there are a few specific examples
that i would like to highlight today
the first examples start small jurassic
park
released in 1993 to critical and public
acclaim
but it contained many minute
inaccuracies first among them comes from
the title
jurassic park in sharp contrast to the
dinosaurs that actually appeared in the
film
like the tyrannosaurus rex mostly being
from the cretaceous period
rather than the jurassic period like the
title implies
the presentation of dinosaurs in the
film is also inaccurate as
gray scaly monsters with even more
recent jurassic world films maintaining
this design
despite newer research demonstrating
that many if not most dinosaurs had
colorful feathers
the way the dinosaurs were even created
in the film is at odds with our current
knowledge of how to clone animals
the park’s scientists are somehow able
to find dinosaur blood in a fossilized
mosquito
to extract dna from combining it with
distantly related frog dna
to create just one cloned dinosaur
that’s implausible to say the least
let alone the six different species that
appear in the first film
the second example is one of the more
easily recognizable instances of
pseudoscience
simply due to how unrealistic it sounds
even to the average viewer
in 2018’s ant-man and the wasp as well
as the 2019 follow-up avengers end game
both successful and popular films a plot
device
known as the quantum realm was used to
explain travel between time and space
in these movies it wouldn’t be out of
the ordinary to hear how
quantum entanglement can be harnessed to
create quantum tunnels
allowing entry to the quantum realm all
of course measured using a quantum
spectrometer
all of this is largely fictional quantum
mechanics is just the study of how
particles behave
and it can’t be used to justify
superhero time travel
the movie even jokes about it with the
titular ant-man asking if the scientists
in the movie just put the word quantum
in front of everything
the last example concerns the genre of
television crime procedurals
for those that don’t watch them in these
shows every week
a crime is committed and a team of law
enforcement has to find the evidence to
determine who did it
frequently the crucial piece of evidence
they need to find to convict someone
comes from forensic science the
techniques used to produce
physical evidence relating to a crime
the part these shows get wrong though
is that they present these forms of
forensic evidence as
infallible easy to obtain or even
necessary for a conviction
when all of that is far from true in the
real world
it’s not easy to find accurate dna clear
fingerprints or even gunshot residue
for a crime that happened months weeks
or days prior
this extreme faith in forensic science
is a clear example
of pseudoscience and media possibly
having real world consequences
so that might leave you wondering what
does this mean for the real world
in essence we need to find out if these
examples of pseudoscience
have real world consequences i think
that even the more innocuous examples of
pseudoscience can reveal greater issues
in the world
people can absorb misinformation about
the media they consume
in fact in a 2015 poll conducted by
yougov
in which 75 of respondents said that
they had seen a jurassic park
or jurassic world movie 28
of people said that they thought that
scientists could currently either
probably or definitely create
dinosaur clones from dna found in
dinosaur fossils
even more concerning in that same poll
41 percent of people
said that they thought that dinosaurs
and humans either probably or definitely
once lived on the planet at the same
time as one another
if popular media continues to show such
scientific falsehoods
even if they are clearly labeled as
fiction
there’s always going to be some amount
of people who take it at face value and
believe such false ideas
on the other side of the spectrum you
can have movies like the avengers
taking real scientific concepts and
presenting them in a fictional way
big movie franchises like marvel do
employ scientific advisors like quantum
physicists spyrodon micolakis
that incorporate real scientific
concepts into their movies
but for whatever reason they often take
liberties with the facts
dr michalakis even said that ant-man’s
particular take on quantum entanglement
is a stretch scientifically there’s a
clear problem with the possibility that
people
look at fictional depictions of ideas
like the quantum realm
and extrapolate that to think that all
quantum mechanics
physics or even science in general is
wrong
with 13 percent of americans according
to p research
having a lack of confidence in
scientists to act in the public interest
movie makers need to be cognizant of the
role that they might play in that
but the biggest danger in my opinion
brings us back
to media presenting itself as realistic
the csi effect as coined by researchers
schweiter and sax
describes the phenomenon in which
depictions of forensic science
in crime procedurals alters the
expectations of jurors in court
now research under the effect has proved
inconclusive in determining whether it
has a
pro-defense bias in which jurors are
less likely to
convict if there’s not enough forensic
evidence a pro-prosecution bias in which
jurors are more likely to convict if
there is forensic evidence
both or no bias at all but what remains
true though
is that people in the criminal justice
system like lawyers
act as if the effect has both a
pro-defense and pro-prosecution bias
leading to a focus on unnecessary
forensic evidence
over other important forms of evidence
like witness testimony
according to researcher john aldridge we
want the legal system to be unbiased and
false science and crime procedurals has
the potential
to affect everyone that might leave you
wondering
why does this happen if there are such
drastic
real-world consequences why is
pseudoscience put into media in the
first place
it is clear that most big media studios
have the resources to stay as
scientifically accurate as possible
jurassic park had a massive budget for
the time of 63 million dollars
with jurassic world raising that to 150
million dollars
avengers end game even at a humongous
budget of 356 million dollars
both jurassic park and avengers end game
have at one point or another
been the highest grossing film in terms
of box office success
even crime procedurals are extremely
popular
law and order special victims unit is
one of the longest running live-action
dramas on tv today
these franchises get millions of viewers
and they make a large amount of money
so it’s not a question of if popular
media can be scientifically accurate
but whether or not it even needs to be
as i mentioned before these studios do
employ scientific advisors
that incorporate scientific concepts
into their films
jurassic park worked with paleontologist
jack horner
marvel worked with quantum physicists
spirodonicalakis
even law and order had people like brian
fagan that worked to fact check the
writers with legal and scientific
researchers
but the important thing to remember
though is that these researchers
aren’t against the depictions of science
and media they helped create them
the reason they might gloss over some
incorrect facts is simply because
the story trumps the realism
pseudoscience
serves the plot if you can’t do
superhero time travel in the avengers in
a realistic way
then you have to make things up to do it
because superhero time travel is cool
dr michalakis may have said before that
ant-man’s particular take on quantum
entanglement is a stretch scientifically
but he goes on in that interview to say
that it’s narratively satisfying
so he approves of it it’s hard to
imagine the other examples being
scientifically accurate either
can you imagine how much less scary
jurassic park would have been
if it were instead cretaceous park and
the dinosaurs were technicolored
feathery birds
no cool dinosaurs should be scary
dr horner even agrees that the jurassic
park designs don’t need to be changed to
be feathered
even crime procedurals might need to
make things up to fit the dramatic story
beats
that have proven to be so successful in
the television world
it wouldn’t be as exciting if there
weren’t a crucial piece of forensic
evidence
they need to find to piece together the
story of the crime
there are negatives to pseudoscience and
media to be sure
but there are also clear positives
so the next logical step then is to
figure out a solution
what do we need to do about this issue
if anything
you may have thought over the course of
this talk that this
doesn’t really matter that people should
just suspend their disbelief when
consuming media
but my issue with that line of thinking
is that suspension of disbelief doesn’t
always apply
especially when disbelief doesn’t occur
in the first place
you can’t look at something and say
that’s inaccurate
if you don’t know that it is inaccurate
so solution to the issue of
pseudoscience and media
is education teaching people to
recognize the inaccuracies
so that they can suspend their disbelief
rather than absorb misinformation
popular media can be used as a tool in
the classroom to demonstrate what those
movies got right and what they got wrong
if we can teach people that dinosaurs
don’t look like they do in jurassic park
or that dinosaurs didn’t live at the
same time as each other or humans
then maybe people won’t have those
misconceptions when they watch jurassic
park
if we can teach people about all the
interesting ideas surrounding
physics and quantum mechanics then maybe
people won’t dismiss those real sciences
as
too hard or crazy if we can teach people
about the biases they might have as
potential jurors
about forensic science then maybe we
might have more fair trials
now don’t get me wrong we should
absolutely push for accuracy in the
media we consume
but there comes a point where critiquing
superhero time travel
just becomes nitpicking and we should be
able to knowledgeably suspend our
disbelief
to enjoy the media for what it is who
knows if
seeing something unrealistic might
inspire someone in the future to make
something interesting a reality
thank you
you