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What's Wrong with This Picture?Author(s): Sid PerkinsSource: Science News, Vol. 166, No. 16 (Oct. 16, 2004), pp. 250-252Published by: Society for Science & the PublicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4015836Accessed: 26-03-2015 19:58 UTC

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WHAT SWRONG

W I T

T IS

PICTURE

Educating

via

analyses

of science

in

movies and

TV

BY SID PERKINS

he arrival f a new ceage n a matter

fweeks?

Setting the Earth's core rotating

with a few

nuclear bombs? Fault zones that gape

open to

swallow people, speeding trains,

and even small

towns? "Get real," ay earth scientists decrying

the recent movies The Day after

Tomorrow and The

Core and

the TV miniseries 10.5. For

years, scientists

have worried

that inaccurate science

on

both big

and small screens misinforms

viewers who may not distinguish

what's fiction and what's fact. However,

some scientists see oppor-

tunities in even the most out-

landish films and television shows.

To dispel popular misconceptions

about science, educators

are

teas-

ing out shreds of scientific truth

hidden within the fiction, and sci-

entists are using unredeemably

inaccurate scenes as ways to attract

public attention to genuine scien-

tific concepts.

Some scientists

propose

that

more-accuratedepictions

of

research

and more-favorable

ortrayals

f sci-

entists

in film

and on

TV

may lead

young people to study science. The

boost

in

interest

in

forensics careers

that has followed the hit TV show

CSI: CrimeSceneInvestigation and

a few similar British series offers

these science advocates hope that

their scheme

might just

work.

LIGHTSCAMERA WEIRDNESS Themediahype enerated

bya blockbustermovieprovides greatopportunityo reach wide

audienceand talk aboutnonfiction arthscience, aysAndrew .

Weaver, climatologistat the Universityof Victoria n British

Columbia. his ummer, e tookadvantagef

TheDayAfter

omor-

row,whichhas raked

n

more hana half-billion ollarsworldwide.

That blockbuster olloweda long traditionof inaccurate in-

ematicdepictionsof science.

In

GeorgesMelies'1902

short ilm

A Trip o theMoon,six adventurersravel n a capsule ired rom

a largecannon.After heir unar anding, he explorers re

kid-

nappedby disgruntledmoon nhabitants, scape o theircapsule,

nudge t off the moon's dge, and fall backto Earth,wherethey

splashdown n the AtlanticOcean.

Justa few problems:No cannoncanfirea projectilento space,

and even f it could, heexplorersnsidewoulddie from he fan-

tastic accelerationhat wouldbe

required.Also, Meliesdepicted

the

moon as having Earthlike gravity early

in the movie and then

conveniently gnored

this gravitationalpull later,so

that the explor-

ers could return

home. The list oftechnical critiques could be

much

lengthier, but you

get the picture.

In the centurysince Melies'14-minute ilm debuted,special

effects

have improved substantially, but scientific accuracy often has

remained low on the priority ist. The premise

of last summer's The

Day

after

Tomorrows that global warming

suddenly nterfereswith

the ocean's hermohaline

circulation hat brings

warmerwater to the

North Atlantic andwarms Europe.The

sudden collapse ofthe ther-

mohaline circulationbrings on a new

ice age

in

a matter of weeks.

"The special effects are quite good;

I was riveted,"Weaver says.

However, he dismisses the idea that

modern-day global warming

can trigger

an ice age.

To counter

the inaccuracies

underlying

The Day

after

Tomor-

row, Weaver

and his colleague

Claude

Hillaire-Marcelof the

Uni-

versity of Quebec

in

Montreal used

computer

models to analyze today's

climate in terms of what's known

about global cooling

in the past.

Without a doubt, abrupt

climate

change

has occurred-but

it was

abrupt

in terms of decades, not

weeks. Forexample,a few times

dur-

ing

Earth'shistory, he

onset of cool-

ing

seems to have beentriggered

by

immense surges of glacial

meltwa-

ter into

the North Atlantic (SN:

11/2/02,

p. 324). When

the ice sheet

covering

northeastern

Canada col-

lapsed, about 8,200 years

ago, more

than

163,000 cubic kilometers of

trappedwater drained

nto theNorth Atlantic

n a matterof months.

That influx raised sealevel by as much

as 50 centimeters,shut

down

thermohaline circulation,

and,

in

a decade

or so, inaugurated a

400-year dip

in

global

temperatures,some

studies suggest.

In their analysis,

Weaver and Hillaire-Marcelfound

no plausi-

ble scientific scenario

that would

shut down thermohaline

circu-

lation in

the next 5 centuries. They

published their analysis

in

the

April 16 Science and

the June GeoscienceCanada.

Also,Weaverconducted

dozens ofinterviews

on the subjectwhen

media nterest

n TheDay afterTomorrowe

was high.Weaverappeared

on severalradio talk

shows that were carried

throughout Canada,

and his comments appeared

n

newspapers

and magazines

in

loca-

tions as far away

as

Australia,

Indonesia,and Singapore.

SHAKY PREMISE

Erroneous depictions

of science are by

no

means limited to the silver screen. In May, during the so-called

sweeps period, when

TV networks vie

for large audiences,

NBC

V

4~~~~~~~~0

S a

i

3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~4

O

U

LL

0

0

I

250 OCTOBER 16, 2004 VOL. 166

SCIENCE NEWS







aired

the 4-hour

miniseries 10.5. That

drama depicts

what hap-

pens when a

series of large

earthquakes

devastates the West Coast.

The

broadcastwas the

most-watched

miniseries or movie on

any

network

in

the past 2

years,

pulling

in

an audience of

20.7 million

on its first

night and just under 20 million

the next.

Among

sci-

entists, however,the

ratings were low.

"[My

colleagues

and

I]

saw a

3-minute

preview

about 3 weeks

before

the show was to air,"

ays

Rick

Wilson,

a

geologist

with

the

CaliforniaGeological Surveyin Sacramento."Theygot a lot of the

little things [in

the movie]

wrong, and a lot of the

big things

were

wrong,

too:"

The California

geologists took

advantage of

the wave of

public

interest to present

reliable earth

science

information. Two weeks

before the

programaired,the scientists conducted

interviews with

journalists from 30

or so NBC affiliates that would

be

carrying he

show. Many

of the interviews made local news

shows.

Wilson also wrote a press

release

in

the form of a

movie

review

for the California

Geological

Survey's

Web

site,

which

typicallygets

a

spike

in

visitors when

public

interest

focuses on

earthquake-

related issues. In his

review,Wilson

contrasted the

fictional events

depicted

in

the

miniseries with

scientific

facts. On a

reality scale

of

1

to 100,

he rated

the show-you guessed it-a 10.5.

For

one thing,

the largest

quakepredicted

bythe

scientists in the

movie,

a

magnitude-

10.5

whopper,

isn'tpossible.

The main fac-

tor

determining the

energy released

by a

temblor is the length of

the fault that

slips

during the

quake.

During

the

largest

quake

ever-a

magnitude-9.5 quake

that

rocked

Chile on

May 22,1960-a

1,600-kilometer-

long

stretchof fault

ruptured.

A

magnitude-

10.5

quake, which

would release

about

32 times

the energy

ofthe Chilean

temblor,

could occur

onlyduring he

rupture

ofa

fault

zone

that stretches a

quarter of the

way

around Earth.No fault

zone is

that

long.

In another far-fetched scenario in

10.5,

the

gaping tip

of a

rupturing fault

chases a

speeding train before it

swallows the

doomed

choo-choo.

Although

earthquakes

can

produce

cracks

in

the

ground,

fault

zones never

split open. The sides of

a fault

zone are

in

constant

contact,

Wilson says.

On the

days that 10.5

aired,

the

number

of

visitors to the California

Geological

Survey'sWeb site

was about

double

thatrecorded n

the days ust

before and

after he

miniseries.

Wilson

saysthat

the spike

demonstrates how

valuable

even shows

with

flawedscience can

be for

getting the

public to pay

attentionto

scientific topics.

FACETO

FACEWhile the

scientific

community can

use press

releases and critiquesof movies to reacha broad

audience, it is

also

turning to

movies to

provide

instruction to

smallergroups.

Many teachers use films

to illustrate

scientific

concepts

within

their

classrooms.

"Thebad

stuff is usually

spectacular,"

ays Tom

Rogers,a

formermechanical

engineer

who now

teaches at South-

side

High School in

Greenville,

S.C.

If

the science in

a

movie

is

reallybad, Rogers

says, he writes

a review for

Insultingly Stupid

Movie Physics

(http.//www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/), which

is

a feature of an

educational

Web site that

he

founded.

One

example that

Rogers and other

science

teachers use in their

classes

comes from

Speed

2:

Cruise

Control, a

movie

released in

1997. In

a

climacticscene, a cruise

ship crashes

into a dock

and sev-

eral

waterside

condominiums, pitching

people through the front

windows of the

ship's bridge.

Here's he problem, as Rogerspresents it to his class: The decel-

eration

ofthe ship, as

estimated from

frequent camera

shots ofthe

ship'sspeedometer, is

so small that in

reality

passengers relaxing

on the deck

should have

barely felt a

bump.

During his physics

classes, Rogers

also presents

accuratecine-

matic

depictions of science.

"It's arder o find

good

stuff,

he notes.

For

example,

he

shows excerpts from

2001:A Space

Odyssey to

teachthe

concept ofartificial

gravity.

n

the film, it's

generated along

the

rim

of the

rotatingspace station by

centrifugal

force. Students

use visual

clues to

estimate the size of

the space station and

its rate

of rotation.They then plugthose numbers into the appropriate or-

mula.

Ifthey do this

correctly,hey

determinethat the gravityat

the

outer

rim

of

the station is about

90

percent of that on Earth.

Outside

the

classroom,

the "Science n

the Cinema"

ilm festival

sponsored by the

National

Institutes of Health

in

Bethesda,

Md., is

a

long-running

exampleof presenting

scientific ideas to

people via

movies.

"The dea

[behind the film festival] is

to place the

public

in

a

situation where

they're

receptiveto science,"

ays Bruce

A.

Fuchs,

director of NIH's

Office of Science

Education.

On a

handful of

evenings each

summer since

1994,

NIH has

shown films

with a theme or

topic related to

medicine. After the

evening's

movie,

a

guest speaker with

expertise

in

the film's

topic

talks

about the issues

presented

in

the

film

and then

takes questions

from the audi-

ence. This year, Fuchs moved the venue

from the NIH campus to a theater

in nearby

Silver

Spring, Md., a change that has

been

attracting a more

diverseaudience,he says.

SCIENTIFIC

UPPLYProfessors t U.S.

universitieshave

built entire courses around

analysesof movies. AtJames Madison Uni-

versity in Harrisonburg, Va., for

example,

Christopher S. Rose has used

films as

diverse as

Jurassic

Park, Gattaca,

and The

Boysfrom

Brazil to explore issues related

to cloning and

genetic screening

in

his

"Biology

n

the Movies"

course.

A

"Physics in

Films" class at Central

Florida University in Orlando, taught by

researchers Costas

Efthimiou and Ralph

Llewellyn,has drawn more than

2,000

stu-

dents since its first

offering

in 2002.

The

course has

proved so

popular

that the

researchershave

developed versions that

exclusively ocus on

physics

of

superheroes,

topics related to

astronomy,

and

pseudosci-

entific

hemes such as ghosts,

astrology, nd

extrasensoryperception.

Some

researchers

n

the United

Kingdom have

suggested that

using movies to teach

sciencemight

make those coursesmore attrac-

tive. The

number of

students

choosing courses

in

some scientific

disciplines has

declinedsignificantly n recent

years,

notes Robert

J.

Newport, a

physicist at the

University of Kent in Canterbury.

There's

also been a

worrisomedecline in the number of

students

choosing

to

major

in

certain scientific

disciplines

in

the United

States, says

Robert J. Barker,a

physicist at the

Air

ForceOffice of

Scientific

Research

(AFOSR)

in

Arlington,

Va.

Although

some companies and

academic institutions

can com-

pensate for a deficit

of homegrown

science talent by

hiring capa-

ble

foreign workers,

some jobs, such

as those

in

defense indus-

tries,

require security

clearances that can

be issued only to

native-born citizens.

"This is easily a

long-term problem," says

Newport.

"Something needs

to happen."

In an attempt to

boost student

interest in physics, Newport and

his

colleagues aredeveloping an

educational package, intended to

reform he

undergraduatephysics

curriculum, hat

includes decon-

structing

scenes from

films to teach

scientific

principles.

Recent

trials of that

technique

in

high school

physics classes

garnered high praise both from students and their teachers,

Newport

says.

. - . 6 - . - S - 6

z

WWW.

SCI ENCEN

EWS.ORG

OCTOBER

16, 2004 VOL.

166 251







3

I

"I'm

kicking myself that I didn't

think of this before," ays John

PaulRiordan,a physics teacher at

Rainham MarkGrammar

School

in Rainham, England.

To boost

interest

in

science and engineering, AFOSR goes fur-

ther than

using films as educational material. It has initiated a

long-term

program that includes sponsorship of a

script-writing

workshop

for scientists at the American Film Institute

(AFI)

in

Los

Angeles

that was conceived by Martin A. Gundersen, a

physicist

at the

University of Southern California

n

Los Angeles.

The

workshop's rationale: Getting science-literate

people

involved in a project'searly stages,

especially during development

phases,

might

result

in

more-accurate depictions of science

and

scientists, which would lead to more science students.

"Muchof the science [in movies]

is wrong, when

it

easily could

have been

right,"

ays AFI's Joe

Petricca,

a director of the recent

workshop. Scientists are typically

called in as technical advisers oo

late in a

project for their input to have a substantial

influence.

Unflattering portrayalsof characters with scientific or technical

backgrounds,as well as poorly

presented concepts, may deter stu-

dent interest

in

science. The scientist in

films often is

socially inept

or has mental

problems.

Petricca

says

he's

inspired by

the CBS

network'shighly success-

ful show CSI: Crime Scene

Investigation

and its

spin-offs,

which

seem to be

boosting

student interest in

forensic-science careers.

A

dozen or more universities

recently added majors

in

forensic

science, says

Jim

Hurley

of the American

Academy

of Forensic

Sciences in

Colorado

Springs,

Colo.

Existing

programs

are

seeing a boom

in

interest as well: On

Aug. 5, USA

Todayreported that 13percentofthe

incoming

fresh-

man at West

Virginia University

n

Morgantownhad chosen foren-

sic science as their

undergraduate

major, making

it the most

pop-

ular

major

for the second

year

in

a row.

Newport

says

that a similar

uptick

in

forensic-science enroll-

ment has occurred

in

the

United

Kingdom,

thanks to several

TV

series including Waking the

Dead and Silent Witness. This

year,

80 students are

enrolled

in

the forensic-science

program

at

the

University

of

Kent,

a

set of courses that didn't exist

just

3

years ago.

Newport says

that

skyrocketinginterest

in

the field results not

only

from the

intriguing subject

matter but also from the

positive

role models depicted. "Scientists [in

the shows] are portrayedas

real

people who are literate and

sociable,"he notes.

Although media

portrayals apparently

have made forensic sci-

ence seem like an

exciting career,

can

they

do the trick for disci-

plines

such as

plasma physics

or ceramics

engineering?

In

that

regard,

Petricca

says,

he

just

has to be

optimistic.

He

argues, "The facts of science are more interesting than any-

thing you

can

make up."

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