| Mazty said:
Presenting academia for popular consumption is pointless. As posted above, that video demonstrates why this is the case. TV spots....TV spots are what editors of shows want you to know, not how a scientist presents his work. The issue here is that you are mistaking 2nd hand sources as being the actual research. This couldn't be further from the truth. Scientists don't have egos. Editors and program schedulers have to think about ratings on the other hand. The best scientific show I can think of is Through the Wormhole as that tends to offer very rounded arguments with quick overviews by the actual scientists involved in the research. Nevertheless though, it's a far cry from the actual papers. |
I think you are clearly not reading what I wrote. I clearly distinguished between academic work that is published in journals/texts and the popular presentation of it to the public in tv shows/mass market books. Fact is, the vast majority of everyday people are not going to go to an academic conference and they aren't going to read an academic journal.....which was kind of the reason for my first post that you responded to.....which is that there is a fundamental difference between the work you read in an academic journal and the work you see coming off a mass-market press.....I was never talking about academic conferences in the first place....which I think is pretty clear looking back throught the posts.
If scientists want people to understand their work, they need to make a better effort at explaining it to common people (and I think scientists are clearly becoming more cognizant of this fact....just look at how many more books are being printed on the subjects). I would wholeheartedly disagree that popular presentations are pointless. Truth is, there are some very good examples of it out there, particularly in print.
