Does popular media hinder advancement in science, and does it matter if it does?

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

This is a topic that's recently hit a surge of popularity thanks to the release of Jurassic World, and it's the idea that media actively hinders scientific advancement overall. Overall, media always lags behind science (that's to be expected as science is an ever-changing medium), however this shouldn't be an excuse for anyone to wing it and fall into the trope of Did Not Do The Research.

An example of this is, of course, dinosaurs. Jurassic World is pathetically behind in dinosaur science, and focuses more on nostalgia and fandom nods than actual science (the founding of the first movie's success), but it's now the first film to break $500 million on the opening weekend. This seems, to me, to indicate that media is doing a less-than-stellar job of informing people of the science behind their media, and Jurassic World is easily the most ridiculous of these ideals. Genetic freak monster dinosaurs sound more at home in a cartoon than a full-length blockbuster, to be frank, and Indominus is just meh as a monster design. Not to mention the film overall is...well, just meh.

But this brings up the biggest issue many have with this movie; it actively hinders the public perception of dinosaurs by continuing to regugitate the same designs seen over 20 years ago while retreading the same message of the first movie. It feels like a rehash more than a sequel. About the only good-looking prehistoric creature in the movie is the Mosasaurus, which is still oversized. Otherwise, it's still very, very poor.

In basic, yes, popular media hinders the advancement of science, and it's definitely a practice that should stop. But does it really matter if it does? In my own opinion, it absolutely matters. But what do other people think about this?

 

[ButterMeister]

If anything, the people who care enough to learn more about dinosaurs will go online, discuss the film, and find out that they aren't accurate depictions of dinosaurs. Besides, most people already think of dinosaurs the way they are thanks to the original Jurassic park. And we can't retroactively change that 20 year old film.

Besides, you don't have to convince everybody in the world that science will always change. In fact, some people will see that as evidence that science is always wrong.

 

[Albie83]

I don't think that popular media hinders the advancement of science, as the study of dinosaurs to use your example is still going on. I do, however, feel that popular media can hinder people's thoughts and perspectives on science. I've seen people quote things in science fiction movies as fact because they believe that since a movie was made on it that means somebody somewhere figured that is the truth. A common one I hear is the dinosaurs have two hearts that was in Pacific Rim.

Many of those same people quote random posts on Facebook as fact, though. So you really need to take what they say with a large grain of salt.

 

[FlusteredBat]

If you're concerned about the hindered advancement of science then religious indoctrination should be your number one adversary. The media is largely a reflection of how healthy/broken society already is, granted its influence can make things better or worse.

 

[kiteinthesky]

It's not so much that media hinders science, it's just that the people who watch that type of media reject science in the first place, and they reject it because it disproves their fantasies of how the world is. There are many many people in the world who need to believe that mythical fantastical things that could never actually happen in real life can and do because reality is too dull, boring and harsh for them to handle, and the media appeals to those desires. Media doing that is not necessarily wrong, it's just that those types of people have taken it way, way too far and have purposefully dug themselves into a little bubble that lets them live in the fantasy world and hide from the reality they hate so much. One has to remember that they're doing that of their own volition and if media didn't cater to their whims they'd just find some other means to delude themselves.

Of course it never occurs to those types of people that if they would only have the courage to face reality and accept science for what it is that they could use it to create the fantasy world they want for good or for bad, which was the whole point of the Jurassic Park movie in the first place...

I do agree that there's no reason a Jurassic Park sequel couldn't have made the dinosaurs actually look the way scientists believe they did nowadays and it's honestly pretty dumb that they stuck to the old designs. Not even just for the science -- it could've done well with a modern update.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Dear OP,

I feel that you have failed to connect how your personal disappointment over a blockbuster movie to educate the general population on paleontology accurately relates to your later point which is an emphasis on how you feel misrepresentation of science in media correlates to a lack of advancement in the sciences. I believe there are overlapping points between the two which I could elaborate, however for the sake of conserving my core point I believe that science is a niche field based on how poorly they are taught and emphasized in western countries.

In school students aren't encouraged to learn a heavy amount of material in as little time as possible. They learn a little bit about everything. So when they are forced to adopt a heavy systems based approach and be incredibly militaristic with their time in learning they panic and suffer from headaches or anxiety. These hurdles that students need to overcome to just pass the first two years of college results in lots of drop outs due to the western education system not being centered around information output on singular topics. Students are taught to derive pleasure from exercising their right brain during some of their most formative years which can still be used to enable learning, however requires more time investment and effort in comparison to primarily relying on the left brain to logically make connections and compound material over time.

Note that I still haven't touched on any of the core issues which is what we do we consider to be advancements in the sciences, media, or what categories do we consider to be a science. For me personally, majoring in the sciences changed me as a person and more times than not I wish I had just pursued a career like becoming a social worker, a therapist, a youth pastor, or someone who can offer encouragement and empathy to others rather than having this disposition to dissect, cut, and break down anything into core parts in order to understand it better. In this vein I feel that law students or lawyers have a similar approach to scientists in how we view a lot of things present in the general population negatively because people tend to be more visceral and use their emotions for making decisions rather than being logical.

 

[Space Stranger]

To answer the question, I don't think the media has any influence on the hindrance or advancement of science. Rather, science's advancement is more tied to the influence of political leaders and religion within nation. Both sources of influence directly affect whether or not scientists, researchers, inventors, etc. are permitted to spread their knowledge to others. Using the contemporary example of evolution, for example, many Christians were strongly against the theory of evolution to the point where there was a movement to have the topic removed from school curriculum. Long story short, it did not go into affect and more students throughout the decade can at least understand a potential explanation on species difference. Even though now more Christian learning institutions are allowing the topic to be taught in school (I would know since I attended private school), it still marks how significant of a role religion plays in a particular society which shapes our beliefs and values.

 

[Cheerilee]

To answer the question, I don't think the media has any influence on the hindrance or advancement of science. Rather, science's advancement is more tied to the influence of political leaders and religion within nation. Both sources of influence directly affect whether or not scientists, researchers, inventors, etc. are permitted to spread their knowledge to others. Using the contemporary example of evolution, for example, many Christians were strongly against the theory of evolution to the point where there was a movement to have the topic removed from school curriculum. Long story short, it did not go into affect and more students throughout the decade can at least understand a potential explanation on species difference. Even though now more Christian learning institutions are allowing the topic to be taught in school (I would know since I attended private school), it still marks how significant of a role religion plays in a particular society which shapes our beliefs and values.

Disagreed heavily. The economy has the biggest influence on the advancement of sciences at all levels with the media following close behind. I believe that religion has been instrumental in being a stop-gag to certain fields of development like stem cell research, however has otherwise not affected the other 99% of research categorized science. With respect to evolution, I don't believe that intelligent design theory really inhibits a scientist from being a top notch researcher (many leading mathematicians are Christian). As much as our generation wants to believe that if the Scopes Trial had gone the other way we'd be inhibiting our knowledge of science beyond the horizon, the current K-12 education system is hilariously awful in terms of addressing actual scientific content or rigor that would prepare students for college.