Why mythbusters is bad science




















Since Adam and Jamie and the other MythBusters are human, then they are scientist. Now, you might argue that they are terrible scientists in the same way you would say someone is a terrible singer. However, I don't think they are terrible. Although there are some problems, there are somethings the MythBusters do quite well.

In particular, they are usually very careful to only change one variable at a time. They will go through great lengths and great budgets to get two identical cars before smashing one. Also, they are usually very careful with their data collection.

When possible, they record the data with multiple cameras or multiple pressure sensors just to make sure they get the data. This comes straight from the MythBusters themselves :. We won't stand by our results—you can't with a data set of one, and two, and five.

But we do stand by our methodologies. That's not what science does. Science is all about building models based on actual real data. The MythBusters collect real data - but they don't always build a model. Of course real models in science change as well. The other reason is that cabin 1 could actually be haunted.

One central tenet of science that is often omitted from the classroom is the importance of repeatability. In science, one person or team publishes its findings, and other people or teams seek to recreate the results. This is what sets the scientist apart from seer, shaman, and oracle who purport to have a unique ability unable to be taught or communicated to others. Lack of repeatability is often the deciding factor in the collective rejection by the scientific community of a new claim.

The unique nature of what was dubbed the Wow! In , scientists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann claimed to have achieved cold fusion: the fusion of heavy hydrogen at room temperature. The claim caused a global sensation, promising to usher in an era of cheap, clean, limitless nuclear power. However, the inability of others to obtain the same results quickly led the scientific community to excoriate cold fusion proponents [ 21 ]. Indeed, the failure of other scientists to reproduce the results claimed by Pons and Fleischmann dealt a credibility blow so severe that the entire field has never recovered and is even today looked upon by the overwhelming majority of scientists as little more than alchemy.

The importance of repeatability is frequently emphasized on MythBusters. The build team tests the myth that plants are conscious and capable of exhibiting emotions, such as fear and anger, detectable by polygraph.

When subjecting plants connected to bioelectrical monitoring equipment to physical abuse, the build team initially obtains some startling results that seem to indicate that the myth has some validity. However, upon further testing, they are unable to duplicate the surprising results.

Understanding the scientific method and how to use it is more widely applicable and transferrable than the accumulation of disparate facts that can be recalled on a whim [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. While formal student assessment was not conducted, feedback via informal conversation showed increased student confidence in identifying experimental controls and greater appreciation of the importance of controls in experiment design following the classroom activity we designed to introduce the scientific method utilizing myths from the show.

MythBusters communicates the scientific method proposing a hypothesis, designing and carrying out an experiment, etc. Educators are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the show, starting with the episodes mentioned herein.

In addition, the Science Channel has announced that it is relaunching the show with new hosts to be determined through its new reality show Search for the Next MythBusters.

Also, build team members Tory, Kari, and Grant will be investigating unusual events from pop culture, science, and history in the Netflix original White Rabbit Project. With reruns, a reboot, a spin-off, and a touring exhibition, the final pedagogical legacy of MythBusters is not yet written. Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3. Help us write another book on this subject and reach those readers.

Login to your personal dashboard for more detailed statistics on your publications. Edited by Yehudith Weinberger. We are IntechOpen, the world's leading publisher of Open Access books. Built by scientists, for scientists. Our readership spans scientists, professors, researchers, librarians, and students, as well as business professionals. Downloaded: Abstract All too often, high school—and even university—students graduate with only a partial or oversimplified understanding of what the scientific method is and how to employ it.

Keywords science education television science entertainment popular science MythBusters scientific method repeatability objectivity experimental design. What is Bullet Proof? What is Bomp Proof? Table 1. Synopsis of myths discussed herein to be consulted by the reader for clarification. More Print chapter. How to cite and reference Link to this chapter Copy to clipboard. Cite this chapter Copy to clipboard Erik A.

Zavrel December 20th Available from:. Over 21, IntechOpen readers like this topic Help us write another book on this subject and reach those readers Suggest a book topic Books open for submissions. More statistics for editors and authors Login to your personal dashboard for more detailed statistics on your publications.

Access personal reporting. More About Us. A person can increase the chances of surviving an underwater explosion by floating on his back at the surface rather than diving or treading water. Cockroaches on the only organisms able to survive the radiation exposure from the fallout of a nuclear war.

Tested whether men or women are better at various tasks including reading facial expressions driving and cooling. A sufficiently cloese person will have his internal organs protected from a bullet by the overlying layer of fat.

Consumption of alcohol can make one perceive others as more physically attractive than while sober. A malfunctioning pressure release can cause a water heater to explode through the multiple floors of a house like missile. A room filted with flammable gas can be made to explode by ignitting a magazine with a toaster. Various objects including tables, dumpsters, cars, and cinderblock walls will prodect a person from an explosion.

A system of mirros can redirect sunlight to illuminate a tomb suffieciently to navigate safely through. A sinking ship generates a vortex powerful enough to suck people in the sorrounding water down with it.

It's possible to use a motorcycle to pull a tablecloth free of a banquet table without distubing a single place setting. A person can surf on a wave generated by dropping a few pound of explosives in a body of water.

An attempted assassination of Hitler failed because the explosion occurred in an aboveground room with windows and not in an enclosed bunker. WWI trenches were built with right angle corners to limit the prooagation of shock waves. Mythbusters gives kids all over the world the impression that an explosion is science which it almost never is. And no scientist would call them scientists.

Maybe producers shoehorn in C4 where it has no reason being though fun to watch. Undoubtedly the show has to find some kind of balance between entertainment and enlightenment that still delights audiences.

No, Mythbusters is rarely science. But they know this. In public appearances and on the show, the hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman admit that what they are doing is not always science.

I have even asked them directly. Adam continued on to address the crowd after I asked my question, though I was sure he was speaking directly to me. Instead of trying to do peer-reviewed science, the Mythbusters try their hardest to promote scientific thinking and skepticism first and foremost. Teaching a whole generation of kids, like myself, how to hold up our beliefs to the light of experiment and empiricism instead of faith and fixed beliefs, will arguably go much further than spending the extra time to smash together 50 cars instead of five.

The scientific skepticism that the Mythbusters have slipped into the show under all the exhaust and explosions is more important now more than ever. Climate change denial, anti-vaccination proponents, creationist teachers, faith healers, fake bomb detector peddlers , psychic frauds, alternative medicine pushers…we need scientific thinking.

We need a generation of kids who think an experiment is more important than a preconceived notion or an argument from authority. All of these rifts between science and pseudoscience are controversial, but Mythbusters sidesteps all the potential aggravation to get in on the ground floor.

A wave of science-based decisions follows science-based reasoning. If we want to keep real science in our public schools, if we want public health measures to stand firm against bad ideas, Mythbusters gives viewers the basic tools to do so. And by playing scientists on TV, the Mythbusters have done more for dispelling the white lab coat look and dorky disposition of scientists than any communication effort in my memory. They often fail to achieve real science, but failure is always an option.

When science writers and scientists gripe about the lack of actual science on Mythbusters , most of these people are indeed fans of the show. I can point out a flaw here or there, but I will keep coming back next week. To their credit, Mythbusters is probably the only show on TV that will go back and redo a test if they think they got it wrong.

A critique of the science is not quite the same as a bad TV review.



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