Introduction and Mission Statement

I enjoy bad science in movies and television.  Mostly for the same reasons some people love bad acting and bad dialogue. It has a so-bad-it’s-good quality that makes it funny. But now that I’m nearly a fully trained molecular biologist, I feel I have something of a responsibility to do more than point and laugh. Mainly, I want so many viewers to be pointing and laughing that producers are embarrassed to let such bad science stand.

Science (good or bad) can play many roles in movies and television. Some freak phenomenon can initiate a story by creating a natural disaster or giving the hero special powers. To communicate that a character is intelligent, he or she can spout jargon or use their scientific knowledge to find clues others miss. Villains use science to threaten the world, and heroes use science to save it. Science is also just incidental. If the story is supposed to take place is a realistic world, then everything that happens must obey known scientific laws.

It’s not the role of fiction to teach science, but at the very least, it should refrain from misinforming its audience. Bad science in an otherwise realistic movie can confuse the public about the the realities of our world. It can cause the scientifically literate to lose their suspension of disbelief and take them out of the experience. Having a character using jargon that doesn't make sense perpetuates the view that scientists have some special knowledge that the layman couldn't possibly understand.

My goal is to two-fold. When a show has bad science, I'll first explain the truth about the topics they're misusing. I want to clear up any confusion the bad science causes and demonstrate that these subjects aren't too difficult for the general public to understand. Second, I want to show that the bad science just isn't necessary. More often than not, it seems to be the result of writers not taking the extra step to research their subjects. So I'll offer solutions for how the movies can use good science instead of bad without harming its artistic goals or requiring long technical explanations.

I’m going to focus mainly on movies and television for now, but I may expand to books, comics, and video games in the future. And as a biologist, that's the subject I'll stick to. (I've seen other people handle bad movie physics better than I could, anyway.) A few likely targets will be Heroes, The Walking Dead, Fringe, Mission to Mars, The Andromeda Strain, Splice, and Gattaca. As a disclaimer, I also want to point out that bad science does not always make a bad movie. Some of the shows I talk about are things I really like for reasons other than my ironic enjoyment of ridiculous science. From time to time, I’ll also showcase a movie/show that gets it right, such as Contagion.

Main posts will go up on Mondays with occasional smaller notes on Fridays.

First up: Let’s use Mission to Mars to discuss DNA and humanity.