Bill Nye Motion And Forces

Tin can Bill Nye Really 'Relieve the Earth'?

Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson. (Epitome credit: Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock)

This commodity was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Alive Scientific discipline's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Netflix'south new talk show, "Bill Nye Saves the World (opens in new tab)," debuted the night before people effectually the world joined together to demonstrate and March for Science. Many have lauded the timing and relevance of the evidence, featuring the famous "Science Guy (opens in new tab)" as its host, because it aims to myth-bosom and deflate anti-scientific claims in an alternative-fact era.

Merely are more facts really the kryptonite that will rein in what some suggest is a rapidly spreading "anti-science" sentiment in the U.Southward.?

"With the right science and good writing," Nye hopes, "we'll practise our best to enlighten and entertain our audience. And, perhaps we'll change the globe a little (opens in new tab)." In an ideal world, a show similar this might attract a broad and various audience with varying levels of science involvement and background. By entertaining a broad range of viewers, the thinking goes, the show could effectively dismantle enduring beliefs that are at odds with scientific show. Meaning parts of the public all the same aren't on board with the scientific consensus on climatic change and the safety of vaccines and genetically modified foods, for instance.

But what deserves to be successful isn't ever what ends upward winning hearts and minds in the real world. In fact, empirical data we collected suggest that the viewership of such shows – even heavily publicized and glory-endorsed ones – is small and fabricated up of people who are already highly educated, knowledgeable nearly science and receptive to scientific evidence.

'Creation' illustrates the issue

The 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan's popular 1980 series "Cosmos," starring astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, is merely one contempo example. Tyson's show, "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (opens in new tab)," aired prime time on Fox and the National Geographic channel, received several Emmy nominations and was considered a critical success in which "Tyson managed to educate and excite viewers of all ages beyond the globe."

Nevertheless, Tyson's efforts to achieve a broad audience and preach beyond the proverbial choir vicious short. Nielsen ratings bespeak the new version of "Cosmos" reached 1.iii percent of television households, which doesn't compare well even to other science shows and educational programming. PBS' "NOVA," for instance, typically reaches almost three percentage of households (around four million viewers a calendar week), and PBS' other prime time programming commonly gets higher Nielsen ratings than "Cosmos" had. "Cosmos" lagged even further behind science entertainment shows similar "NCIS (opens in new tab)," which reached 11.two percent of households, and "The Big Bang Theory," which reached 10.8 per centum of households during the same week "Cosmos" aired its first episode.

In 2014, nosotros conducted a representative national survey in a collaboration among the University of Wisconsin, the Academy of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center and Temple Academy. We constitute that 76.ane percent of Americans did not sentinel any episodes of "Cosmos," 7.1 percentage said they watched one episode, and but ii.four percent said they watched all 13 episodes.

And at that place were really no surprises about who tuned in. Respondents who saw at least one episode were forty percent more likely to exist male, 35 percent more likely to merits interest in science, and significantly more than knowledgeable about science than those who didn't watch. Less affluent audiences were less likely to lookout at least i episode, as were those who were highly religious. Even those who expressed above-average interest in science watched only 1.5 "Cosmos" episodes on average.

Success is out there?

Engaging scientific programming could still be an antidote to waning public interest in scientific discipline, particularly where formal science didactics is falling brusk. But information technology is revealing that "Cosmos" – a heavily marketed, big-budget evidence backed by Fox Networks and "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane – did non reach the audience who need quality science information the most. "Bill Nye Saves the World" might not either. Its streaming numbers are not yet bachelor.

Today's fragmented and partisan media environment fosters selective exposure and motivated reasoning – that is, viewers typically tune in to programming that confirms their existing worldview. There are few opportunities or incentives for audiences to appoint with scientific evidence in the media. All of this can propagate misleading claims and deter audiences from accepting the conclusions of sound science. And adoption of misinformation and alternative facts is not a partisan problem. Policy debates questioning or ignoring scientific consensus on vaccines, climate change and GMOs take cut beyond different political camps.

None of this is meant to downplay the huge potential of entertainment media to reach diverse audiences across the proverbial choir. Nosotros know from decades of research that our mental images of science and its bear on on order are shaped heavily by (sometimes stereotypical) portrayals of science and scientists in shows like "The Big Bang Theory" or "Orphan Black."

Simply successful scientific entertainment programming needs to achieve 2 goals: Showtime, draw in a diverse audience well beyond those already interested in science; second, present scientific issues in a fashion that unites audiences around shared values rather than further polarizing by presenting science in ways that seems at odds with specific political or religious worldviews.

While "Cosmos" failed to attract a various audience eager to be introduced to the wonders of the universe (and science), in that location'south still value in the scientific discipline community and amusement industry collaboratively developing these kinds of television receiver programs. In order to exist successful, however, these collaborations must draw on insights from social scientific discipline research to maximize the attain of novel diverse formats, communication strategies and media outlets. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Scientific discipline and Entertainment Exchange, for instance, tries to connect the entertainment industry and the nation's all-time scientists in order to combine the reach of entertainment media's engaging storytelling with the well-nigh accurate portrayal of science.

And social science research suggests that complex information can achieve audiences via the most unlikely of places, including the satirical fake news plan "The Colbert Written report." In fact, a Academy of Pennsylvania written report showed that a series of "Colbert Study" episodes about Super PACs and 501(c)(four) groups during the 2012 presidential ballot did a amend job educating viewers than did mainstream programming in traditional news formats.

Social science can help us learn from our mistakes and better understand how to connect with hard-to-reach audiences via new formats and outlets. None of these shows by themselves will save the world. Only if done right, they each might get us closer, 1 empirical step at a time.

Heather Akin, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania; Bruce W. Hardy, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication, Temple Academy; Dietram A. Scheufele, Professor of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dominique Brossard, Professor and Chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original commodity.