BBC: SOD the scientific consensus! Look OUT! MEGA TSUNAMI is coming The BBC Trust has supported its programme makers in their use of old and debunked scientific conjectures to produce a "Hollywood style" environmental disaster film. In a formal decision, the operationally independent governing body of the broadcaster rejected a complaint made about the BBC Two TV "documentary", Could We …
They used to, but then they chucked out the impartiality and the public charter, then hired a science editor (david shukman), who, whilst possessing zero scientific qualifications and minimal experience, decided that "Minority" scientific views (anything that be refute AGW, for example) would no longer be given air-time on BBC TV or Radio. He also presided over the sham that was the BBCs "scientific panel review for AGW" which included so few scientists that it needed to be covered up and argued against in court
Yet, he allows this pile of cobblers to be aired.
Hey, Auntie Beeb, I think your agenda may be showing....
... they don't seem to have a clue and want to convert everything into either infotainment or faux controversy.
Scientist: The chances of X causing your child to die is 1 in a million.
BBC: But you can't guarantee 100% that it won't!
Scientist: We are 99.999% certain that Jesus did not ride on dinosaurs.
BBC: But there is a chance that he did!
This sort of rubbish made me stop listening to radio4 news.
Always presenting the "statistics" in three meaningless and incomparable forms of precision stopped me listening.
"In the 1980s, 30% of people did X, while in the 1990s it was 1 in 5. Now just 13 people do X."
That, or like the recent HRT/ovarian cancer risk increase where they scarily suggest "An extra 1 in every 1000 women will get cancer if they take HRT". The baseline, in the same piece for women already known to be at risk of breast cancer through taking HRT was "just a handful per 1000".
Mine is the one where 50% of the pockets are empty, while 1 in 2 pockets contains nothing but fluff and 1 pocket doesn't have anything in it.
Is it the worst thing the BBC has done? No it's not. But clearly there's a slide down hill. Perhaps this will eventually lead to a tsunami that'll engulf the BBC license fee leaving a smaller subscription service that's easier to ignore and much less dominant in the market.
It's depressing that the trust don't seem to see the problems with this particular programme and the appallingly low bitrate of most BBC science and technology programming.
"Don't knock our BBC - it might get privatised, then what?"
Then we can all stop being forced, by law, to spend £145.50 every year on a corporation we may or may not even watch.
"Compare it to ANY other broadcaster ..."
You mean all those private broadcasters I can choose whether or not to pay for?
Have a look what happens to people who go up against Murdoch.
Vince Cable? Got replaced by Jeremy Hunt (stooge).
Just because it isn't direct tax, BSkyB pressure comes out of your taxes from Murdoch benefiting policies. Those who try to fight back and protect taxpayers are.....removed.
That's why Putin first targeted TV stations.
That's why Berlusconi became PM, from his TV "interests"
Yes but in a way they are kept in line by the beeb,Imagine if there was nothing like it. How long before American style scheduling and ad breaks came in to TV.
Even so I( have to say its rare I watch a science program now, they are rarely done well or teach me anything. Once David Attenborough is gone that may be the end of watchable documentaries.
What are the consequences of treating it as realistic? It's not global warming: we don't all have to cycle and knit our own shirts and recycle hemp nappies. In fact there's pretty much no way to defend from such an event, short of building Dutch-style dikes (levees) around the entire coastline. Which isn't going to happen.
Without consequences, there is no cause for concern. It's as harmless as the movie 2012 or War of the Worlds.
Ask US geological survey.
If it did not have some suspicions that the big slide model of Cumbre Viejo has merit, it would not have spent several fairly fat wads of taxpayers greenbacks to establish and run a set of early warning ground stations on La Palma. In addition to local earthquake data, they supply back to USA data on any ground moves (detected by constantly monitoring GPS coordinates of the station).
If science programs and disaster movies become equated in people's minds (if the fear mongering about global warming causing 30m sea level rises haven't already) then science fiction and science fact become indistinguishable in people's minds.
If that happens they might start believing that evolution is crap and vaccines are a government conspiracy. It is too late for us in the states, but you Brits don't need to follow us down that path unless you want a return of the measles!
Great point - that's my biggest concern but I fear it is also too late for us too. I come across very few people able to think critically these days, even "intelligent" people with degrees. Given, for example, the CAGW indoctrination going on in our schools now, we have probably lost a generation. It's very troubling and the BBC has taken an active and shameful part in the dumbing down process.
anything now goes, it seems.
BBC TV hasn't been a trustworthy source of science or engineering reporting for 20-30 years. Everything is dumbed-down to the level of a hyperactive 10-year-old with an Xbox.
I have some old Horizon programmes on tape from the 80s. They're dated, of course (computer graphics and microelectronics have moved on a bit!) but the quality of reporting is far superior to the sensationalist claptrap it broadcasts today. Even Mythbusters takes a more scientific approach than the BBC does, which is hardly a recommendation.
I remember when Panorama used to have good odds of being reliable. Then I remember the 'Wifi is zapping your kids!' episode, where the 'respected authority' they listened to also had the award for 'most misleading science' from his peers. A few more later, I gave up on them.
Was it Tommorrow's World that got transferred from Factual programme division to Entertainment and promptly went down the drain? I will always remember Flipper Forrester savaging the Metalstorm gun inventor for being .. a gun inventor. Bye bye impartiality.
It would be nice if people respected Science. Unfortunately Trust/Respect is a draw, and that means eyeballs and ears, and that means money, so it's more profitable to whore it out than let it sit there being boring educating your kids or something.
Thing is... that ratings-driven attitude is exactly what the BBC exists to be the counter-toxin for. Has someone forgotten why they exist?
"a gas fireball against a black background to represent the Big Bang"
Yes. But no. But... how *would* you show the Big Bang on TV?
Of course, there is an option of just showing a 255:255:255 white screen accompanied by white noise at 0DB for a few million years or until the TV explodes in the viewer's face, but, really...
Every time Horizon shows a gas fireball against a black background to represent the Big Bang, I cringe.
So, um, how do you like those representations of the brain that invariable show vast empty spaces sparsely filled with a few interconnected neurons firing glowing impulses wildly left and right...?
The public are tiring of Climage Change so they need to be scared into believing its will happen* so that those who make money from Greenie policies (like Dale Vince of Ecotricity, who has no connection with the BBC and this story but is just an example of one of those who profit from Green policies) can carry on raking it in.
* will happen or could happen, it doesn't matter when a disaster movie is presented as science, in the mind of the public it becomes a definite, not a possibility.
"...expected Godzilla to make a guest appearance, or at very least Al Gore."
You missed the real news here: Al Gore is the larval form of Godzilla! As far as the content of the show, perhaps some additional credibility might be gained by mentioning the energy needed to generate a wave of the depicted magnitude might theoretically be gained by having sharks firing lasers into the landslide just as it hit the sea. Pew, pew!
The several that spring to mind were all land impacts. And the one that did in the dinosaurs, last I checked, ended up near the Gulf of Mexico, closer to the Pacific than the Atlantic but not actually in either body.
That said, I'm surprised the discussion did not mention mega-tsunamis induced by a large meteor impact in the ocean. It's definitely plausible if extremely unlikely. There's also the possibility of hypercanes with an oceanic impact.
Coming up on 5 years without a TV licence here, and I certainly don't regret it.
If this type of thing bothers you, take some time to figure out whether you need a licence. It's only required if you watch or record TV transmissions as they are being broadcast.
Merely owning a TV or recording device doesn't require a licence.
Watching catch-up services (e.g. iplayer) doesn't require a licence.
You do not have to let TV licence inspectors into your home, or even answer their questions (they need to get the police for that - and rarely bother).
Isn't there something on which you'd rather spend the £145.50?
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