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poisoned by pseudoscience
Friday, September 20 2002
Since discovering love handles taking root on either side of my lower abdomen a few weeks ago, I've been maintaining a daily routine of exercise that includes a dozen or so pushups, 50 to 100 situps, and a variety of arm exercises. The results have been gradual, and I can't say when the change became apparent, but by now it would be safe to declare that for the first time in my life, I have real, defined abdominal muscles, or "abs" as Nordic TrackTM likes to call them. There're more evident over my lower ribcage, where they bulge out in a soft washboard pattern. Lower down, they're still obscured beneath a soft blanket of fat (formerly Ben & Jerry's), but when I poke through that fat with my fingers I can feel the muscles under there and they are as smooth, hard, and round as gently-curving PVC pipes. I've been in excellent physical shape in the past (in the way of all healthy adolescent farm boys), but I've never had muscles like these before.
This emerging and not-entirely-anticipated reality has reminded me of the only real conversation I've ever had on the subject of abs. Back in April my old housemate John and his brother Joe were talking about abs and telling me that they'd read in an article somewhere that straight men almost never have them. They even claimed that the article went on to advise all straight men in possession of abs to "seriously consider at least trying anal sex."
I'm watching a show about pyramids on the Science Channel. One would expect it to be a grand visual documentary of history, flavored with heaping spoonful of science. But unfortunately, I keep being subjected to unnecessary filler pseudoscience. It's not that the pseudoscience is actually pursued in any meaningful way, it's just mentioned, over and over, in the vulgar manner of sexual innuendo. How did the pyramids get to be so straight? "Some theorize that extraterrestrials had a hand..." Yes, I know some people believe ETs helped build the pyramids. And those people are also fond of shows about the Bermuda Triangle and the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed, some people are still convinced the Earth is flat. But this is supposed to be the Science Channel. I expect Science. It's bad enough that I have to hit mute during the Nordic TrackTM commercials. I shouldn't be subjected to constant talk of alien engineers using unknown technology to build ancient structures (accompanied by suitably mysterious music). The increasing infection of science programming with pseudoscientific nonsense is a sad consequence of focus-group-based television programming. Since most Americans have a very poor grasp on what is science and what is not (do you know what science is?), they have come to expect a little pseudoscience mixed in with the real thing.
Democracy has often been described as the "least bad of all bad systems." This highlights the flaw in the belief that the "majority" are somehow better able to guide policy than some well-informed minority. But then the question becomes, if not the majority, then what minority? And therein lies the appeal of democracy. At least when the majority is consulted, the interests of the nation reflect the greater fraction of the people, shallow, selfish, logically suspect, ignorant, and advertiser-distorted though their opinions might be. Democracy is the main thing poisoning science television, since most people, unable to distinguish the two, expect to see a certain amount of pseudoscience in their science programming, and advertiser-driven programming is aimed to please. Happily this poisoning has its limits, and we aren't usually, say, presented Noah's-Ark-based theories explaining the extinction of the dinosaurs. But this poisoning is nonetheless a fundamental problem, since confusion about what is and what is not science affects many important components of society, ranging from research budgets to classroom curricula.
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