• digital_man@lemmy.world
    170·
    16 days ago

    For me, they signify a time when Television/streaming companies produced content promoting science , rational thought, and blowing crap up.

    • wander1236@sh.itjust.works
      59·
      16 days ago

      Their show was running alongside all the Discovery and History crap about ancient aliens, mermaids, and Bigfoot, so I’m not sure about those first two things.

      • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
        55·
        16 days ago

        In its first years, it actually ran alongside a lot of interesting and significantly more scholarly shows (than what we have now) on those two networks. The early 2000s actually had some solid programming on the history channel. Pretty quickly devolved into pawn stars and ancient aliens after that, though. So, yeah, half to most of its run was alongside utter garbage.

        Edit for clarification: More scholarly than the current and last decade and a half of shows on history channel and discovery.

        • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
          19·
          16 days ago

          The same people working for David Zaslav who pushed discovery and history to be almost entirely pseudoscience and low effort variety/reality TV are currently running HBO’s streaming service, Max.

        • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
          14·
          16 days ago

          Yeah, Adam did say they would never have the same opportunity today than they have in 2003, the landscape of edutainment show is just too different today.

          • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            15 days ago

            They could probably do something similar with YouTube and a big patreon following. But they would have had trouble starting from scratch the way that Discovery’s production money allowed. Would have taken a lot longer to ramp up, but also a lot less lawyers would have been involved probably.

      • saltesc@lemmy.world
        7·
        16 days ago

        Now it’s still all WW2 revisited with “never before seen” enhanced footage, usually centred around Hitler. Clone, clone, clone.

        I’d like to see them challenge themselves to have to actually dig up some info for once.

    • plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.world
      58·
      16 days ago

      Remember kids: the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.

      Actual quote from Adam Savage on an episode of Mythbusters.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        21·
        15 days ago

        And that’s why you can’t totally trust their findings 100% of the time :)

    • nifty@lemmy.worldOP
      24·
      16 days ago

      My favorite example is of how napalm was invented at Harvard. But yeah, I hate how napalm was used sigh

  • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
    212·
    16 days ago

    I grew up thinking that. As I got older, I realized they’re actors like Bill Nye. That style of edu- tainment helped me internalize the scientific method. I loved the explosions growing up, but now I just love the humility, educational content, and entertainment. All that being said, the explosion tests they did were a good wake-up call for any young kids who wanted to play with explosives/ fireworks. Also, Discovery should have better advertised the fact they weren’t scientists. They curtailed it by calling them professionals, which is anyone who’s paid.

    • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
      10·
      15 days ago

      Why are they not scientists? Sure their profession was in special effects, but you don’t need a degree or a lab to carry out scientific research.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      51·
      15 days ago

      I don’t understand anyone starting from the premise they’re scientists. Nobody made that claim about the hosts? They’re very much entertainers who have an educational angle (sort of). I follow Adam and one thing he discusses often enough about the Mythbusters is that they were storytellers first, the scientific process was part of the story, and teaching was never really the intent even though we all feel like we learned from the show.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
        2·
        14 days ago

        You don’t need a degree to be a scientist, all you need is to apply the scientific method to your quest for knowledge.

        Micheal Faraday never attended school after about the age of 8. He was absolutely a scientist, and certainly one of the greatest. Look around and see the world he gave you.

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    7·
    15 days ago

    For me, it was: you need to think critically, but you also need to employ proper experts. They did a lot of cringe ‘science’ early.

    • EvolvedTurtle@lemmy.world
      6·
      15 days ago

      I hate the trombone episode they did For context I play the trombone

      So the myth was that there was this performer who put a firework in his trombone mute and it ended up launching the slide off

      They used a crappy pawn shop trombone with no oil to test it

      The slide should be so smooth that if you simply hold it upside down and let go of the slide it should fall with near zero resistance

      But if your trombone isn’t properly maintained All it takes is one tiny dent to mess that up and significantly increasing the drag

      Hell all it would of took is one of the producers to drop it or bump into it to dent it ruining the whole experiment

      • MrNobody@sh.itjust.works
        82·
        15 days ago

        would of took

        would have taken. Even without took/taken. would have, could have. never of. The confusion comes from would’ve could’ve.