The Discovery Channel: Now with less truth
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 11:07AM Don’t ask me why but earlier this week I checked out the blog, Sauropod Vetebra (which promises “all sauropod vetebra, all the time!) and came across an interesting entry.
That’s not to say all the other entries were less interesting but this particular post was about the blogger’s not-so-warm-and-fuzzy feelings towards Dangerous Ltd. which produced a show for the Discovery Channel called ‘Clash of the Dinosaurs.’
Blogger Matt Wedel consulted and acted as a talking head for the four part series. I think the title pretty much gives it away but the concept of the show is that scientists would talk you through how dinosaurs “really” worked- the cool part is that these insights would be accompanied by cinematic photo-real 3D graphics, using leading-edge anatomy and paleontology research.
I think it’s a pretty neat idea. I mean, who doesn’t like dinosaurs? And who doesn’t like 3-D graphics depicting dinosaur fights?
The problem is, as Matt states in his rather long, yet fascinating entry is that… well, the Dangerous Ltd, (and my extension, the Discovery Channel) didn’t exactly tell the truth. Or the truth as Matt explained it.
He pointed out a few issues he had:
- Things he said were spliced so that they were either sensationalized or just falsified- “More galling are the places where animation is cleverly cut with talking head bits so that we end up describing things that were never in the script.”
- The segment is repetitive “to the point that I found it hard to watch for any length of time without my attention wandering.” – like viewers need anymore dumbing down of science.
- Dangerous Ltd. totally crapped all over his debunking of the “dinosaurs had two brains” theory by splicing his bits so that he says they do
Regarding that last point, he states:
“Do you see, do you understand, what they did there? I was explaining why an old idea was WRONG and they cut away the frame and left me presenting the discredited idea like it’s hot new science. How freaking unethical is that?”
You might think it’s pretty ironic I’m writing this post because I’m pretty much doing what Discovery Channel/Dangerous Ltd. did- mainly, use his words so I encourage you to read the post.
My opinion? Most shows on Discovery are my version of trashy reality television. I think there are some cool concept shows and I'm a big Discovery channel/History channel/Travel channel fan but it’s hard to take a supposedly science-based network seriously when they have shows like Man vs. Wild or Verminators. Bottomline? Take everything you watch with a grain salt… big duh there!
Here’s a bite-sized clip from Clash of the Dinosaurs.
Porter Novelli Seattle in Science
Reader Comments (2)
It makes me sad to think that the Discovery Channel, a beacon of awesomeness that brings us Shark Week and Planet Earth, would stoop to telling lies. I mean, that's basically what they're doing. Lying to us. I wonder what other cool stories I've accepted as fact have had the truth embellished, even if it was just a little bit.
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