Nnnno, you can hold that position independent of your feelings towards death. I am curious why you think it’s unnecessary to do that, though. It’s (relatively) common to use human remains for destructive testing in all manner of experiments. Is the problem that they’re filming it instead of publishing the skull fracture patterns of knapped stone clubs in the journal of archeology? This really isn’t any worse than, say, seeing how long it takes for human remains to fully liquefy when sealed in plastic and subjected to various conditions (more importantly, the rate at which organs decay while submerged in that soup). Is it worse than melting regions of a body with acid to test a theoretical new skin-grafting technique? Flaying their skin and muscles from the bone then macerating it to a homogeneous mixture to test for microplastic distribution rates in the 35-40 Indonesian Female demographic? Anything that happens to remains on a body farm? Those are all real examples. Thinking what they did is somehow worse than what bodies normally go through, that’s the romantic view of death I was referring to.
Is the problem that they’re filming it instead of publishing the skull fracture patterns of knapped stone clubs in the journal of archeology?
The problem is that “what happens when a superhuman being with a ring on punches you in the forehead” isn’t exactly an important question to answer.
This really isn’t any worse than, say, seeing how long it takes for human remains to fully liquefy when sealed in plastic and subjected to various conditions (more importantly, the rate at which organs decay while submerged in that soup). Is it worse than melting regions of a body with acid to test a theoretical new skin-grafting technique? Flaying their skin and muscles from the bone then macerating it to a homogeneous mixture to test for microplastic distribution rates in the 35-40 Indonesian Female demographic?
Again, yes. As it is not for science, it is for entertainment. Adam and Jamie are not scientists, they are special effects artists. And they are not conducting experiments, they are staging entertainment. They are not in a lab, they are in a special effects warehouse. They are not publishing their findings to Nature, they are editing them for a television audience. Mythbusters is not hard science, it is science themed entertainment. Which is fine. But these skulls belonged to real people and there is a power dynamic involved in where they come from, and who buys them, and what they’re used for.
You can’t see the applicability in investigating the creation of surface indications of handheld objects on skin being subjected to various degrees of force, or demonstrating a method of investigating that question to the general television viewing public? Not even being slightly sarcastic or insincere here, I’m very curious what qualities qualify something as being ‘science’ to you. Not being in a lab excludes archaeology, and not publishing your findings to Nature excludes me the unfathomably vast majority of scientists from counting as ‘scientists’.
The priority on Mythbusters is always entertainment first, not science. It’s not best practices, it’s what is visually appealing. It’s not data driven, it’s shooting schedule. The skulls are not necessary tools, they are props. Adam Savage himself states that the goal is to “replicate the circumstances, then duplicate the results”, or in other words, create a spectical. Which again, is fine, but is not hard science. If you can’t tell the difference between hard science and television I don’t know what to do for you.
But I suspect you understand this already, and are motivated more by the excitement of eliciting a response by adopting a posture of “enlightened” objectivty, blowing the minds of us lesser beings, us superstitious cave dwellers, than by legitimately considering the finer points of profiting off of human remains or the needless destruction therof.
Hard science / soft science typically refers to the distinction between disciplines like mathematics or physics vs. less quantifiable fields like sociology - it has nothing to do with the entertainment value, presentation or perceived testing rigor. nor my own personal feelings towards you or your beliefs. The difference in our opinion seems to come down to my opinion (that science education is both socially valuable and is science) vs. your opinion (that the presentation of results reflects their value and that the treatment of human remains with deference should be a primary concern of any scientific investigation involving them)? Is that broadly correct?
Hard science is science that uses systematic observation, experiments and sometimes mathematics to get knowledge. In hard science, experiments have to be reproducible (if the experiment is done a second time, it will have to produce the same results as the first time).
My opinion is that Mythbusters is not science, but science themed entertainment, and as such, does not justify the use of human remains. I further contend that they do not treat the human remains with sufficient dignity, and that their use is disrespectful.
It is also my opinion that you will continue to reply/argue with me until one of three conditions is met: 1. You continue to argue semantics until one of us expires from old age. 2. You whittle me down and I give up. 3. The actual heat death of the universe.
It’s looking like option #2 is the front runner. Because at this point I’d rather get my own skull crushed than to continue going back and forth with you.
Trying to get to the root of a commonly expressed anti-intellectual bias, a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes “science” and (exhaustively) explaining that what mythbusters has done with human remains is absolutely inline with the normal treatment for human remains in science is fair justification to argue a semantic point. Fundamentally though, mythbusters is science. Even by the definition you provide for hard science, it 100% fits with the process mythbusters used. Formulation of hypothesis, bias-controlled experimentation, reporting of process and results. That’s all science is (and even including ‘bias control’ is possibly too restrictive to meet the common definition).
If you use the definition from the non-simple wikipedia article,
the presumably accidental misuse of a highly colloquial term is quite evident. That obfuscation of meaning is one of the primary criticisms of Simple Wikipedia, in fact. This is again a commonly repeated piece of anti-intellectual rhetoric, wherein one assumes that science can only be done by those with accreditation, grant funding and a sterile white lab (obviously this is a slightly hyperbolic exaggeration of the specifics for comedic effect). Mythbusters is undeniably science, just as much as it is undeniably entertainment. The two are not mutually exclusive, and flashy editing does not impact the rigour (or lack thereof) of their methods nor the validity of their conclusions.
Are you for real, man? Can you really not let this go? Let me break it down for you:
I don’t think Mythbusters should have used human skulls, you disagree. That’s it. It’s that simple.
How about this: you win! You’re very smart and we’re all proud of you. There is nothing wrong with using human bones for entertainmentscience. Adam and Jamie are real scientists. I was wrong about everything, it just took like 5 replies for me to realize it. I promise to print out your replies so that I can study them by candle light even if my power goes out. Thank you for helping me to understand such a complicated issue.
Nnnno, you can hold that position independent of your feelings towards death. I am curious why you think it’s unnecessary to do that, though. It’s (relatively) common to use human remains for destructive testing in all manner of experiments. Is the problem that they’re filming it instead of publishing the skull fracture patterns of knapped stone clubs in the journal of archeology? This really isn’t any worse than, say, seeing how long it takes for human remains to fully liquefy when sealed in plastic and subjected to various conditions (more importantly, the rate at which organs decay while submerged in that soup). Is it worse than melting regions of a body with acid to test a theoretical new skin-grafting technique? Flaying their skin and muscles from the bone then macerating it to a homogeneous mixture to test for microplastic distribution rates in the 35-40 Indonesian Female demographic? Anything that happens to remains on a body farm? Those are all real examples. Thinking what they did is somehow worse than what bodies normally go through, that’s the romantic view of death I was referring to.
The problem is that “what happens when a superhuman being with a ring on punches you in the forehead” isn’t exactly an important question to answer.
Again, yes. As it is not for science, it is for entertainment. Adam and Jamie are not scientists, they are special effects artists. And they are not conducting experiments, they are staging entertainment. They are not in a lab, they are in a special effects warehouse. They are not publishing their findings to Nature, they are editing them for a television audience. Mythbusters is not hard science, it is science themed entertainment. Which is fine. But these skulls belonged to real people and there is a power dynamic involved in where they come from, and who buys them, and what they’re used for.
You can’t see the applicability in investigating the creation of surface indications of handheld objects on skin being subjected to various degrees of force, or demonstrating a method of investigating that question to the general television viewing public? Not even being slightly sarcastic or insincere here, I’m very curious what qualities qualify something as being ‘science’ to you. Not being in a lab excludes archaeology, and not publishing your findings to Nature excludes
methe unfathomably vast majority of scientists from counting as ‘scientists’.The priority on Mythbusters is always entertainment first, not science. It’s not best practices, it’s what is visually appealing. It’s not data driven, it’s shooting schedule. The skulls are not necessary tools, they are props. Adam Savage himself states that the goal is to “replicate the circumstances, then duplicate the results”, or in other words, create a spectical. Which again, is fine, but is not hard science. If you can’t tell the difference between hard science and television I don’t know what to do for you.
But I suspect you understand this already, and are motivated more by the excitement of eliciting a response by adopting a posture of “enlightened” objectivty, blowing the minds of us lesser beings, us superstitious cave dwellers, than by legitimately considering the finer points of profiting off of human remains or the needless destruction therof.
Hard science / soft science typically refers to the distinction between disciplines like mathematics or physics vs. less quantifiable fields like sociology - it has nothing to do with the entertainment value, presentation or perceived testing rigor. nor my own personal feelings towards you or your beliefs. The difference in our opinion seems to come down to my opinion (that science education is both socially valuable and is science) vs. your opinion (that the presentation of results reflects their value and that the treatment of human remains with deference should be a primary concern of any scientific investigation involving them)? Is that broadly correct?
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science
My opinion is that Mythbusters is not science, but science themed entertainment, and as such, does not justify the use of human remains. I further contend that they do not treat the human remains with sufficient dignity, and that their use is disrespectful.
It is also my opinion that you will continue to reply/argue with me until one of three conditions is met: 1. You continue to argue semantics until one of us expires from old age. 2. You whittle me down and I give up. 3. The actual heat death of the universe.
It’s looking like option #2 is the front runner. Because at this point I’d rather get my own skull crushed than to continue going back and forth with you.
Trying to get to the root of a commonly expressed anti-intellectual bias, a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes “science” and (exhaustively) explaining that what mythbusters has done with human remains is absolutely inline with the normal treatment for human remains in science is fair justification to argue a semantic point. Fundamentally though, mythbusters is science. Even by the definition you provide for hard science, it 100% fits with the process mythbusters used. Formulation of hypothesis, bias-controlled experimentation, reporting of process and results. That’s all science is (and even including ‘bias control’ is possibly too restrictive to meet the common definition).
If you use the definition from the non-simple wikipedia article,
the presumably accidental misuse of a highly colloquial term is quite evident. That obfuscation of meaning is one of the primary criticisms of Simple Wikipedia, in fact. This is again a commonly repeated piece of anti-intellectual rhetoric, wherein one assumes that science can only be done by those with accreditation, grant funding and a sterile white lab (obviously this is a slightly hyperbolic exaggeration of the specifics for comedic effect). Mythbusters is undeniably science, just as much as it is undeniably entertainment. The two are not mutually exclusive, and flashy editing does not impact the rigour (or lack thereof) of their methods nor the validity of their conclusions.
Are you for real, man? Can you really not let this go? Let me break it down for you:
I don’t think Mythbusters should have used human skulls, you disagree. That’s it. It’s that simple.
How about this: you win! You’re very smart and we’re all proud of you. There is nothing wrong with using human bones for
entertainmentscience. Adam and Jamie are real scientists. I was wrong about everything, it just took like 5 replies for me to realize it. I promise to print out your replies so that I can study them by candle light even if my power goes out. Thank you for helping me to understand such a complicated issue.Now leave me alone.