Our conceptual understanding of the world around us is shaped by our experiences, often in subtle ways. In this media-dominated world, the public’s predominant exposure to science comes from science fiction in popular culture, especially TV and movies. Scientific concepts (and the scientists themselves) are portrayed in negative, dismissive, childish, and often completely inaccurate ways.
But is this just harmless fun or is pop culture influencing the conceptual understanding of scientific topics amongst the public? Many others have weighed in on this topic, most notably Phil Plait (a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer). So why have another blog about it? I teach a gen. ed. course at Wesleyan on this very topic (ASTR 108). In preparation, I watch countless movies and TV shows and read stacks of books and short stories. This blog is an occasionally updated journal of that process.
Caveat: While I am a professional astronomer and have been an avid consumer of pop culture my whole life, I am not an expert on film, fiction, media, etc. All opinions expressed on this site are mine, though all facts expressed on this site belong to everyone (and will have citations as time allows).