[geeks] TV/book rant was: Crichton

[John Francini]

Couple of things...

Whether praising or trashing, can we at least spell his name right --  
CRICHTON -- I've seen several incorrect spellings over the course of  
this thread and it's variants.

Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion...

On 30 May 2008, at 0:55, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

>
> Harking back to the Chrighton and Moore discussions, it's science  
> FICTION,
> not a documentary.
>
> I understand that a lot of people think it's real, but it's not and it
> was never portrayed as anything but. In the pilot the first ones on  
> the
> scene are cops and when the CSI's arrive, Brass says to someone else
> "here comes the nerd squad".
>
> It actually presented a new, but flawed concept in police work, the  
> independent
> subcontractor (the lab) who was paid by the solved case. It never  
> worked
> out in the real world and as the show went on the CSI's became  
> police officers.
>
> I would no more use it for a serious scientific education than  
> watching House
> for medical advice. Or watching Star Trek for millitary,  
> engineering or
> science education.
>

Unfortunately, while I agree that CSI is definitely Science-Fiction,  
it has the drawback of being set in the *present* -- this causes the  
credulous to believe that this is What We're Capable Of Now.  If it  
were set 50 or 100 years in the future, it'd be far easier for this  
same group to realize that this is future tech, not current tech.

But if you go out and talk to any number of ordinary Americans who  
watch the CSI:* family, you'll find that a large percentage of them  
think that this is what happens in police work today -- and they'd be  
very wrong.

john