All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
June 18, 2024 - Skeptoid
19:39
Skeptoid #941: Docu Dangers: Why Science Documentaries Usually Suck

How we decide what makes a good topic for a skeptical documentary film. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Truth Behind TV Documentaries 00:08:47
This may shock you, but not everything you see in TV documentaries is true.
In fact, the majority makes no effort to be true.
Instead, it tries to portray whatever's fashionable at the time, since that's how you get eyeballs and make your money back.
So what is a skeptical filmmaker to do?
That's what we're going to find out today, on Skeptoid.
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman.
You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that.
I'm doing something else now.
I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed.
On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them.
Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind.
No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
That's HyperFixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
You're listening to Skeptoid.
I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
DocU Dangers, Why Science Documentaries Usually Suck.
Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience, real history from fake history, and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing what's real and what's not.
Skepticism, as someone once said, is where science literacy intersects with consumer protection.
The better we understand the tools to tell what's real from what's not, the more successful we can be in every facet of life.
That's what we're about here at Skeptoid.
As you may know, besides this podcast and some other things, we have pursued this kind of outreach through feature documentary films.
Our most recent have been Principles of Curiosity, 2017, Science Friction, 2022, and the UFO movie They Don't Want You to See, 2023.
Today, I want to focus attention on the main problem that I struggle with as an independent filmmaker, and it's something I brought onto myself, because my motivation is to make a positive change in the world through skepticism and providing a knowledge-based alternative to harmful misinformation.
Filmmaking is successful when large audiences embrace a film.
And for a documentary to find this kind of success, it has to be on a popular theme that will find a warm welcome among that target demographic, including celebrities and social media influencers.
The problem is that many areas of harmful misinformation are fashionable.
For example, take organic food.
Celebrities and influencers all love their organic food, and yet every speck of agricultural knowledge that we have tells us it's worse.
Organic food has been so successfully greenwashed by the industry that every hip young person in the important cinema demographic thinks it's their moral duty to embrace and spread what is, in fact, harmful misinformation.
When I think about what movie to make next, I have a Venn diagram that I use.
It's two circles with a small area of overlap.
The circle on the left contains the important skeptical topics that I can make a difference in the world by advocating.
The circle on the right is a list of topics that celebs and influencers in the important demographic will be receptive to.
There's almost nothing in that little intersection.
A little Eldorado of ideas that have popular support and are backed by good science.
There's at least one topic, though, that is in the El Dorado zone.
So let's talk about that.
Climate change The science behind anthropogenic climate change is beyond solid.
It's a fact.
Misinformation about it abounds, and the consequences of that misinformation are devastating.
So for my goals, making a film that combats climate change misinformation would be an important objective, worthy of our investment.
And importantly, celebs and influencers love attacking climate misinformation and would elevate the film.
But why they love it is a different matter.
It's often not because they all read IPCC AR6 and came to that conclusion through careful study.
In many cases, they love it simply because it's fashionable.
They love it because the bad guys are the oil companies, the evil corporations, the capitalists, the profiteers, those who pollute uncaringly.
But at the end of the day, the reason doesn't matter.
The net result is that I can make a film that accomplishes something important, and the audiences will love it, and it will do well and be seen all over the world.
We'll have an impact.
There's a precedent for this.
In 2016, actor Leonardo DiCaprio led a team of awesome collaborators who produced the film Before the Flood, in which he flew all over the world and showed the effects of climate change.
It had impact.
As a Hollywood favorite, and rightfully so, Leo has a huge fan base.
Many of them saw the film because he was in it and had little prior exposure to the science.
In its opening weeks, it got more than 60 million views and was the very first film in history to surpass 1 billion minutes streamed across all platforms.
That's impact.
So, the value of a topic in the El Dorado zone is undeniable.
However, very few film producers seek it out because they're profit-driven, not mission-driven.
And the zone is pretty barren of money-making concepts.
They care only about ideas that are popular among the celebrity and influencer crowd, and have no interest in promoting valid science.
Ideas like Modern Agriculture is evil.
Think of Food Inc. 2008, GMO OMG, 2013, Kiss the Ground, 2020, Poisoned The Dirty Truth About Your Food, 2023.
Alternative medicine is better than science-based medicine.
Think of The Beautiful Truth 2008, A Leaf of Faith, 2018, and The Business of Disease, 2014.
New Age Spiritualism is the secret to super health and super success.
Think of The Secret, 2006, Heal, 2017.
Diet Can Cure All Disease.
The Gerson Miracle, 2004.
The Magic Pill, 2017.
UFOs are actually alien visitors.
Aerial Phenomenon, 2022.
Moment of Contact, 2022.
Anything but a Vegan Diet Will Kill You.
What the Health 2017.
The Game Changers 2018.
Any chemical in any concentration is poisonous.
Toxic Soup 2010.
Stink 2015.
We could go on all day.
Heck, anything with Deepak Chopra is instantly a celebrity and influencer favorite.
Long an enemy of science, Chopra's New Age-y quotes are still reposted to social media practically every minute.
The whole problem of filmmakers favoring anti-scientific content was neatly illustrated in January 2024 when the Wall Street Journal published an article called, These Netflix Documentaries Are Hits, Scientists Hate Them.
The article focused on two of these pseudo-documentaries, Cave of Bones and Ancient Apocalypse.
Cave of Bones promoted a suggestion made by three anthropologists that the extinct archaic human species, Homo Naledi, buried their dead, made cave art, and used fire, an idea that peer reviewers found unsupported by any evidence and which found almost zero support from the academic community.
It was largely based on the discovery of some 1,500 bone fragments scattered in a deep cave in South Africa, representing about 15 individuals and mixed with bone fragments of other animals.
Skeptical Adventure at Sea 00:02:19
The condition of the bones in the whole context of the scene is consistent with predation.
Some large predator dragged body parts down there and ate them.
The show portrayed the suggestion as fact, or at worst as the leading theory, and made a big deal over what wonderful intelligent creatures these early humans were to have such amazing abstract skills, even though Homo Naledi was from the era when proto-humans still had very small brains.
The film appealed to audiences with its sensational and feel-good claim, despite everything we know telling us it's probably wrong.
Hey everyone, I want to remind you about a truly unique and once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Join me and Mediterranean archaeologist Dr. Flint Dibble for a skeptoid sailing adventure through the Mediterranean Sea aboard the SV Royal Clipper, the world's largest full-rigged sailing ship.
This is also the only opportunity you'll have to hear Flint and I talk about our experiences when we both went on Joe Rogan to represent the causes of science and reality against whatever it is that you get when you're thrown into that lion pit.
We set sail from Malaga, Spain on April 18th, 2026 and finished the adventure in Nice, France on April 25th.
You'll enjoy a fascinating skeptical mini-conference at sea.
You'll visit amazing ports along the Spanish and French coasts and Flint will be our exclusive onboard expert sharing the real archaeology and history about every stop.
We've got special side quests and extra skeptical content planned at each port.
This is a true sailing ship.
You can climb the rat lines to the crow's nest, handle the sails.
You can even take the helm and steer.
This is a real bucket list adventure you don't want to miss.
But cabins are selling fast, and this ship does always sell out.
Act now or you'll miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Get the full details and book your cabin at skeptoid.com slash adventures.
Hope to see you on board.
That's skeptoid.com slash adventures.
Premium Listener Support 00:08:30
Ancient Apocalypse was much worse.
It was essentially an infomercial promoting the numerous provably false claims of ancient advanced civilization theorist Graham Hancock, a former journalist with no background in either history or anthropology, and who rejects much of what's known about human history and prehistory, asserting instead that some mystical ancient race of advanced beings is actually responsible for much of human culture.
He believes that the advanced race became extinct in some global cataclysm.
He also believes Mars had an ancient advanced civilization, which was similarly destroyed in a cataclysm.
Hancock has zero credibility within any of the relevant scientific communities, yet has become wealthy selling his anti-knowledge in books and TV shows.
It is impossible to read anything about Hancock without learning that he is universally considered a crackpot.
So that shows producers unquestionably knew that they were producing fiction.
They presented it as if Hancock is some brave maverick who dares to ask the questions mainstream scientists won't because it would threaten their Grant gravy train or something.
The basic problem is summarized in this line I spoke in the UFO movie.
People forget that TV shows are entertainment.
Nobody at the network cares how accurate it is.
They only care that you watch.
Although it's pretty easy for us to identify the problem, finding the solution is much more elusive.
That El Dorado zone is pretty lonely.
There are a number of topics that seem like they might fit, but under scrutiny they don't.
Examples would include things like inoffensive nature documentaries, like the Planet Earth series.
Celebs and influencers certainly love these, and any science in them is probably sound.
But they're not important cases of popular misinformation that need to be corrected.
There are scads of documentaries that, quote, raise awareness of some global injustice.
Cases of starvation or oppression or genocide or environmental catastrophe.
But these are not controversial, and there's rarely misinformation needing to be countered.
And Skeptoid is not the org best positioned with the core competence to spread that particular word.
We want the cases where there's a lot of popular misinformation and where celebs and influencers will be on our side to help publicize our movie.
What about vaccine science?
To a certain degree, that's in the El Dorado zone.
It's absolutely important science where disinformation is doing tremendous harm, and there are celebrities behind it.
But the social media influencers are pretty split on the science.
Many of them lean heavily into the conspiracy theory angle on everything.
There are wacky alternative science subcultures, like the ancient astronaut conspiracy theorists, even the flat earthers.
I'm not sure I'd devote our limited resources to this, since that stuff is so goofy it will probably always remain marginalized without our help.
When the 2018 film Behind the Curve came out, which was about flat earth culture, it was fun, but I doubt it changed any minds.
It wasn't so much an educational documentary as it was a grown-inducing lark watching some train wreck personalities.
What about other medical misinformation not related to vaccines?
This is much worse.
Celebs and influencers are nearly universally in lockstep in their embrace of unproven or disproven alternative medicine and wellness schemes.
Clearly, it's an important subject area bursting with misinformation that needs to be corrected.
But such a documentary would be largely unfashionable and would not do well.
And the need to do well, at least reasonably well, is the third corner of a triangle.
The first two are the ones that intersect in the El Dorado zone to make a good concept.
First, it has to be an important topic where we can have a beneficial impact.
Second, it has to be a topic that will find acceptance among at least a decent percentage of the influencer-driven demographic.
And third, it has to be sufficiently financially viable that we can come back and make another film tomorrow.
It's much easier to do any two of the three than it is to do all three of them.
And because studios and film professionals all live in a real world and have to make their money, they usually prioritize that.
They make a movie that's going to make money, that's going to be shared and promoted around.
And so those other goals, to get out the unpopular message, which could have a real positive impact in the world, are the first to get slashed.
Make something that's feel good, that's uncontroversial, and that the celebs all love.
And so that's my long-winded answer to why science documentaries usually suck, and how and why I make the choices that I make when we're evaluating what film to make next here at Skeptoid Media.
When it comes around, if you want to be a part of it, simply join our mailing list for info about our films.
The easiest way to do that is to go to the website for the latest one.
That's theufo.movie.
And there's a place you can put in your email address and we'll keep you posted.
That website again is theufo.movie.
Let's make the next one a good one.
We continue with a nail-biting story of life and death from the production of one of our Skeptoid movies, and No It's Not the Time I Got Hypothermia, in the ad-free and extended premium feed.
To access it, become a supporter at skeptoid.com slash go premium.
A great big Skeptoid shout-out to our premium members, including Nick from I Want to Rewatch an X-Files podcast, Jimmy in Bavaria, Spicy Morris, and Barbara and Steve Gowen.
Let me give you a shout out too.
It's easy.
Just log into the members portal at skeptoid.com and click shout outs and stories to tell me what you want me to say.
And remember, every Skeptoid episode has a transcript page at skeptoid.com with complete bibliographic references and further reading suggestions.
And they also print out into nicely formatted PDF documents that you can share.
Skeptoid is a production of Skeptoid Media.
Director of Operations and Tinfoil Hat Counter is Kathy Reitmeyer.
Marketing guru and Illuminati liaison is Jake Young.
Production Management and All Things Audio by Will McCamblis.
Music is by Lee Sanders.
Researched and written by me, Brian Dunning.
You're listening to Skeptoid, a listener-supported program.
I'm Brian Dunning from skeptoid.com.
Hello, everyone.
This is Adrian Hill from Skookum Studios in Calgary, Canada, the land of maple syrup and moose.
And I'm here to ask you to consider becoming a premium member of Skeptoid for as little as $5 per month.
And that's only the cost of a couple of Tim Horton's double doubles.
And that's Canadian for coffee with double cream and sugar.
Why support Skeptoid?
If you are like me and don't like ads, but like extended versions of each episode, Premium is for you.
If you want to support a worthwhile nonprofit that combats pseudoscience, promotes critical thinking, and provides free access to teachers to use the podcast in the classroom via the teacher's toolkit, then sign up today.
Remember that skepticism is the best medicine.
Next to giggling, of course.
Until next time, this is Adrienne Hill.
From PRX
Export Selection