Nearly every morning one of our local radio station gives "fun" "facts" and always start with "Scientist say " and end with something ridiculous like "dogs can't look up", or "purple is the best colour", or something equally bizarre, and they treat it like because "scientists" say it it has meaning or value, and then they both discuss it as a fact, and have people phone in and talk about it. We utterly fail at scientific education and communication in North America.
I’m not sure if it’s only NA though... just read the chapter 6 “Authority” of Cialdinis book “Influence”. People take stuff that authorities like scientists say as given. It’s human nature. The example of how this can be abused as outlined in the book are quite bizarre.
I wonder if this is CBC Radio 2 Drive. If not, there must be a daily syndicated list available to radio stations to have for banter between actual content.
