Evolution
News Media
John Oliver Satirizes Science — Safely
Here’s a segment of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with British comedian John Oliver that satirizes the shortcomings of science studies and science coverage in the media. It’s smart and funny, like everything he does, though not family friendly; there are the multiple required off-color gross-out moments. In case you are bothered by that sort of thing, be warned.
He hits some rich targets but there’s a curious…safeness about the satirizing. Roasting other subjects and individuals, Oliver goes for the jugular. Not so when it comes to scientists, despite shots at p-hacking, baseless extrapolations from mice to men, and absurdly overblown or misrepresented “studies.”
In fact, at least as it comes across to me, behind the jabs is a defensiveness in relation to the unsullied virtue of the maiden goddess, Science. He’s angrier, in a comic way, with media airheads and their abuse of the work of good and serious scientists than he is at scientists and others who abuse science, and the public’s trust, by practicing scientism. In fact, of the latter — the habit of giving “science” as the answer to every question — I’m not sure he offers evidence of being aware.
Now a satirical take that looked deeply at some of the unexamined prejudices in, say, evolutionary biology that we consider here would be pretty outrageous. Seeing the voraciously well informed John Oliver apply his wit to that would be priceless. Maybe too serious to be funny, though.