1895: Worrying Scientist Interviews

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Worrying Scientist Interviews

Title text: They always try to explain that they're called 'solar physicists', but the reporters interrupt with "NEVER MIND THAT, TELL US WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE SUN!"

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Double check the percentages. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

When a new development occurs, news channels will often interview an expert^{[citation needed]} in the field to educate laymen in what, exactly, is happening. Thus, when you turn on the local news and see a scientist being interviewed, it is likely that something new has come up regarding their field of study that could affect you. How much it affects you could range from an interesting bit of information about your local area, to the complete annihilation of the human race. So, to help identify how serious the issue likely is, Randall has made this chart showing how worried you should be depending on the field of the scientist. See list of each field in the table below.

To the far left, least worried, are archaeologist and economist. An archaeologist studies ancient human civilizations, which would be unlikely to harm any modern person. Economists study and explain the trends of finances and resources, which are also unlikely to pose an immediate threat.

Following this, it shows nutritionists and eventually criminologists. A nutritionist studies nutrition in the human body, and is likely discussing which food options are healthy or unhealthy. While this may be important, it is not a cause for immediate concern. A criminologist, however, studies criminal behaviour. If a criminologist is being interviewed on the news, there is likely a change in criminal actions within the neighbourhood, be it more or less. It is also possible there may be a serial criminal working in the area. However, because crime is a relatively rare occurence, and one for which precautions can be taken, it is still unlikely to be an immediate threat to the viewer.

It then moves past researchers studying different types of organisms, before reaching astronomers. Still only very few events would be local regarding astronomy, but it could of course be regarding a pending meteor strike.

A virologist studies viral infections and their spread, and a vulcanologist studies volcanoes. Viruses spread quickly, and can be fatal, meaning a breaking news development in one's locale regarding viruses is likely to mean imminent danger. Volcanoes, depending on their size, can potentially demolish entire countries, thus having one making headlines nearby is also very concerning.

The last point to the right (most worried) "Astronomer who studies the Sun", also called a "solar physicist" (mentioned in the title text), could be really troublesome, but not especially locally. If there are serious problems with the Sun it will be a world wide problem. But you should still be worried.

The title text mentions that the reason they are not called solar physicists, is that before they can tell the reporter this, they are interrupted by the anxious reporter who wishes to know what's wrong with the Sun. This is not really something that happens so often that the title texts "They always try" has any real meaning. And this is also why no one knows or uses the term solar physicists...

Table

Field	Worry level	Explanation
Archeologist	Extremely low 2.7%	Likely just dug up some old ruins or bones. Unlikely to involve bad news, though it may possibly cause problems (e.g. if a construction project is delayed to accommodate an archaeological investigation).
Economist	Very low 7.3%	News about the economy could be either good or bad, and in most cases is just more of the usual ups and downs rather than anything cataclysmic. Could also be a report on a big stock market crash
Nutritionist	Very low 12.0%	Possible fad diet. Note that nutritionists tend not to be a protected profession, compared to dietitians. May be alarming if it involves credible information about bad health consequences of eating, or not eating, a particular food.
Criminologist	Low 26.6%	Probably just crime statistics. Sometimes just correcting people who mistakenly believe crime is on the rise, and even a large increase in an otherwise ordinary crime rate is still a small risk overall. Could be dangerous in the unlikely case there is a dangerous individual working nearby.
Ornithologist	Medium 43.3%	This would indicate the discovery of a strange behavior exhibited by birds. A newsworthy event involving ornithologists could indicate some imminent problem with the ecological environment, such as a mass migration or death event suggesting toxic pollutants in the environment. A possible reference to The Birds or Birdemic, a film notorious for being spectacularly low quality.
Botanist	Medium 46.0%	Similar to an ornithological related news. Seeing how plants are both more fundamental to the environment and more "boring" to the general public than birds; if something news worthy involves a botanist, then it is more likely a more fundamental and more impactful change to the environment.
Marine Biologist	Medium 53.3%	Similar to Botanist news. However, as oceans represent the substantial majority of the Earth's surface, and are very far removed from local concerns, anything which is news-worthy of them is likely a major impact to the environment on a global scale.
Entomologist	Medium high 62.6%	There might be a new invasive insect species that could cause health concerns, ranging from famine to blood-transmitted diseases.
Astronomer	High 82.0%	Possible inbound meteor, or perhaps sighting of incoming alien ships.
Virologist	Very high 88.0%	A disease that is incurable and spreads fast might ravage or even destroy a city, country, or (in an extreme case) all human life.
Vulcanologist	Very high 93.3%	A volcano might erupt soon, the danger of which could range from an isolated area to a planetwide concern.
Astronomer who studies the Sun	Extremely high 98.6%	There might be something wrong with the Sun, the consequences of which could range from major disruption of modern technology to the end of life on earth. The title text elaborates that, technically, the correct term is 'Solar Physicist'. Unsurprisingly, reporters (and the general audience) aren't particularly interested in such a pedantic matter, and want to be informed about the more pressing issue regarding the fiery ball that maintains the Earth's orbit and capacity for life.

Transcript

[A chart consisting of a line with double arrows that has 12 dots progressing from left to right. Each dot has a line going to a label above or below the line. Above the labels is another label belonging to an arrow to its right that points right. Above this is a larger caption:]

How worried you should be if you see local reporters interviewing scientists about a breaking news story, by field:

More worried --->

[chart shows the following titles left to right (least to most worrisome), some above and some below the line however that doesn't affect their relative positions. They are listed here in ascending worrisomeness for ease of viewing]

Archeologist

Economist

Nutritionist

Criminologist

Ornithologist

Botanist

Marine biologist

Entomologist

Astronomer

Virologist

Vulcanologist

Astronomer who studies the sun

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Discussion

Why not use Heliologist? :~) DarkJMKnight (talk) 14:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

If the sun is local breaking news, could be an impending dark age (solar activity destroying all technology) or a dark age (solar implosion/explosion/death). 162.158.79.5 15:42, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Destroying *all* technology would require something on the scale of a solar expansion (hydrogen exhaustion) Solar flares (even those strong enough to burn all life from the face of the Earth) still would not be sufficient to destroy subterranean shelters like NORAD. Only a total extinction event would be capable of destroying all technology. Even if 99.9% of all humans on Earth were killed off, there are very well secured (& insanely well funded) facilities which will survive any event short of total crust-upheaval, at least for a generation or so. Reverting to primitive lifestyle may possibly happen for a *majority* of humans, but modern military systems are such that some humans with tech are almost guaranteed to remain, no matter what terrible events occur. In other words, the wealthiest technocratic elite aren't going to die off any time soon. 172.68.58.125 00:59, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Which makes me wonder why only a local reporter is covering the story. Sounds like a media beat-up. The joke appears to depend more on someone's imagination than on the actual news story. 198.41.238.34 23:10, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Everyone else is dead except for the reporter who happens to be beret guy

Marine biologist is probably about oil spills or coral reefs/fish dying etc, rather than invasive species --141.101.99.209 16:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

The explanation for "ornithologist" uses "avian dinosaurs" instead of "birds." There's a link to the wikipedia page for birds, but it's still a potentially confusing inside joke. 172.68.54.106 19:01, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

The reference to "ornithologist" is almost certainly a reference to Hitchcock's "The Birds" 172.68.253.209 01:52, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Definitely, rather than the obscure Birdemic movie --141.101.69.81 06:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

So, wait: worried about what the hell is so wrong with interviewers for them to actually want to talk to these kinds of researchers; or about what is happening to the world are we all going to die is it the end times? 162.158.79.71 19:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

This seems to be inspired by horror and disaster movies, so talking to a volcanologist would suggest that a volcano is about to blow and make the local town the next Pompeii. An ornithologist means the birds are about to go psycho like in The Birds (if we're going to list obscure things nobody has ever heard of, I'd put forward a certain episode of a show called Cybersix), etc. That's what this is talking about. So, end times. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:45, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

The solar physicist would most likely be talking about an incoming solar flare, which could shut down the electric grid, satellites, and a bunch of other stuff, potentially within minutes, making it the most pressing of the issues. 162.158.75.112 01:11, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I think economists and nutritionists are at the lower end for being notoriously wrong in their predictions --141.101.69.81 06:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Wow, this comic came on the morning right after the night in which I had a terrifying nightmare about the sun going supernova. I'm SERIOUSLY spooked. --162.158.92.148 08:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Well don't worry, the sun is too small to go Super nova. My nightmare as a kid was that it swelled up and swallowed the Earth... This will probably happen, but in 5 bill. years fro now. But when you are 6 years old that is not a number that makes any sense, and I had just heard about the death of the sun :D --Kynde (talk) 09:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Bayes! Uuuh-vey! Considering you should pre-multiply with the probability that the desaster happens in the first place (which is rather unlikely for the sun), I definitely would be worried with the economist most. (Mkay, big stock crashes are as probable as volcano eruptions, but I don't live near one.) 141.101.104.29 10:10, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

But economists are interviewed before and after every meeting of the [Federal Reserve / Bank of England / whoever] discussing whether to change interest rates. That's a lot of non-critical interviews. 162.158.34.76 10:52, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

If this is a joke about disaster movies like I think it is, then the probability of a disaster happening is basically 1, then this scale becomes a question of how scary the disaster is. I, for one, definitely think Jaws is a more scary announcement than anything an economist can come up with. 172.68.54.112 15:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is a joke about disaster movies not a serious scale. So Marine Biologist is pretty worrying because it's a shark attack or a giant octopus. Ornithologist is scary because of the birds, astronomers are meteors, etc. 172.68.54.112 15:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

This explanation seems pretty confused - the main explanation seems to imply that we're talking about real life, while the table underneath suggests we're dealing with 'movieland' (e.g. an ornithologist in real life is more likely to be talking about a population fall than 'strange behaviour'). My own take is that it's all talking about real life except for the last entry / title text, which is the punch line, and is referencing 'movieland'.162.158.155.32 11:47, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

What about the missing entries? Mathematician: "the discrete logarithm problem has been solved" (eCommerce becomes insecure). Divad27182 (talk) 20:29, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking- after all the heavy handed AGW talk during the campaign, Climatologist is strangely missing from the list.Seebert (talk) 20:54, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

172.68.253.89 23:11, 28 September 2017 (UTC) I can think of one speciality worse: nuclear physicist. Like the Sun, but localised. Imagine how local people must have thought when they were informed of the Fukushima Daiichi plant being compromised in 2011.

I would personally put Criminologist up among the top 4 (depending on how much I believe this is who they'd talk to for a serial killer), and everything else from Entomologist on down would be tied with Archeologist, with Nutritionist perhaps lower (nutritionists never agree, people just listen to the ones saying something they like, so I figure they all need to be taken with a grain of salt except when there's a majority opinion). Seems like these are more influenced by disaster / horror / thriller movies, LOL! Like Ornothogists rate high because of The Birds (which is famous and by a famous director, never heard of that other one, how does it rate a mention?) P.S. The first two comments got doubled up, cleaned it up before it got worse. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:20, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

People who aren't worried about interviewing the archaeologist clearly need to watch more The Mummy and Indiana Jones movies. And Alien, for that matter. 198.41.238.52 01:59, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Wow, I got a completely different joke when I read this one. My initial interpretation of the comic was how worried we should all be that the (presumably scientifically illiterate) reporter was going to mangle the science contained in the interview in the interest of sensationalism and selling a news story. Not that your all's' interpretation isn't perfectly valid, but given Randall's previous send ups of poor scientific reporting, that's the direction my mind went first.172.68.143.246 22:12, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I suggest we add this article about the spelling of Archaeologist and Archeologist https://web.archive.org/web/20091205105622/http://www.saa.org/ForthePublic/Resources/OtherUsefulResources/Whyaretheretwodifferentspellingsarchaeology/tabid/1078/Default.aspx 172.68.211.88 01:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC) I added a funny citation needed to the part about the Sun. It's obvious enough to warrant one in my opinion.--172.69.62.221 19:10, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

"...regarding the fiery ball that maintains the Earth's orbit and capacity for life." — To be honest, this is overkill. There aren't that many things that can go wrong with the Sun to make the orbit different without affecting the capacity for life. And any number (including suddenly becoming a solar-mass black hole for... reasons(?)) that would definitely mess about with habitability but not actually change the orbit appreciably. Orbital changes are most likely due to other factors entirely, this side of being engulfed by the expaning solar atmosphere (which would be a herald of unhealthy conditions long before that). 172.70.90.121 13:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel like many of the explanations on the left end of the scale are inaccurate given that this is BREAKING news specifically. With the economist, although it mentions it might be a crash, it would almost certainly be a crash if it's breaking. For a nutritionist, I feel like the joke there has to do with something being dangerous to eat, given that it's breaking (and more worrisome than an economic crash.) For a criminologist, given that its an interview, and not directly *handling* the criminal, this one could certainly be a loose criminal (again, given that it's breaking.) 172.71.150.181 08:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Aside from there always being the possibility of "Breaking News: Somebody just released the results of a long awaited report (and we haven't anything more world-shattering to tell you right now, but we're a 24-hour news channel and we'll broadcast what we get, when we get it...)", I can see how you could also improve the treatment of some. Feel free to try to improve as you see fit.

Though 'boring' crime statistics might indeed be of the major newsworthy nature (it's the point at which the government/police/etc are 'proven' officially good (or, probably, bad) at their job by identifying some simplistic number that compares well(/badly) with the number from the last time they released something like this). It's bread and butter for those who report broad-stroke things. Especially if those broad-strokes support their editorial worldview, whatever that might be...

"Can't you see? Burglaries are up! _{Robberies and kidnappings are both are way down, but} I blame the government for the increase in crime, _{by which I mean just the robberies, let us skip over those other figures. The lowering of robberies and kidnappings is clearly due to robbers and kidnappers deciding to do other things, like} Burglary!!! Beware of burglars! And blame this government _{for concentrating on anti-robbery and anti-kidnapping measures, which turns out to be 'useless' because those are the crimes nobody is even committing, they should have actually been attempting to stop} All! These! Burglars!"

What else would a (tame) criminologist be telling us? Generally "yes, this particular newsworthy crime of a celebratory being forced to sign an autograph, even though they were trying to relax at the beach, seems to indicate a pattern as ..." or "...the trend of being blackmailed for wearing black socks on the golf-course is a fairly new tactic by extortionists, that we had not seen even recorded until just five years ago, but now seems to affect tens of people a year" is more their thing. Whereas going into 'active' analysis such as "we consider the individual who did this to be aged 40-45, a non-denomonational religious background and childhood history of stuttering" or "we believe they escaped by stolen tram to the north of the city, where we are currently concentrating our searches" are more the realm of forensic pathologists/etc (chanelled by the figurehead investigating officer or designated press-relations official), rather than drafting in a person who studies crime trends. (Unless it's off the bat by the news channel, who have their 'pet crime expert' on call and don't care much so long as he says things that they consider news.)

Just to deconstruct that one item. Doubtless there's multiple interpretations, and (if you think you can make a reasonable case for them) you are free to edit things accordingly. Briefer than this reply, ideally! ;) 141.101.99.33 15:16, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not particularly familiar with American news broadcasts and don't know how "inflationary" they might use actual breaking news but wouldn't breaking news be concerning in any case? Granted, I don't watch any broadcast TV but the last breaking news I can remember was 9/11. COVID-19 was very prevalent in the news, of course, but it wasn't breaking iirc. What I'm saying: The current explanation seems to fail completely in the "breaking" aspect. As I'm not confident enough in regards to breaking news on (local) TV broadcasts in the US I cannot really improve here but I'll add the incomplete tag. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 09:30, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't "Breaking" news just mean "new" news, or do US news services actually say "Breaking News" sometimes? I don't live in the USA so please verify this. PDesbeginner (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

According to the addition someone made (Thanks!) it is apparently used for both. Which would explain why noone bothered. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 06:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks!PDesbeginner (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

tis simpler now :) --162.158.74.69 14:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

'Twas. But you(?) just snipped many things without clear reasoning. Could probably be edited down (or the cross-compararisons noted in the table), but I've reverted your big-snip.

I also corrected the anchor to the table (probably, without checking, it was headed as "Table" beforehand, so I updated the link to the currently used anchor-text). It's more discriminate tweaks like this that are needed. I'm sure the pre-table prose can indeed be simplified (or folded into other bits) but not by just deleting it and leaving a smiley comment here. 172.69.194.121 15:38, 19 February 2024 (UTC)