On 4/27/2010 7:52 PM, David Spain wrote:

I blame Don Herbert and Leonard Nimoy....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Herbert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy

Yeah, but Nimoy's show dealt with borderline science, so that wasn't in
the same category as Sagan's Parade Magazine crap, like when he
predicted that the Kuwaiti oil well fires were going to kill off all the
cute little bunnies in the world or something.
And as Perfect Tommy said in "Buckaroo Banzai", Mr. Wizard WAS a great
scientist.
His show demonstrated scientific concepts via in-studio experiments; in
one memorable show from my childhood including doing an electric arc
submerged in gasoline to show that without air it wouldn't ignite.
I was almost hiding behind the couch when he did that one, convinced I
was going to see Mr. Wizard incinerated right before my eyes.
Sure, it would have been cool to see...but a terrible loss to science -
like when Jacques Cousteau tried to pet the giant squid to show how it
was just misunderstood by everyone and not really some sort of sea
monster...and the God-damned thing bit his head off and used its
tentacles to tear him into ten pieces.
Someday the footage of that incident is going to surface on YouTube.

Pat