While I was waiting for the AT&T repair guy to show up this morning (not my favorite way to spend a Saturday, but it seems like it's finally been fixed? Maybe?), an old picture a friend tagged me in on Facebook popped into my head. Just the thought of it cracked me up, and I had to share it.
It never fails to crack me up, because it's just so stinking accurate. I can't stand to watch most dramatic crime shows* on TV because of how horrible their science is. It's not just the timing, how they can get a definitive answer to a question in an extremely brief period of time that no one could actually get in real life (although that's plenty aggravating, especially when it takes me all day to get information from an experiment in the lab and then I get nothing because it didn't work....grumblegrumble). It's the failure to get even basic scientific concepts correct, things that the "scientists" on these shows would have to know to have made it to the level they're at. I could probably go on a mini rant with examples, but that would be rather boring. ;)
One of my other favorite things about this comic is how well they portray "actual science". That's what scientific research is all about: the process of elimination, the time-consuming experiments, and a surprising amount of failure and frustration. But, to paraphrase my boss, all that time and effort and frustration is worth it for that one (perhaps brief) moment of success. That's one of the (many) things I love about science and research: when it works, it's just so wonderful and amazing, it makes the aggravation and frustration all worth it.
*NCIS is the sole exception. I'm more than willing to forgive any scientific errors that Abby may make, although I've never seen any. Perhaps that's because the actress that plays Abby has a degree in forensic science? :)
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