ABC Bites Hand That Feeds It

The Media Report offered an excellent program on science, pseudoscience, bogus history and mail order PhDs today.

Few punches were pulled, and shovels were summarily labelled spades.

The host, Stephen Crittenden, on 'Secrets of the Star Disc':

More overheated rubbish from the BBC's Science Unit. Hardly a single word of what you just heard has any basis in fact, and in the old days of proper editorial standards, it probably never would have gone to air.

Lawrence Krauss on the question of whether democracy in science broadcasting (the 'show both sides of the controversy' stance) is valid:

It's exactly wrong; because the most amazing thing about science is that it isn't democratic. It actually isn't fair. We don't treat all ideas the same. In fact, once an idea has been shown by experiment to be wrong, then we throw it out. The great thing about science is there aren't two sides to many issues, often one side is wrong, and I think suggesting that for most people they can tell the difference between scientific sense and scientific nonsense, is unfortunately, and truly unfortunately, incorrect.

Unfortunately, for all the finger pointing at the US and the UK, no mention was made of the homegrown Second Opinion, broadcast on the very same network.

Nevertheless, read the transcript, or listen online.