Bruce Wilner I used to love this show. It revealed fascinating developments at the forefront of neuroscience, genetics, exobiology, and so forth.It has degenerated to nearly useless. I shall provide an example drawn from this evening's new episode, "Do We Live in the Matrix?" whereby it is opined--and, ostensibly, justified--that we could very well be living in a computer simulation.We meet a renowned Swiss AI expert. He tells us there's no need to express pi in so many zillions of digits that wrap around the globe ad infinitum: we can just put "C/d"--where, of course, C is circumference and d is diameter.Uh . . . the difference is that the first one is practical (I can measure off 3.14159... inches.) The other is purely notational (I cannot measure off C/d inches.)The same expert tells us that, "I can express the entire universe in ten lines of code," and beams with pride as he presents an extremely vague and general algorithm in an ALGOL-like PDL.Uh . . . in a suitably high-level language, I can express the entire universe in ONE SYMBOL of code. SO WHAT: what PRACTICAL, IMPLEMENTABLE purpose is accomplished?Another scientist shows some symmetric matrices to mathematicians without any commentary and is disappointed that they don't get excited. When he builds corresponding models of atomic structures, then everyone's excited.Perhaps if he had TOLD them they were looking at symmetric spin tensors within a Lie algebra, they would have achieved a meaningful apotheosis. Instead, we hear snippets of some meaningless argument about bits and bytes and shmits.(I recall from a previous episode--although it's in the same vein--that some physicist claimed that, if he builds such and such a fiber optic circuit, he can go backwards in time by 10 to the -18 seconds. I presume that even a physicist realizes that this is completely unmeasurable and thus unverifiable: sending the data from the measuring device to the managing computer takes literally billions of times longer than the 10 to the -18 seconds putatively recovered. I know, I know, physicists pooh-pooh anything that isn't physics as beneath them, but I don't think that's the issue here.)I SEE WHAT THE PROBLEM IS HERE: the producers of the show have ZERO understanding of the concepts being discussed, Morgan Freeman's golden throat notwithstanding. This, combined with the PERPETUAL problem that participating experts in TV shows experience, viz., that pieces and snippets of their cogent essays are quoted out of context, results in a stream of meaningless dribble that endeavors to sound technical in its misapplied terminological splendor but ends up delivering just so much imbecility in sheep's clothing, albeit dressy and richly ornamented.What a PROFOUND disappointment!(FYI, the popular go-back-in-time theme is utterly impossible. This is trivially easy to demonstrate. Suppose I set a box on my kitchen table and send it into the past. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE YESTERDAY! Case closed.)

RNMorton So I sort of checked in once in awhile, it seemed like a lot of it was speculation passed off as hard-science possibility (a general trait of the Discovery cable group). Then I watched the episode on the extinction of religion. The theory was that when something reaches a percentage "tipping point" it is headed for extinction. To prove that religion might be headed for extinction the "mathematician" went into a store and ordered something in a no longer used Incan dialect. No one understood him (he wouldn't have been understood using many existing languages, but whatever). Looking at a decrease in religious affiliation, he hypothesized that at some point religion will also hit a "tipping point" like the Incan language, where it heads towards extinction. Now this all assumes that religious affiliation will continue to decline (who knows?) and also ignores that the Jewish religion - a distinct minority since its inception 4,000 years ago - is still going strong. Figuratively I sat with my mouth agape. As the teacher said to Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, we are all dumber for having listened to you. Pass 'em by.

Roedy Green Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole is an insidiously dishonest video that purports to dispassionately discuss the fascinating question "Is there a creator".It LOOKS like a typical professionally made science video for the general public. It avoids the usual creationist wackiness and biblical quotations in turgid tones and heavenly choirs.But instead, it lies subtly. In its opening lines it gives the impression that science is evenly divided on the question of a creator god.Then they credit a surfer with inventing String theory single-handedly, and that his speculative math is tantamount to proving the existence of God and revealing the mathematics God used in his creation. This is blithering nonsense if you check any other source.The video explains the fine-tuning argument for intelligent design, in quite a bit of detail. This is by far the best creationist argument. However, though they don't even mention Stephen Hawking's opposing interpretations of it. Fair and balanced? Only in the FOX News sense.The video pulls the usual creationist stunt of claiming that adaptation necessarily implies intelligent design with planning and forethought, completely forgetting to mention evolutionary theory's explanation.It fails to point out that adaptation never shows any sign of planning or forethought. The video never talks about the ineptitude of adaptation. These are both key arguments against intelligent design.The video talks about the "God Spot" -- a spot in the brain, that when stimulated generates a "sense presence" a strange experience of being in the presence of something you cannot see that Christians typically interpret as being in the presence of Jehovah (the first thing that comes to their minds when you say "invisible presence"). The inventor of the device to stimulate these experiences calls his yellow helmet the "God Helmet" which likely helps trigger this delusion of grandeur by suggestion. Freeman lies outrageously that the inventor of this helmet believes his device shows that god lives in the brain. I read more scholarly accounts of his work elsewhere.The video never shows you the spelling of any of the experts' names. It thus makes it harder to Google them to find out what they really had to say. That is a very odd thing to do in a science video.Most of the "experts" were unknown to me. I suspect the director scoured the world for cranks and people desperate for attention willing to let Freeman put words in their mouth that they would never dream of saying themselves.Freeman has such a pleasant hypnotic voice, if you don't stay alert to the inconsistencies, you naturally trust his summary assertions of what the various "eminent scientists" told him off camera.Some big money was behind this carefully-crafted set of subtle lies. You cannot ascribe this to simple error or naivety. This is cunning malice.

CriticCritique I wanted to give this a 10 before I watched it. I've still got to give it a 6, because it has some good info and cg. Otherwise, please keep "the controversy" out of a science documentary show. The only speculation, or alternative paradigm I am interested in hearing about should come from someone who is considered an expert in the field by their peers. It comes across to me a bit like there is some agenda to keep 'spirituality' relevant by always making it seem like what the scientists are really out there doing is trying to prove or disprove what some religion says. Certainly less than 1 in a thousand has that on their mind. And yet this doc seems to often throw religious belief as an alternate point of view when science doesn't have a solid answer.Morgan Freeman's campy little stories and weak analogies gets trying, although I do love his voice.Will eventually watch them all, but very disappointed.