Popular Culture – Page 18 – Southern Fried Science

Shark reporting fail in my hometown newspaper

July 16, 2010July 19, 2010 David Shiffman 7 Comments

I was excited to see that today’s Charleston Post and Courier has a shark on the front page. The content of the article, entitled “Sharks Swarming“, inspired entirely different emotions. Much of the information it contains is either exaggerated to make the situation appear scarier than it is or is simply wrong. Here are some examples:

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Shark Week video contest

July 15, 2010July 15, 2010 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

The Discovery Channel needs your help! They are hosting an online contest to help promote Shark Week. Film yourself singing about sharks to the tune of their wildly successful “Boom de ya deh” ads , and you could find yourself on the air during Shark Week! Let’s get some conservation-friendly humiliating singing on there! I’ll … Read More “Shark Week video contest” »

Heroes and Villains

July 13, 2010July 13, 2010 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Popular Culture

The following is a repost from the old Southern Fried Science WordPress blog. The original can be found here.

I finally got the chance to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog last week. After watching and enjoying, I started thinking about something. We have our heroes, the stalwart defenders of whatever, mostly absolute in their righteousness; often torn by by their duties, their beliefs, their past; sometimes high and noble, sometimes darker and more base; but almost always connected in some primal way to our own sense of self. We love our hero’s because we see some of who we could be in them.

But then there are the villains. Sometimes twisted by a painful life, torn by lost loves, driven by revenge, and corrupted by power. Often they are deeper, more complex than the heroes; capable of great evil, but sometimes redemption. We hate them, fear them, sometimes empathize with their plight. They are what we could become, if we allow ourselves to fall from grace. Most of them have PhD’s.

Whale Quotas and Sea Shepherd

June 30, 2010June 30, 2010 Andrew Thaler 37 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

We sparked a good debate over the effectiveness of direct action conservation movements over at the post “Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales?” One of the most difficult questions raised was if Sea Shepherd wasn’t there, would the Japanese make their full quota? The data presented in that post was inconclusive, because the quota increase corresponded to the beginning of SSCS’s Southern Ocean campaign, so we have no time period in which the Japanese quota was increased while Sea Shepherd was absent.

Anti-shark stereotypes in “River Monsters”

June 21, 2010June 21, 2010 David Shiffman 44 Comments

Popular Culture, Science

Over Memorial Day weekend, Animal Planet aired a marathon of it’s new hit show “River Monsters”. The show focuses on self-described “biologist and extreme angler” Jeremy Wade’s attempt to find some of the largest freshwater fish on Earth. I’ve heard good things about the show in the past but had never seen it before. After discovering that there were two episodes that dealt with bull sharks, and I immediately DVR-ed them to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I was absolutely shocked at what I heard Jeremy Wade say about sharks:

Biodiversity Wednesday – Plants are badass

June 16, 2010June 16, 2010 Andrew Thaler 3 Comments

Popular Culture, Science

Expedition Great White: A response from Dr. Michael Domeier

June 14, 2010November 16, 2011 David Shiffman 9 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

Last week, I wrote about National Geographic’s Expedition Great White. In that post, I mentioned that the practice of removing great white sharks from the water for research was controversial, and that I would ask the lead scientist in the show about it. Here are answers to my questions from Dr. Michael Domeier and his colleague Nicole Lucas. They also wanted me to point out that their website has an FAQ page about this technique, which can be found here.

Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales?

June 7, 2010December 28, 2010 Andrew Thaler 51 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

Sea Shepherd claims that their actions in the Southern Ocean opposing Japanese whaling fleets has effectively reduced the number of whales killed. What always rubbed me the wrong way about these claims is that they always compare their success against the Institute for Cetacean Research (the Japanese organization that oversees ‘scientific whaling’) Quotas. So at some point you have to ask the question, in absolute numbers, has Sea Shepherd really reduced the number of whales killed?

To answer that we need three pieces of information:

When did Sea Shepherd begin it’s campaign against Japanese ‘scientific whaling’?
What are the ICR quotas for that time frame?
What are the absolute catches for that time frame?

Sea Shepherd provides a comprehensive timeline for their whaling campaigns that indicates serious opposition in the Southern Ocean began in December 2002. For the two other questions, we turn to Whale and Dolphin Conservation International, who have produced a truly exceptional interactive graph of the history of whaling since the inception of the International Whaling Convention by the numbers. The relevant figure is reproduced below:

Check out “Expedition Great White” on the National Geographic Channel!

June 4, 2010November 16, 2011 David Shiffman 6 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

“How do you study one of the world’s fiercest predators in the wild?” the cover of the “Expedition Great White” DVD screener that National Geographic sent me asked. I was delighted to discover that my sarcastic answer of “very carefully” is exactly what the back cover of the DVD case read! I knew I was going to like this show from that point on, and I was right.

Sea Shepherd and Whale Wars

June 3, 2010February 16, 2011 Andrew Thaler 19 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture

We have been and continue to be critical of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Although their goals are admirable their methods are not only ineffective, but in some cases impair the achievement of those goals. With the premier of Whale Wars season 3 tomorrow evening, we’d like to take a moment to highlight the issues we’ve raised concerning the SSCS. Over the last two years we’ve written a number of post summarizing our problems with Sea Shepherd:

Our friends at Deep Sea News and Underwater Thrills have been critical of SSCS, too:

The above links cover many of the issues we have with this organization. The New York Times recently published an excellent breakdown of the Japanese Whaling Industry. Below are our main criticisms of SSCS: