You can always count on the Daily Show. As John presaged earlier this month, correspondent John Oliver visited CERN to do a report on the LHC, which has finally appeared. Watch as John Ellis lays the science smackdown!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Large Hadron Collider | ||||
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The best thing about it is that, once again, Jon Stewart and company have taken an issue that completely flummoxed most major news media — in this case, the purported danger that the LHC will destroy the world — and actually get it right. In addition to visiting CERN itself, Oliver scored an interview with Walter Wagner (“graduated UC Berkeley with a Minor in Physics”), originator of much of the hysteria and lawsuits. You’ll get to hear Wagner explain that the probability the LHC will destroy the world is — wait for it — fifty percent. You know, because when you have two things that can possibly happen, obviously each has half the probability, right? I don’t want to say too much about Walter Wagner, because, if nothing else, the guy is really fond of a good lawsuit. So I have no comment whatsoever on Walter Wagner’s competence or sanity. But I do know people who are utterly incompetent and completely insane, who resemble Walter Wagner in certain ways. I’ll stop there.
See, major news media? It’s not that hard!
Thanks, I really needed this.
LOL! The ending is just brilliant. Not too mature, perhaps, but still.
I’m quite impressed with how good of a job they did at making John Ellis seem like an asshole.
Ha! The ending really was well-played. “Well, like you say, there’s a fifty percent chance it’ll work.”
the final remark was just brilliant
perhaps i should try to mate with another male more often
The part I liked most about this piece is they managed to use the story critique the cable news media’s idiotic science reporting. It’s too bad that the exciting headlines (i.e. headlines which bring in advertising revenue) often turn TVs into stupid-rays.
I thought Ellis was great, but the 50/50 thing was just scary…is this guy really teaching science?
This was great! Finally SOMEONE in the media got it right…John Ellis did great too playing along with this.
[Bayesian Joke]
With the prior information that Walter Wagner has, 50/50 is probably a fair estimate.
[/Bayesian Joke]
@Pieter
Oh snap!
The sharpest part of this I think was them showing clips from all the mainstream news outlets reporting Wagner in the same way that John Oliver was — only without the satire.
They didn’t have to rip on John Ellis by airing a segment where he gets defensive.
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Would have been nice if Oliver sneaked in some real journalism while talking to John Ellis like “CERN states 5 physicists assigned to the LHC Safety Assessment Group, to include you, John, were never involved with the LHC experiment in the past. But you have been giving lectures on this experiment since 1987, and on reading your old blog you was very much involved with the LHC experiment. Why did CERN lie about your involvement with the experiment before being assigned to the LSAG?”
I know, the kind of question only John Stewart would ask, but never will.
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_the_Large_Hadron_Collider#CERN-commissioned_reports
John Ellis blog:
http://qd.typepad.com/24/
NEW PHYSICS IN HIGH-ENERGY e+ e- AND HADRON HADRON COLLISIONS.
John R. Ellis (CERN) Oct 1987
http://usparc.ihep.su/spires/find/hep/www?irn=1770012
Please! John Ellis was not defensive! He was awesome!!! Like the best kind of no bullshit straight shooting scientists ever. I loved his childish drawings especially. Great piece, thanks for the link SMC!
“Evilgeniussaywhat?” …lol, I think he did get a bit ticked but so wha? It was funny.
Hey, there’s a 50% chance I’m going to be the richest man in the world tomorrow so you’d better be nice to me.
Amazing! I wouldn’t expect less from the “Daily Show”. John Ellis was great. Wonderful sense of humour.
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John Oliver: which…is….is…cold?
John Ellis: f*cking cold.
lol!
John Oliver is one of the smartest comedians today!!! Next to Demetri Martin, and Patton Oswald. Bravo John!
Good thing I’ll never get to visit CERN.
I’dn’t be able to keep from humping and smooching John Ellis.
Well, I’m going to have to change my opinion. I’ll quit rolling my eyes at people who seem to get their real news information from the Daily Show. That was good. That was exactly what this issue needed.
“I loved his childish drawings especially”
He was drawing a feynman diagram for vector boson fusion. One of the primary higgs production interactions. Not really childish.
50-50 Chance of distroying the world? Don’t you mean 99.9% of distroying the world? That why the magnets are in the wrong place; schrodinger’s cat?
High diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump’d over the Moon,
The little dog laugh’d to see such Craft,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.
Well am still here! Am pretty sure I can see more imformation about what I wrote above , than the LHC will ever produce and I havent collapsed in to a black hole.