[meteorite-list] Anyone remember this?

[MeteorHntr at aol.com]

It really is a tough situation.  Sounds  like the producer didn't do their 
job ahead of time.

But in their shoes,  what should they do they do?  They brought the 
scientist in to talk about  the science, and probably brought Darryl in to talk 
about how much it might be  worth on the collector market.  As Darryl is 
promoted to be an expert in  aesthetic irons, this thing the local expert told 
them was an iron meteorite,  and with Darryl being from the big city, I bet 
they thought it would round off  their show nicely...that is until he threw the 
monkey wrench into their (not so)  well laid plans.

We would all agree the BEST solution would be that ALL  people with nice 
degrees would have their facts straight and know what they are  talking about 
when asked.   

I am sure, especially on the  radio, they have to deal with dozens of crack 
pots every day, from people  playing pranks by impersonating other people, 
to people that don't know what  they are talking about, to people that 
really are crazy.  

In a  second or two they have to decide, do we embarrass our local hometown 
expert  that is putting his reputation on the line by giving the 
non-degreed out of town  commercial meteorite dealer more air time, or separate the 
two?  Then, if  cutting off one of the two, the decision needs to be made 
which one gets hung up  on?

A good producer will know every answer you will give to every  question 
that will be posed ahead of time, because that producer will have asked  the 
guests those questions ahead of time off the air.  Much easier on TV  than on 
the radio, but still, that is how it is supposed to be done.  In  any case, 
Darryl's answer didn't fit with what they thought it should be and I  am 
sure they went into panic mode.

If they had asked Darryl about this  before the show went live, they would 
have known his stance, and could have  avoided the question with the answer 
they didn't like, or they could have  uninvited Darryl before the interview 
started to avoid the conflict.  

Obviously, TV shows have bigger budgets to pay people to do a better job  
of such screening, and mess ups on TV are a bit more embarrassing than on the 
 radio, so "flushing" a interviewee, especially if it is a call in, is far 
easier  than investing too much into the pre-show planning.

Besides, lots of  these radio talk shows are doing what they do for humor, 
and they just roll from  one topic to the next trying to keep the drivers 
awake on the conveyor belt  commute into work in the morning.  

It would be safe to say probably  the only two people that even remember 
anything about the interview would be  Darryl and the other "expert and 
degreed" guest, and I am sure the later would  like to forget about it, as I am 
sure he is quite embarrassed about getting the  diagnosis wrong.  The person 
doing the interview probably doesn't even  remember it.  And sadly, probably 
no one listening on the radio driving to  work that morning even remembers 
it. 

Radios are in business to sell ads  and make money.  They need to keep 
listeners to stay tuned between  commercials.  For them, it is all filler.  Who 
cares if it is  factually correct or not.

Steve Arnold






In a  message dated 5/8/2009 10:27:16 A.M. Central Daylight Time, 
GeoZay at aol.com  writes:
>>Amateur scientists and aspiring  scientists of all  stripes have always
faced this bias from "authority".   At least  Fox didn't give Darryl the
"Galileo Treatment". ;)<<

It   was unfortunate that Darryl had this happen to him, but on the other 
side of  the  coin, where it applies to matters of science, I'd rather have 
more  faith in  those with degrees in the fields under discussion. Maybe 
there  
would be more  folks leaning towards Evolution than Creationism for  
example...or Less UFO  sightings with ET alien overtones. Then again it  
takes a 
person or two with  science degrees to voice their off the wall  authority 
to 
wrongly direct folks  towards erroneous beliefs.  
GeoZay  

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