Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 61 of the Ecofictology podcast! This episode was really just a giant brain dump of things that I had been thinking about, lots of ideas and mostly questions about how important is scientific accuracy in fiction. We’ve all had that experience where we read something outside of our field of expertise and think it’s really cool and well researched and then read something inside our field and think, well this would never happen its entirely unrealistic. But how much artistic license could we give the author in order to make it a compelling story? Where do we put those boundaries? And it probably depends on what the purpose of the piece of fiction is: to teach or not to teach? I filmed this collection of questions in two parts but have combined them together here so you can be overloaded with questions all at once, you lucky ducks, and I first talk about fiction where science communication is the goal and something called the CSI effect, and then about fiction that really isn't trying to teach you anything, but might have unintended consequences anyway of not being accurate or realistic. I talk about environmental disaster films and films that demonise predators like Jaws. In fact, I go on a bit of a rant about it. If you’d rather watch me do that than listen, you can find parts 1 and 2 linked in the shownotes. Also, if you have thoughts on this topic, please reach out to me because it’s something i really enjoy talking about! Enjoy the rant
How important is scientific accuracy in fiction? | Science Communication | CSI effect | Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOoOTtKGh_k&list=PLErvk5p2-eWrrcYOqiDbHPufF5XR3sr94&index=20
Scientific Accuracy in Fiction | Anti-Ecofiction | Demonisation of predators | Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIo0wBY6sw&list=PLErvk5p2-eWrrcYOqiDbHPufF5XR3sr94&index=21
CSI Effect papers
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1163231 https://www.jstor.org/stable/29762978 https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/7381446/stith_roane_the_csi_effect-_us_news_and_world_report-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1645362650&Signature=LBN6D1TpQD7LDReCEI0jrtaty1n6x2NexOD1ARFzP3Rpu7dw~tNid8IToaTdoelXRgS21JZK0lvZ8-J7Jk9VaQWdqULiqz31WJYu4YUI0hi83Fgw0AKTfBw8EoDy13HP0JpVtStAGan10uEkid~jLLwgF0MXDaW-qFolPobH-X3wUftnvGi5kHc8shEKXLj7LpNvhYuquu4FQ0B-~NpeWXOB~pcxpfJsezIl~J9ki2EAZBB5H8khiM6V5SKeEvKF7obE4CjPhXXKgrKUdzAqBvEx~zKanFVyc4MZo2NmIyHQclhD6Y3eAvuLEQ5TsY9xSd7nRQjtaCSGQrpS-ONb0Q__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=themis https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/csi-effect-does-it-really-exist
Environmental Scientists on Vanity Fair
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz42l-KZgJo
Article on the effect of Jaws https://daily.jstor.org/sharks-before-and-after-jaws/#:~:text=The%20blockbuster%20Jaws%20(1975)%20provoked,think%20of%20sharks%20before%20then%3F&text=It%20lives%20to%20kill.,A%20mindless%20eating%20machine.
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