SCIENCE ON AMERICAN TELEVISION: A HISTORY

Book ID/图书代码： 13560015B86523

English Summary/英文概要： As television emerged as a major cultural and economic force, many imagined that the medium would enhance civic education for topics like science. And, indeed, television soon offered a breathtaking banquet of scientific images and ideas—both factual and fictional. Mr. Wizard performed experiments with milk bottles. Viewers watched live coverage of solar eclipses and atomic bomb blasts. Television cameras followed astronauts to the moon, Carl Sagan through the Cosmos, and Jane Goodall into the jungle. Via electrons and embryos, blood testing and blasting caps, fictional Frankensteins and chatty Nobel laureates, television opened windows onto the world of science.

But what promised to be a wonderful way of presenting science to huge audiences turned out to be a disappointment, argues historian Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette in Science on American Television. LaFollette narrates the history of science on television, from the 1940s to the turn of the twenty-first century, to demonstrate how disagreements between scientists and television executives inhibited the medium’s potential to engage in meaningful science education. In addition to examining the content of shows, she also explores audience and advertiser responses, the role of news in engaging the public in science, and the making of scientific celebrities.

Lively and provocative, Science on American Television establishes a new approach to grappling with the popularization of science in the television age, when the medium’s ubiquity and influence shaped how science was presented and the scientific community had increasingly less control over what appeared on the air.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 随着电视成为一个主要的文化和经济力量，许多人认为，媒体将加强很多方面的公民教育，比如科学。诚然，电视很快就提供了大量有关科学的图像和想法——既有事实的，也有虚构的。Mr. Wizard用牛奶瓶子做实验。观众能看到日食和原子弹爆炸的现场直播。电视台一路拍摄宇航员是如何登上月球的、Carl Sagan是怎样穿越宇宙的，Jane Goodall又是怎样进入丛林的。电子、胚胎、血液测试、雷管、虚构的科学怪人Frankenstein、健谈的诺贝尔奖获得者，是的，电视成为了科学界的一扇打开的窗。

但本书作者Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette认为，原本应成为对广大观众普及科学知识的理想途径，电视的表现最终令人失望。LaFollette讲述了从20世纪40年代直到21世纪初电视播出科学节目的历史，以展现科学家和电视台高层之间的分歧如何遏制了电视成为传播有意义的科学教育的途径。除了审视节目的内容外，她还调查了观众和广告商的反馈、新闻对于鼓励公众走近科学的作用、以及科学名人是如何产生的。

当电视作为一个媒介的普及度和影响力能够决定科学的展现形式时，科学界对于电视究竟播些什么越来越没有控制力。本书活泼又挑衅，展现了对于电视时代如何普及科学的一个新视角。（LYR）

Awards/获奖情况：这是一段有关科学、科学家、美国电视的历史，充满知识性，记录很详细。那些不知道为什么在电视上找不到有意义的科学节目的观众们一定会从本书中找到详细的原因……很推荐这本书。《C. L. Clements，Richland College Choice》

能够拥有LaFollette的书是一件很有价值的事情。从她的书中，我们得以了解美国科学电视中发生的种种，这是迄今为止的文献中一片巨大的空白。《Tim Boon，英国伦敦科学博物馆，Journal for the History of Science》

很多学者都试图去做这件事，而Marcel LaFollette最终做成了。继之前讨论了电波中的赛先生之后，本书探讨了电视和普及科学教育之间的关系，展现了这段历史上的种种。《Matthew H. Hersch，宾夕法尼亚大学》

“[A] well researched, thought-provoking book.”(Eugenie Scott Nature)

“[A]n informative, well-documented history of science, scientists, and American television. Those who wonder why so little meaningful science programming exists on television will find that this book details the reasons. . . . Recommended.”(C. L. Clements, Richland College Choice)

“[I]t is most valuable to have LaFollette’s book; here we have the basis for understanding what happened in American science television, a huge lacuna in the literature up until now.”(Tim Boon, Science Museum, London British Journal for the History of Science)

“To the chagrin of scientists, modern populations are not well-informed about science—its nature, its method, and its content—and Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette seeks to show why. She introduces us to sages, pundits, intellectual prizefighters, and mandarin scientists, some shy and apolitical and others relishing the chance to appear on television; producers with an eye for what goes well on the medium; and sponsors who foot the bill and eye the audience numbers. Rooted in sixty years of television history, in which there have been some great successes but where the overall story is of hopes disappointed, she tells a fascinating story of attempts to get those millions of viewers, who are paying for science through taxes and purchases, to love it.”(David Knight, Durham University)

“What many scholars attempt to do, Marcel LaFollette accomplishes. Picking up where Science on the Air left off, Science on American Television explores the peculiar relationship between broadcast television and popular science education, and its history of false starts, wrong turns, and cultural touchstones.(Matthew H. Hersch, University of Pennsylvania)

“This is a smart and thorough history of the contested place of scientific knowledge on American television. Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette skillfully revisits an array of efforts that from TV’s earliest years sought to teach Americans about science and scientists, including educational and entertainment programs as well as news documentaries. Science on American Television will engage historians of science as well as those who study the history of broadcasting and science communication, and those baby boomers who remember Mr. Wizard with affection.”(James L. Baughman, author of Same Time, Same Station)

“A fascinating and compelling story of the dance between science and television over the decades. This beautifully written and solidly researched account of scientists, scientific institutions, and the world of television is a wonderful story and also one of profound importance because of the centrality of science to the future of our nation and world. Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette has produced that rarity: a work of great scholarship that is as accessible as television itself.”(Thomas Lovejoy, George Mason University)

About the Author/作者介绍： Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette是一个独立的历史学家，居住在华盛顿特区。她曾出版过多部著作，包括《Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television》、《Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910–1955》等，均由芝加哥大学出版社出版。

Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette is an independent historian based in Washington, DC. She is the author of several books, including Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television and Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910–1955, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

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