Last week I had a discussion with a person who believed that because a science fiction film said that dolphins use 30% of their brain, dolphins indeed use 30% of their brain and therefore more than humans with their 10%.
It felt a bit painful but it seem like the epistemic hygine of some people in our society is very poor. Various producers of TV shows might have more responsibility for not making facts up than they believe they have.
(Spoilers for Interstellar)
I sat next to person on a flight a few weeks ago who, upon talking about physics, said she thought the movie Interstellar was "amazing" and "scientific". I agreed with her, thinking she was talking about the realistic black hole simulations. No, she was talking about scenes where the main character reaches back in time as a ghost to influence his daughter.
This person was a first-year Ph.D. student in medicine.
So yes, even when science fiction is done relatively carefully, some people will take as "scientific" the parts which have been stretched for better storytelling.
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