Science Program Review Assailed
In his review of a recent “California Stories†episode, Terry Atkinson was obviously placed in the untenable position of assessing scientific research outside his area of competence (“A Rerun of Research, Theory Presented in KCET’s ‘Dreams: Theater of the Night,’ †April 25).
Inevitably, he made serious errors and gave a wholly misleading impression of the program, suggesting that it was little more than a warmed-over “Nova†that presented no new information.
In fact, most of the research described had not been presented to a wide audience. Specifically, the REM sleep behavior disorder has only recently been identified in humans; Jerry Siegel’s work is still in progress; Dr. Rossi’s notion of dream evolution has not appeared before; the “red goggles†experiment of Roffwarg and Herman has not been shown on television; and the PET scanning experiments at UC Irvine are so new that the researchers have not yet fully analyzed or published their results.
“Nova†has never done a program on dreams; its last treatment of sleep was in 1975. It would be hard to imagine a more erroneous review.
Television can be a tremendously powerful educational force. Those of us who work in the medium--including reviewers--are temporary custodians of that force, and I believe we have an obligation, at the end of each project, to ask ourselves whether we used it wisely and well. Particularly in science programs, where facts are the currency, I would suggest that a reviewer has no less obligation than a producer to be accurate.
Since it is The Times’ practice to entrust the reviewing of science books to specialists like Lee Dembart (who recently reviewed a book on dreaming), perhaps it would be consistent--and more appropriate--if you also asked Mr. Dembart to review science television programs. At least you would relieve non-specialists like Mr. Atkinson of the burden of delivering untutored and potentially damaging opinions on subjects in which they have no expertise or credibility.
ROGER BINGHAM
Producer, KCET
Los Angeles
