science in popular culture a reference guide

SCIENCE IN
POPULAR CULTURE:
A Reference Guide
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
GREENWOOD PRESS
SCIENCE IN
POPULAR CULTURE

SCIENCE IN
POPULAR CULTURE
A Reference Guide
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Riper, A. Bowdoin.
Science in popular culture : a reference guide / A. Bowdoin Van Riper.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–313–31822–0 (alk. paper)
1. Science in popular culture. I. Title.
Q172.5.P65V36 2002
306.4'5—dc21 2001055616
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright ᭧ 2002 by A. Bowdoin Van Riper
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001055616
ISBN: 0–313–31822–0
First published in 2002

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
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Printed in the United States of America
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The paper used in this book complies with the
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Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10987654321
to Julie Newell
colleague • wife • inspiration

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
xi
Conventions Used in This Book
xiii
Introduction
xv
Science in Popular Culture
1
Acceleration
3
Action and Reaction, Law of
5
Alternate Worlds
7
Androids
10
Atomic Energy

13
Chimpanzees
18
Cloning
21
Comets
27
Computers
30
Cryonics
35
Cyborgs
38
Darwin, Charles
41
Death Rays
45
Dinosaurs
48
Dolphins
53
Dreams
56
viii Contents
Earthquakes
59
Eclipses
63
Einstein, Albert
66

Electricity
69
Elephants
73
Epidemics
76
Evolution
80
Evolution, Convergent
84
Evolution, Human
87
Experiments
91
Experiments on Self
95
Extinction
98
Flying Cars
101
Food Pills
104
Franklin, Benjamin
107
Galileo
111
Genes
115
Genetic Engineering
119

Gorillas
123
Gravity
126
Houses, Smart
132
Ideas, Resistance to
135
Inertia
139
Insects
141
Insects, Giant
147
Intelligence, Animal
150
Intelligence, Artificial
153
Intelligence, Human
156
Life, Extraterrestrial
161
Contents ix
Life, Origin of
166
Lightning
169
Longevity
173
Magnetism

176
Mars
179
Matter Transmission
183
Meteorites
186
Mind Control
190
Miniaturization
193
Miracle Drugs
196
Moon
199
Mutations
203
Newton, Isaac
206
Organ Transplants
210
Prehistoric Humans
213
Prehistoric Time
217
Psychic Powers
220
Race
223
Radiation

229
Relativity
232
Religion and Science
235
Reproduction
239
Robots
242
Scientific Theories
248
Sharks
252
Space Travel, Interplanetary
256
Space Travel, Interstellar
262
Speed of Light
268
Speed of Sound
271
x Contents
Superhumans 274
Time Travel 279
UFOs 284
Vacuum 287
Venus 290
Volcanoes 294
Whales 298
General Bibliography 301

Index 303
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist if Debra Adams, an acquisitions editor at
Greenwood Publishing Group, had not seen a need and set out to fill it.
The concept and basic structure of the book are hers, and her astute
suggestions during the writing process have shaped countless details of
its format, content, and style. We have never met face to face, but our
interactions by phone and e-mail have been models of the writer-editor
partnership.
Production editor Megan Peckman and her staff have also been a great
help, especially in guiding me through the intricacies of choosing illus-
trations. Copyeditor Pelham Boyer artfully improved my prose in many
places and caught several errors of fact that had slipped by me.
Over the year and a half it took to write Science in Popular Culture,
friends, colleagues, and family members have patiently answered what
must have seemed like an endless series of bizarre questions. They have
also given me places to write, editorial advice, technical expertise, and a
chance to fine-tune my writing style by “test driving” parts of the book
as members of its target audience. Thanks, in alphabetical order, to: John
Lockhart, Joe Mundt, Julie Newell, Alan Riley, Judy Riley, John Szucs,
Jan Van Riper, Tony Van Riper, James Whitenton, and those whose
names I have inevitably forgotten. All have helped to make this a better
and more complete book, and all have my heartfelt thanks and appre-
ciation.
I also owe three other debts, less concrete but no less significant. The
first is to my daughter Katie, now six, who enriched the book by helping
me to rediscover the world of children’s entertainment. The second is to
Jim Berkowitz, pop culture maven extraordinaire, who long ago taught
me to read what is written below the surface of popular culture. The
third is to the dedicated creators of pop culture Web sites, who put the

answers to seemingly unanswerable questions (“What’s the name of that
cartoon where Bugs Bunny is trying to fly the giant plane?”) at my fin-
gertips. The Internet may not have transformed the world, but it has
surely transformed the study of popular culture.

CONVENTIONS USED IN
THIS BOOK
The metric system, though virtually universal in science, is still unfa-
miliar to most Americans. All measurements in this book are, therefore,
given in the English system.
Dates given for creative works reflect first publication for books, plays,
and stories; first release for movies; first network run for TV series; and
the equivalents for other media. All works are listed by their U.S. titles.
Names of book authors are given as they appear on the title page, re-
gardless of the author’s real name (e.g., Mark Twain, not Samuel L.
Clemens). Popular songs, unless otherwise specified, are attributed to the
songwriters rather than to the performers. Names of movie and televi-
sion characters are followed, in parentheses, by the names of the actors
who played them.
All names, titles, dates, and similar information about creative works
have been checked against standard reference sources (listed in the Gen-
eral Bibliography) and are believed to be accurate. Any errors and
omissions are unintentional.

INTRODUCTION
When a character in a movie or television show easily finds a parking
space in front of a downtown building at midday, we accept it as dra-
matic license. We say “That’s Hollywood!” to ourselves or the person
next to us and turn our attention back to the story—knowing all the
while that in the real world, there is seldom a parking space empty when

we need one. The dramatic license is obvious because it involves some-
thing that we do every day. We excuse it because we know that watching
the hero circling the block would derail the story. Other examples of
dramatic license pass unnoticed because they are outside of our everyday
experience. Sailors wince when the skipper of a fictional schooner sends
crew members aloft to furl the mainsail. Gun enthusiasts groan when a
fictional villain pulls out a silenced revolver. Paleontologists chuckle
when the cover of Jurassic Park features a dinosaur that lived not in the
Jurassic but in the later Cretaceous period. Audience members who are
experts in other areas enjoy the show, untroubled.
This book is an attempt to separate reality from dramatic license in
popular culture’s treatment of science and of some of the technologies
deeply influenced by it. Each of its eighty-one entries deals with a
science-related object, idea, person, process, or concept. Each briefly sum-
marizes the current understanding of the topic, then discusses its
portrayal in popular culture and, where possible, the roots of that por-
trayal. The titles of the entries sometimes, for the sake of clarity, reflect
popular culture rather than science: No compact, scientifically accurate
phrase covers the same ground as “death ray” or “miracle drug.” Each
entry concludes with a list of related entries and a brief list of suggested
readings that (in the interest of accessibility) emphasizes books, large-
circulation periodicals, and established Web sites. The bibliography at
the end of the book covers general works on science, popular culture,
and science in popular culture.
This book is designed to serve multiple purposes. One is to separate
xvi Introduction
fact from fiction in popular culture’s depiction of particular scientific and
technological topics. A second is to identify exemplary treatments of par-
ticular scientific topics in popular culture. A third is to explore recurring
patterns in popular culture’s depictions of science and technology in gen-

eral. Individual entries may also serve as brief introductions to, and
guides to further reading about, their subjects.
“Science” is both a body of knowledge and the process used to expand
and revise it. The body of knowledge includes discrete facts, patterns
that order them, and explanations of why those patterns exist. The proc-
ess of expanding and revising that body of knowledge has many ele-
ments, among them observation, experimentation, mathematical
analysis, and computer modeling. All can be used to test new explana-
tions and reexamine old ones. The results of the process are shaped, but
not determined, by the cultural context in which it takes place: influences
such as political tensions, economic pressures, religious beliefs, personal
ambitions, and institutional rivalries.
Science’s multifaceted nature complicates the process of defining its
boundaries. Where those boundaries fall—which ideas they include and
which they exclude—has been the subject of debate for centuries. For
practical reasons such as length, this work defines “science” conserva-
tively and draws its outer boundaries narrowly. The majority of the en-
tries deal with topics from the familiar “natural science” disciplines:
chemistry, physics, biology, geology, astronomy, meteorology, and bio-
logical anthropology. Some entries, however, cross that boundary, in or-
der to deal with topics in medicine (epidemics), psychology (dreams,
intelligence), and especially technology (computers, robots, space travel).
A handful of essays focus on subjects that fall well outside mainstream
science. Some (UFOs, psychic powers) treat ideas championed by small
groups of enthusiasts but rejected or viewed with intense skepticism by
mainstream scientists. Others (giant insects, time travel, matter trans-
mission) deal with things that current understandings of nature suggest
are impossible. I have included these boundary-crossing topics because,
in the world of popular culture, they are emphatically part of “science.”
“Popular culture” is easy to define in general terms but hard to define

precisely. Its overlap with “folk culture” and “mass culture,” substantial
but incomplete, is one barrier to a precise definition. Its uncertain place
on the spectrum ranging from “low” to “high” culture is another. These
distinctions are even less clear, and the concept of “popular culture” even
more problematic, in centuries before the twentieth. All these issues are
significant and deserve close consideration—but not in the context of a
book like this one. Popular culture, for the purposes of this book, in-
cludes any creative work designed to appeal to a large audience. It in-
cludes movies, television programs, and popular music, along with more
ephemeral material like printed cartoons, advertisements, commercial il-
Introduction xvii
lustrations, and jokes. It also includes most of the stock—all fiction and
most nonfiction—in an average chain bookstore.
Even in a book focused, like this one, on the United States since 1900,
this definition creates an enormous pool of works to draw examples
from. This book is designed to cover the widest possible range of media,
genres, and decades and to emphasize famous, readily accessible works
over rare and obscure ones. The omission of a particular work from a
particular entry should not, therefore, be interpreted as a judgment of
its artistic value.
These entries are not intended to be the last word on their subjects.
Scientific discoveries made after this book goes to press will reinforce
some of its claims and undercut others. Creative works that appear after
it will do the same. It is the nature both of science and of popular culture
to be fluid. That fluidity keeps them fresh, but it means that generali-
zations about them need to be read with the passage of time firmly in
mind.

SCIENCE IN
POPULAR CULTURE