国家地理:用吐槽的方式谈科学效果更好(2)

Many Americans pay little attention to science. Even people who regularly watch broadcast television news or cable news channels receive only scraps of science information in their media diet, because mainstream outlets devote so little airtime to the subject. On top of that, some Americans may regard science as intimidating and hard to understand, so they avoid the topic altogether.

许多美国人很少关注科学。即使是那些经常收看广播电视新闻或有线新闻频道的人，在他们的媒体信息中也只会收到少量的科学信息，因为主流媒体很少报道这一块。最重要的是，一些美国人可能认为科学是令人生畏且难以理解的，因此他们直接避开了这个主题。

Yet satirical humor can reach viewers who would never watch NOVA or read -- well, National Geographic. Millions of people watch late-night television programs live, and videos of these shows get tens of millions of views on streaming services or YouTube. In 2016, when Paul, his colleague Barbara Ley, and the University of Delaware Center for Political Communication polled a nationally representative sample of Americans, nearly one in 10 said they learned about science from late-night television shows such as The Late Show and Last Week Tonight. This figure was even higher among young people.

然而，讽刺幽默可以触及从未看过NOVA电视或从未阅读过《国家地理》的观众。数以百万计的人观看深夜电视节目直播，这些节目的视频在流媒体服务或YouTube上获得了数千万的观看次数。2016年，保罗和他的同事芭芭拉·莱伊，与特拉华大学政治传播中心一起对全美进行了抽样调查，近十分之一的人表示，他们从深夜电视节目，如《晚间秀》和《上周今夜秀》中了解到了科学知识。这个比例在年轻人中更高。

Late-night television programs have mined laughs from science for decades. Even before Carl Sagan became known for the 1980 TV series Cosmos, he was a guest of comedian Johnny Carson, who spoofed the astronomer with an exaggerated pronunciation of "billion" (as in "100 billion galaxies"). Other scientists who've appeared on late-night programs include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, and Jane Goodall.

几十年来，深夜电视秀一直寻找科学的笑料。甚至在卡尔·萨根1980年以电视连续剧《宇宙时空之旅》闻名之前，他也曾是喜剧演员约翰尼·卡森座上宾。约翰尼·卡森通过夸张地发音“十亿”这个单词来模仿天文学家（原台词是1000亿条银河）。参加深夜节目秀的其他科学家还有尼尔·戴格拉斯·泰森、尼尔·卡库和简·古道尔。