A new late night program enters the U.S. landscape tonight. @Midnight is a half-hour program that will follow The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. The guests will compete in popular knowledge, and science and technology could be part of those questions. The host is Chris Hardwick, and his Nerdist programs have involved guests from science and technology fields, so they may show up @Midnight.
There are a fair number of shows in repeats this week. But of the repeated programs, there are none that have science and technology guests. Regrettably, the same is nearly true of the original programming. I feel I need to throw in wingsuit pilot Jeb Corliss to make this a post of substance. He’ll visit with Conan O’Brien on Tuesday night.
Malcolm Gladwell is making the rounds with his latest book. Called David and Goliath, it focuses on underdogs and continues Gladwell’s trend of popularizing social science research via anecdote. He’ll sit with Jon Stewart on Tuesday, and with Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, but I would be surprised to see either going after him about the latest round of complaints about Gladwell’s claims and methods (even though he seems to be taking some of it personally). A lot of it comes down to Gladwell being a much better writer or storyteller than a researcher. But it raises an important point – at what point should the facts get in the way of a good story?
Pasco Phronesis 