No matter what new sitcoms and dramas the networks dream up this coming fall, I can almost guarantee the absence of one type of show: a show about academia. But a television show about academics -- professors, scientist and graduate students -- is more necessary than ever before. And with a film being made out of Piled Higher and Deeper -- an online comic about the trials and tribulations of graduate students -- the time may be right to fill this gaping hole on the small screen.
From the Fields is a periodic Wired Science op-ed series presenting leading scientists' reflections on their work, society and culture.
*Samuel Arbesman is a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University and runs Wired's Social Dimension blog. He studies network science and applied math to understand how science and innovation happen. He also writes essays about the intersection of science and culture and is currently working on a book about how knowledge changes over time, entitled The Half-Life of Facts. *
The West Wing was a great success because the creators used White House staff as advisors, giving viewers a riveting window into the way policy and politics occur in our country. But this desire to see how the sausage is made should not be limited to our government. It can also be extended to how we think about the creation of knowledge.
The interplay between the objective quest for knowledge and the all-too-human drama that surrounds it is something that the average viewer has probably heard of, but does not know much about.
And there's no shortage of real drama to fuel story lines. This show, which I would call The Ivory Tower, would be packed with backstabbing and gossip, glimpses into the intellectual servitude of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the agony of dissertation defenses, the thrill of scientific discoveries, the ulcer-creating tenure process, professors’ quests for 15 minutes of fame, and, of course, the inevitable lab love affairs.
Episodes could revolve around topics ranging from the conflict-of-interest riddled nature of how scientific ideas are vetted by peers, to those rare but gut-wrenching cases of academic dishonesty and faking data, to the intense deliberations over thesis defenses. Academia is a very non-rational endeavor.
Academics know all too well that their world can be quite vicious and petty, occasionally inspiring, sometimes sloppy, but altogether human. A show portraying this would be therapeutic to those of us inside this world, and insightful to those of us who are not.
The Ivory Tower would be in the grand tradition of the television world's obsession with shows that are based around professions. We already have the staples of law, medicine and law enforcement -- all of which are extremely well represented. While about 40,000 law students graduate in the United States each year, and there are only about 16,000 yearly medical graduates, there are many shows depicting the lives of such graduates: Law and Order, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal,* Perry Mason*,* Scrubs*,* ER*, Grey’s Anatomy,* House*,* M*A*S*H*,* St. Elswhere*, and so on.
On the other hand, nearly 50,000 doctoral degrees are granted each year, with plenty more master's degrees granted. And yet, there isn't really a show about academia. There’s Numb3rs, but that's actually a combination of mathematics and FBI work. There's also The Big Bang Theory, but I am hard pressed to even determine what the positions are of the main characters. Are they postdocs? Research scientists? It's unclear, because the whole academic component behind the show is almost beside the point.
And this is true of many shows -- their setting is irrelevant to the stories. Interpersonal dramas can take place in hospitals or on space stations. But The West Wing only works with a government setting. And The Ivory Tower would only work in a university.
Many people have written about life in the academy, sometimes referred to as "lab lit," from the novels of C.P. Snow to Jorge Cham's inimitable comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper. However, it is time that we bring this world to the water cooler, through the cool glow of the small screen.
So, what would be in store in the world of intrigue on The Ivory Tower? Here are some sample topics and plot lines that could be explored:
What does a professor do when someone publishes the same finding first, wiping out years of research? The competitive and closed nature of exploring new ideas is starkest when multiple research teams discover they have been working on the same project for the better part of a decade, only to realize that only a single team can be successful.
Or what about talking with the press? Far from being a mundane activity, for many scientists interacting with the media is relatively uncommon and quite exciting. But it's also something most scientists are entirely untrained to do. This can lead to some strange, funny or sometimes very bad situations. Behold the statement said in haste or taken out of context and the ensuing kerfuffle, disapproval of colleagues and scramble for clarification.
And then there's the world of dissertations: While nearly every graduate student passes the defense (in general, your committee won't let you get to this stage unless you're ready), you always wonder if you will be the one who fails, that name that is passed down in hushed whispers from grad student to grad student, as the exception that frightens everyone. Witness the neurotic graduate student in all his glory.
But there is also another reason such a show might be important, aside from entertaining and providing a bit of psychological healing to the academic in your life. The world of academia is an imperfect thing. Far from it being absent-minded professors, tweed jackets and chalk boards all day, where the rigors of everyday life simply melt away, academia is filled with budgetary constraints, tenure issues, messy science and much more.
Viewers would begin to see that scientists are people too, with all the same successes and failures as everyone else. But even more so, there isn't a real divide between scientists and society -- we're part of the same complex and messy world.
But short of that, I posit that viewers would love seeing the drama of professors, students and professors with students (of course the show would have to have at least one student-teacher romance) as they research the truth. The world of knowledge is a strange one, but its story deserves to be told. On Wednesday nights at 9/8 Central.
Image: Dave Patten/Flickr.
