On prime-time entertainment television, scientists are most at risk. Ten percent of scientists featured in prime-time entertainment programming get killed, and five percent kill someone. Popular entertainment media have long portrayed scientists as mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but in the past few decades entertainment media portrayals of science have changed significantly, and these changes seem to have accelerated in recent years.
Science remains dangerous, but it is also increasingly portrayed as useless in solving problems.
The skepticism about paranormal claims that is a part of scientific thinking is portrayed as a handicap. Film and television entertainment programming increasingly portrays science and reason as tools that are unsuitable for understanding our world in a new age of credulity. This article reviews entertainment media portrayals of science and pseudoscience and considers the important function of skepticism in horror films and other offerings. The evidence reported here will likely be discouraging for many skeptics, but it is evidence that skeptics must nonetheless consider if they are to effectively counter entertainment media tendencies to devalue science and reason. There is a correlation between watching entertainment television and credulity.