[Flipside]

But it doesn't irradiate the planet either.

The fact is, assuming it is a cyclic event, there's no evidence of it having any impact of life on Earth whatsoever up to this point, so there's little evidence of it doing so this time round.

Edit: Seriously, the purpose of science is to answer questions, not to simply find more things to scare ourselves with, which seems to be what a large number of publications seem to think it is for.

[Mobius]

This happens mostly because of movies intended to scare people with something plausible under a pseudo-scientific point of view. It's up to common people and scientists to treat movies as movies, not as prophecies.

[Flipside]

Scientists tend to be ok, for the main part, though the commercialisation of Science really hasn't helped, you get more funding if people are scared. That's what has created the entire Global Warming quagmire, because both sides have some valid points.

As for movie-goers, I agree too many people seem to struggle finding the boundary between fact and fiction.

[DeepSpace9er]

Scientists tend to be ok, for the main part, though the commercialisation of Science really hasn't helped, you get more funding if people are scared. That's what has created the entire Global Warming quagmire, because both sides have some valid points.

As for movie-goers, I agree too many people seem to struggle finding the boundary between fact and fiction.

Agreed. Fear sells publications and promises by politicians to fix whatever is scaring them buys votes.