The Discovery Channel and its Animal Planet series has been caught sliming science in pursuit of the tabloid dollar once again. Its latest “mermaid documentary” purports to show an authentic scientific investigation that results in claimed proof  of the existence of mermaids. Now beautiful mermaid images are flooding the Internet such as the one in this posts header coming from alternative lifestyle site Grist. Sex surely sells.

If you have ever thought you can believe the mainstream media when it comes to science, think again. These Discovery media hacks are completely unrepentant at their big budget efforts to turn people against real science.

What’s the harm, science is just that hard subject that they could never quite get through with passing grades in school. Life is all about the money right. Those who care about such programming, get a life. It’s just a spoof, satire, “we make things up”, there is no harm done in fabricating big lies and selling them to the public as truth.

Of course the Discovery Channel could have made mention of the fact that life in the oceans is dying off at an incredible rate.

Facts as in every five year span of time more ocean life is wiped out than exists in the entire Amazon Rainforest and science has shown this going on since the 1950’s.

Now if they showed those Mermaids and Merkids looking like the starving mothers and children of African famine the show might have had some use.

But nah… no one wants to see a mermaid with breasts shrivelled from starvation in pitiful last moments of agony. 

One has to wonder if this program wasn’t secretly paid for by the creationistas as part of their effort to destroy human acceptance of science over religion. If the public’s faith in science can be destroyed many of those left adrift might just take up religious dogma as an alternative.

Or worse the public at large might come to think that so little is known in the world of science with regard to the oceans that any problems they hear about oceans being in crisis ought not to be believed. After all the magical mermaids must have their home under control. Why should we terrans worry about it.

Here’s a link to another scientists view of why it’s a terrible idea to fabricate stories like this and why fake science hurts us all.

Mermaids: The New Evidence, which aired on Sunday in the UK, reeled in a record 3.6 million viewers – the largest in the network’s 17-year history.

Above is one of many YouTube vids of the program.

Biologist Dr Paul Roberton returned in the ‘documentary’, swearing that the never-before-seen footage of the assumed mythical creatures swimming in the Greenland Sea is real.

Following the broadcast, 1.5million streams of mermaid-related video surfaced online, while Twitter was deluged with Animal planted posts about the show and the purported existence of mermaids.

Animal Planet’s president and general manager Marjorie Kaplan said: “The phenomenon of mermaids has truly been a watershed — and a water-cooler – moment for Animal Planet. These extraordinary television specials have electrified, challenged and entertained television audiences and online fans alike.”

However we think not one in a thousand viewers noticed the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it disclaimer towards the end which described the program as ‘science fiction’ based on ‘scientific theory’.

The new two-hour feature was spun up following the wild financial success of last year’s Mermaids: The Body Found, which grabbed the cable channel’s strongest ratings since the death of Steve Irwin in 2006.

It featured an exclusive interview with a man claiming to be a former scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The ‘scientist’ was in fact an actor, hired to lie convincingly that he and everything the program was saying was the truth.

Executive producer of the controversial show, Charlie Foley, said they wanted viewers to believe that it was real, hence the documentary- style.

“We wanted people to approach the story with a sense of possibility and a sense of wonder. Hopefully that’s what Mermaids allowed viewers to do…allowed them to suspend their disbelief”, he told ABC News.

If they do that the channel hopes to make even more money than last years effort.

If you are fascinated by marine biology you might want to read about real life mer men in the ocean world.

Things I now believe in, mermaids. Things I no longer believe in, dynamite fishing.