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By Root 2138 0

basket. This was true for the great and the near-great, not only for field goals but for free throws - where there’s no hand in your face. (Of course some attenuation of shooting streaks can be attributed to increased attention by the defence to the player with the ‘hot hand’.) In baseball, there’s the related but contrary myth that someone batting below his average is ‘due’ to make a hit. This is no more true than that a few heads in a row makes the chance of flipping tails next time anything other than 50 per cent. If there are streaks beyond what you’d expect statistically, they’re hard to find.

But somehow this doesn’t satisfy. It doesn’t feel true. Ask the players, or the coaches, or the fans. We seek meaning, even in random numbers. We’re significance junkies. When the celebrated coach Red Auerbach heard of Gilovich’s study, his response was: ‘Who is this guy? So he makes a study. I couldn’t care less.’ And you know exactly how he feels. But if basketball streaks don’t show up more often than sequences of heads or tails, there’s nothing magical about them. Does this reduce players to mere marionettes, manipulated by the laws of chance? Certainly not. Their average shooting percentages are a true reflection of their personal skills. This is only about the frequency and duration of streaks.

Of course, it’s much more fun to think that the gods have touched the player who’s on a streak and scorned the one with a cold hand. So what? What’s the harm of a little mystification? It sure beats boring statistical analyses. In basketball, in sports, no harm. But as a habitual way of thinking, it gets us into trouble in some of the other games we like to play.

‘Scientist, yes; mad, no’ giggles the mad scientist on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ as he adjusts the electronic device that permits him to control the minds of others for his own nefarious purpose.

‘I’m sorry, Dr Nerdnik, the people of Earth will not appreciate being shrunk to three inches high, even if it will save room and energy...’ The cartoon superhero is patiently explaining an ethical dilemma to the typical scientist portrayed on Saturday-morning children’s television.

Many of these so-called scientists - judging from the programmes I’ve seen (and plausible inference about ones I haven’t, such as the Mad Scientist’s ‘Toon Club) - are moral cripples driven by a lust for power or endowed with a spectacular insensitivity to the feelings of others. The message conveyed to the moppet audience is that science is dangerous and scientists worse than weird: they’re crazed.

The applications of science, of course, can be dangerous, and, as I’ve tried to stress, virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species - back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire - has been ethically ambiguous. These advances can be used by ignorant or evil people for dangerous purposes or by wise and good people for the benefit of the human species. But only one side of the ambiguity ever seems to be presented in these offerings to our children.

Where in these programmes are the joys of science? The delights in discovering how the universe is put together? The exhilaration in knowing a deep thing well? What about the crucial contributions that science and technology have made to human welfare, or the billions of lives saved or made possible by medical and agricultural technology? (In fairness, though, I should mention that the Professor in ‘Gilligan’s Island’ often used his knowledge of science to solve practical problems for the castaways.)

We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that involve a deep understanding of science and technology. Modern society desperately needs the finest minds available to devise solutions to these problems. I do not think that many gifted youngsters will be encouraged towards a career in science or engineering by watching Saturday-morning television - or much of the rest of the available American video menu.

Over the years, a profusion of credulous,