Originally Posted by
allport 
I've seen the show and while it seems to be fairly harmless nonsense it bugs the life out of me that it is shown on Discovery Science all the time, not the most appropriate place for it really.
Discovery has an illustrious history of blurring the lines between science and fantasy. Remember their 2- or 3-hour special about dragons? At the very opening of the show it has a black screen with white letters reading "If the legends were real, this is what we would find." And from there it presents the whole concept of dragons as fact. I found myself engrossed, almost forgetting that the whole thing is complete fantasy.
Another reminder of this fact: one of my professors appeared in one of their shows. They called him one day and said they needed an expert in volcanos on Mercury. He replied that there's no such thing because we don't really even know if there is a volcano on Mercury (the professor in question is a planetary geologist specializing in volcanic activity on Venus and one of Jupiter's moons... talk about a specialization with zero application to the real world!). The guy said, "Whatever. Do you want to do the show?" He agreed to do it, but when it aired every bit of scientific caution he mentioned had been cut out of it; they presented what he said as fact, not the semi-educated guessing that it really was.
Bottom line, Discovery is in the entertainment business, not the science business. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as they don't try to hide it.