These days things are bit different. Rather than the Why Is It So? approach and its progression from hypothesis to experiment, observation and conclusion, the order has been reversed. Now the ABC's resident hip science dude begins with a finding and assembles the evidence to make it stand up. If a few facts get mangled in the process, so be it. And if a bit of sensationalism is required to sell the line, no worries; the planet's future is at stake, after all. The important thing is not to make children understand, it is to make them believe.
Make no mistake, Julius Sumner Miller and Ruben "The Surfing Scientist" Meerman are directly comparable in the roles the ABC of then and now have assigned them. Isn't that sad.
UPDATE: Not entirely comparable, actually. It is inconceivable Julius Sumner Miller would have put his name to this remark:
