US telly shows hate science

They were showing Friends on telly the other night (let me take moment's pause to appreciate SVU and how it should fill in for that hour again). Well, thinking of Friends led me thinking back to some episodes. And part of reason why it stopped appealing to me.

I used to be a huge fan (came about when I had just finished high school) and I used to collect the DVDs and read about it and all that jazz.

Years and a few house moves later, I look back at my collection and wonder am I really going to rewatch this? I try, see if it is still as enthralling. Nah, silly jokes, stupid sleeping around, promoting people being dumb.

Alright to be fair, it would not be right to label Friends as anti-intelligence. I mean every other show did that, not like this show stood out in their berating.

But the berating, ah they did that really well.

How often does the show make a joke of and/or normalize the lack of knowledge of all the main characters. Can you count the number of instances where the characters didn't have a clue about general knowledge (be it geography, world history, American history, science)?

Fine, Ross is supposed to be the scientist but that uber annoying episode between Phoebe and Ross about evolution didn't make him stand out as a stellar representative of his field.

My point is, why is there a need to dismiss being educated and smart in US telly shows? All the 'nerds' look like models and don't worry, they won't use big words and will take part in high paced action most of the time so s/he will be a 'cool' nerd who uses brain activity to a minimum.

Or worse case scenario, the 'nerdy' character will rattle off facts that are in no way factual.

Is this for the same reason that US can't have a paranormal/supernatural show completely relying on science (it has to have a spiritual/religious element in it)?

Well, the way Scifi channel is killing all the good dough, I am inclined to believe intelligence is Expelled.