Last Sunday afternoon, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, spoke as part of the North Carolina Science Festival.  They addressed approximately five thousand fans in Chapel Hill, according to organizers.  This event was coordinated by and took place at the Morehead Planetarium as part of the statewide festival.  Todd Boyette, an N.C. State alumnus, is the director of the planetarium. 

“We wanted some form of headline act,” Boyette said.  “We were trying to find who out there makes science accessible to people.”

At the event, Jamie Hyneman explained why they agreed to speak in North Carolina.

“The STEM initiative from the White House has been something that we have been involved with a great deal, Hyneman said.  “This event is also based on STEM… We don’t go out and do tours.”

Adam Savage explained what MythBusters is about.

“We don’t know how (a myth) works,” Savage said.  “We are an experimentation show. When you are watching us figure out how something works on camera, you are really watching us figure out how something works on camera.”

“I think that is actually one of the things that resonates with people,” Savage continued.  “It is not by design, we did not set out to be educational in any way.  The narrative of the show is truly a narrative of our curiosity.”

Jamie Hyneman also commented on the trial and error format of the show.

“When we go through and fail, we start to ask questions,” Hyneman said.  “That’s when we learn.  I don’t know of any other TV show that will come back a few episodes later and go, ‘Sorry, remember that whole episode we did on such and such?  Turns out we were wrong.  Check this out.'”

Savage also responded to critics who say the show is unrealistic.

“If you define it by the results, it is not realistic at all,” savage said.  “If you define it by a way of thinking methodically through solving of a problem, the people who are our biggest defenders are working scientists (at national labs) who say these guys are not they are not doing enough iterations, and the science is not that rigorous, but they are demonstrating what a creative process science actually is.”

Hyneman did not want to label Mythbusters as a ‘science show’. 

“We don’t go into this thinking of it as we are doing a science show.  What we do is simply try to tackle anything we do methodically and carefully.  It just happens that the most efficient way to do that lines up quite nicely (with) science,” Hyneman said.

Bethany Vohlers, a freshman in statistics, said that one of her favorite parts was when audience members asked Savage and Hyneman questions. 

“(I liked) when that seven year old went up, the kid asked ‘What would you do if you were kidnapped?’ It was a really sweet moment,” Vohlers said.

The MythBusters appeared to enjoy this question also. 

“You just asked my new favorite question!” Savage said.

They joked about how they would escape and referenced elements of their show, such as duct tape.

“Things like duct tape in our case acquire a whole new dimension,” Hyneman said.

“Woe betide the person who tries to kidnap me and Jamie,” Savage said.

Laura Kagan, a freshman in social work, said that Savage and Hyneman behaved similarly to how they behave on MythBusters.

“It was interesting that Adam thought about the end result, and then Jamie said it was all about the journey, the process,” Kagan said.  “That was typical Adam and Jamie, because they disagree a lot.”

Other students enjoyed the last part of the show, when a video compilation of explosions from the show was shown.

“I really like when they blow stuff up (on the show),” said Jake Langlois, a sophomore in political science.  “It’s probably why most people watch it.”

Meredith Wojcik, a freshman in biology, also enjoyed the explosion video.

“I liked the end montage with the clips of the explosions,” Wojcik said.

Explosions are featured on many episodes of MythBusters.  According to Hyneman, MythBusters has done an excess of 2500 explosions.

A complaint that students who attended the event had was that they only talked.

“They could have done some demonstrations.  As much as I love listening to the MythBusters, there is only so long that you can listen to anyone while sitting down for an hour and a half,” Vohlers said.

“I think that they could have improved by doing some form of live demonstrations and (added) more memories of crazy myth busting,” Wojcik said.