Ever since the climategate scandal, public opinion has soured on science.

The television show The Big Bang Theory is a great comedy. It mixes the socially inept stereotype of physicists with the similarly stereotypical buxom blonde to create some seriously funny TV. It often has me in stitches, and, as an astrophysicist, I even get the inside jokes – yes, they are there!

But for the first time, it has gone too far. I don’t care about stereotypes, but I do care about serious misinformation that damages the public view of science.

What has me so riled? In the first episode of the third season, three of the protagonists falsify data during an Arctic trip to prevent the lead character from becoming a “huge Dickensian” (as in difficult to live with). As the plot unravels, the lead character is ridiculed for claiming results based of the false data. He eventually leaves his position, and the three protagonists head to Texas to encourage him to come back. In the context of the show this works brilliantly.

So what is my problem? Falsifying data is the scientific original sin. That isn’t to say it doesn’t happen, it does. Estimates suggest that between 1 in 50 to 1 in 10 scientists have done it. My guess is it’s somewhere around 1 in 20. Compare that to politicians – supposedly they all lie; some commentators even suggest they have to. We live in a strange world.

Regardless, as a professional scientist, if you get caught falsifying data, most likely you’ll lose your job. You’ll certainly lose the respect of your colleagues. Finding another job will become very difficult. You can even wind up in prison – just ask South Korean geneticist Hwang Woo-suk.

Now, when it comes to TV, I’m not expecting scientific accuracy. Let’s face it, the scientific method and TV don’t mix well.

But science is under attack at the moment. The enormous shift in public opinion towards climate change as a result of Climategate is a bellwether. I regularly see comments like “climate change is a giant hoax!” or “the scientists are all in this together.”

The denialists have moved on from trying to discredit the science. Even so-called sceptics like Steve McIntyre seems to accept the physics behind the greenhouse effect. But one can always argue about the quality of the data, pick out a single, largely irrelevant point and blow it out of proportion, or take something out of context if people know very little about the subject.

For example, if you didn’t know anything about cooking or hockey, a statement like “Sidney Crosby can’t cook pancakes, so he’s a crap hockey player” would seem really powerful. Except that we all know quite a bit about cooking and hockey, so we know it’s baloney. Well, the hockey bit anyway!

But Climategate changed everything. The focus has shifted from the science to the scientists. This is a huge step and phenomenally dangerous for science. It amounts to a gigantic loss of trust and a growing scepticism of experts. By implication, all climate scientists, not just Dr. Phil Jones, are seen as dishonest and prepared to falsify their data to suit their agenda (whatever that may be).

Yet the scientific method, peer review, and conference presentation are designed to weed out errors, inconsistencies, and mistakes as much as is possible. Scientists are inherently competitive. Pointing out errors in someone else's work is as valuable as publishing a new result yourself. Science is a seriously critical environment.

If you want comparisons, television and newsprint do not even come close to the level of checking that peer review entails. It may not be a perfect system, but it is has worked well for hundreds of years.

So scientists are forced into a position of openness and disclosure. Sure you can try and cheat the system, but if you get caught your career is in the gutter. Conspiracies are almost impossible to create in this environment.

And so, when the supposedly innocent protagonists of The Big Bang Theory rigged their friend’s experiment, I was left thinking “Here we go ... yet more people are going to think that scientists change their results to get what they want.” It may have been a joke, but falsifying data isn’t.

Could they have explored the true ramifications of falsifying data and still made the show funny? Perhaps. They could have had the three protagonists lose their jobs, which is likely what would have happened in reality. The lead character would have been the subject of sympathy instead of derision. Maybe he could have fought for his friends to be allowed back in. Actually, that would be pretty unlikely. Aside from it creating a weird show dynamic, scientists don’t like to give people who falsify data second chances.

And my apologies to Sidney Crosby if he actually cooks good pancakes!