The problem with this argument has always been that (tragically) real science just isn't as much fun. Sure, you can try to Bill Nye and Carl Sagan it. You can try to simplify it and present it in false-but-fanciful ways. But this is all just smoke and mirrors.
Real science happens in painfully incremental, boring, specialized steps. Gone are the days of DaVinci or Edison or Tesla or any notion of the Renaissance inventor/scientist. We are all specialists now, and there are a lot more of us. We can barely understand the research in close fields to our own. Publications now spew forth with fire-hydrant force. We can no longer sip from the garden hose of knowledge without getting our faces blasted off.
However important it may be to fundamental human advancement, there is never going to be a primetime TV spot for something like "Regulation of interleukin-1β by interferon-γ is species specific, limited by suppressor of cytokine signalling 1 and influences interleukin-17 production". Ergo, we have American Idol. It's not entirely the scientists' fault. it's not entirely the public's fault. It's just the nature of the beast.

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