BBC dumbs down science, scientists
I read this article, BBC abandons science, on The Register and it struck a chord. I watched the program it reviewed, Human 2.0.
I completely agree with Andrew Orlowski. It “could have been made for the Bravo Channel by the Church of Scientology.” It was terrible.
The tragedy is that Horizon used to be a window on the most exciting developments in the real world of science. I watched a program in the early eighties about computer graphics and, without a doubt, this was the catalyst for a lifelong career in technology. First in video games and now in technology writing.
It combined expert commentators, an insightful narrative and real research into real science. Unlike Human 2.0.
I feel a personally responsible for this dumbing down. A few years ago, I was invited to a focus group session run by the BBC to talk about the future of science programming. Inspired by my teenage Horizon experience, I was delighted to go along.
However, when I got there, the event was full of people who had no understanding of science. One of them was espousing a firm belief in astrology. When I administered words of guidance and admonition, she snapped back and said “what do you know about the wisdom of the ancients” as this was the clinching argument. In the end I was so frustrated that I started coming up with crazy ideas for future programs. For example “Inside Hugh Grant’s brain.”
A few months later, the BBC cancelled Tomorrow’s World and now this. Bad science on BBC is my fault.
It’s part of a bigger problem, as Orlowski concludes:
For anyone watching in real-time, the news program that followed was illuminating. Newsnight focussed on the crisis in … science. The number of applicants to higher education courses in physics had dropped to a third, something apparently common in what get called “developed economies”. A learned panel was asked, “how could this be?”
But we’d already figured out the answer to that one. Perhaps because scientists were portrayed as ludicrous, misanthropic self-publicists, and science itself merely a sequence of unsupportable claims.
The BBC may be in touch with wisdom of the ancients and the far-out visionaries of the future but where are the programs about real science today?
John Dodds wrote:
But what is in Hugh Grant’s brain? Enquiring minds need to know.
Posted on 29-Oct-06 at 1:27 am | Permalink
Robert wrote:
What’s in Hugh’s mind? Apart from an empty plot maybe a potential ech chamber or an anti-matter experiment in the waiting?
On a serious note, are we also now witnessing the result of A-Level dumbing down just so that Labour can boast about high school exam pass rates? Today’s kids are not being pushed to research, ask questions or think beyond the next iPod tune they want to download or BigMac they want to get fat on?
Maybe the kids of today have also become so falsly class and style concious from TV overload that the thought of donning a non-designer branded labcoat to do do research is too much to contemplate?
Posted on 30-Oct-06 at 9:24 am | Permalink
Nick wrote:
“The wisdom of the ancients” - LOL - they were presumably the same ancients that helped Erich von Daniken to a small fortune?
I have two teenagers (one at Uni); and both have received eye-wateringly expensive educations, yet both are unquestionably victims of a world dominated by designer branding. But they are not alone.
I was discussing the merits of the new VW powered Skoda Octavia vRS the other evening, and couldn’t fail to detect much of the same from other parents - as one, with raised eyebrows, they asked “A Skoda…?!”
Posted on 30-Oct-06 at 1:39 pm | Permalink
Erik wrote:
The comparison to scientology material is apt - the show is simply intellectually bankrupt. Like scientology’s captrap, it is a case study in cargo-cult science: http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html
If only the BBC producers took the time to be honest in their presentation of science… but “the wisdom of the ancients” has clearly been lost.
Posted on 03-Nov-06 at 12:04 am | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
This Cargo Cult - Feynmann link is excellent. Thanks for that. Matthew
Posted on 03-Nov-06 at 7:38 am | Permalink
Bad Language / Richard Feynman: The pleasure of finding things out wrote:
[...] rants on the BBC’s mission to dumb down science programming: BBC dumbs down science and Cultural relativism doesn’t work at 30,000 [...]
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 5:38 pm | Permalink