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Horizon: science under attack
Jan. 27th, 2011 10:33 pmI've finally found the time to sit down and watch Paul Nurse's excellent exploration of public hostility towards science in general and climate science, AIDS and HIV, and GM crops in particular. Nurse is a fantastic presenter: enthusiastic, sympathetic, but still willing to challenge and criticise where necessary. The most impressive moments come in an interview with a climate sceptic, who Sir Paul reduces to incoherence spluttering by suggesting that the man's attitude to the concensus view of climate change is exactly like that of a cancer patient who decides to ignore the established medical opinion about his treatment in favour of treating himself with a homebrew remedy.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with some of the statements in the program, particularly those that suggest that science stands completely separate from politics. Maybe, in an ideal world, it does, but we need to accept that scientists are people and people are political — as Berlin says somewhere, politics is what happens whenever two people's views cannot be completely reconciled with each other. I definitely agree with Nurse's point that scientists need to promote their work more widely and engage with the public understanding, but I was surprised that, apart from a brief throwaway remark, he didn't argue that science should be more heavily promoted and taught in schools.
Minor quibbles aside, it was a quite superb bit of programming — a sign that there's life in the old Horizon yet. As Tim Dowling said of it in the Guardian, it's a pity it's one show and not a four year degree course.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with some of the statements in the program, particularly those that suggest that science stands completely separate from politics. Maybe, in an ideal world, it does, but we need to accept that scientists are people and people are political — as Berlin says somewhere, politics is what happens whenever two people's views cannot be completely reconciled with each other. I definitely agree with Nurse's point that scientists need to promote their work more widely and engage with the public understanding, but I was surprised that, apart from a brief throwaway remark, he didn't argue that science should be more heavily promoted and taught in schools.
Minor quibbles aside, it was a quite superb bit of programming — a sign that there's life in the old Horizon yet. As Tim Dowling said of it in the Guardian, it's a pity it's one show and not a four year degree course.
