It's a shame Horizon is only a TV show and not a four-year degree course in climatology, says Tim Dowling
In last night's Horizon: Science Under Attack (BBC2), Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel-winning geneticist and president of the Royal Society, sought to understand and address the public's increasing lack of faith in science. He cited several areas of contention: global warming and genetically modified crops among them. The problem, he said, was "not just a clash of ideas, but whether the public actually trusts scientists". Suspicion of the scientific consensus is not necessarily a minority viewpoint (half of Americans believe climate change is exaggerated) or an expressly political one ? people who hate GM crops are rarely on the same side of the left-right divide as people who think climate change is a myth.
In my own mind I tend to characterise this debate as "scientists v idiots" and, although I accept it's more complicated than that, this remains my official position. Scientists make mistakes. They face political and financial pressures, which could undermine their purest aims. But you can't go far wrong completely disregarding what half of Americans think about anything.
Under the circumstances, it's a shame Horizon is only a TV show, and not a four-year degree course in climatology. There was never going to be enough room to supply the ammunition with which to overwhelm the doubters and deniers. TV is chiefly driven by personality, and the chief personality on display, Sir Paul Nurse, came across as enthusiastic, open-minded and eminently reasonable. One hates to draw conclusions about the wrongheadedness of the views of a climate change-denier such as, say, James Delingpole, simply because he has an unfortunate manner, but that's my job.
Nurse's interview with Delingpole was notable for forming a centrepiece to the programme, and because Delingpole complained he was stitched up on his blog, claiming that a good three hours of him being reasonable and cogent was edited out in favour of one scene where he looks like an idiot. To be fair, there are two scenes where he looks like an idiot. In one he explains that he never reads peer-reviewed scientific literature on the subject of global warming because "it's not my job". In the other, he condemns the scientific consensus on global warming ? and consensus in general ? as unscientific.
When Nurse presented him with a perfectly reasonable analogy about having cancer and choosing a remedy of one's own devising over the "consensus" treatment, Delingpole was clearly offended by the apparent comparison to devotees of quack medicine. Later, the programme featured an HIV-positive man who doesn't believe HIV causes Aids and follows a yoghurt-based treatment of his own devising, who probably didn't like being lumped in with Delingpole much.
Nurse issued a call to scientists to be more politically savvy in the wake of the so-called Climategate affair, and to make more of an effort to put data in the public domain. On one level, the scientists v idiots debate is a mere distraction, one destined to be overtaken by events, but in the meantime it demeans us all.
Tool Academy (E4) must have an audience made up entirely of couch-bound people whose remote batteries died while they were watching Glee. This reality TV show operates on several levels of unpleasantness: the "tools" were recruited under false pretences, thinking they were entering a Britain's Ultimate Lad competition; their "toolishness" seemed to incorporate several problems, including drink, drug and anger issues, perhaps not best addressed by a series of humiliating challenges; its presenter, Rick Edwards, comes across as almost as much of a tool as his unsalvageable charges. "Tool Academy psychiatrist Dr Sandra Scott comes across as someone who badly wants to go home.
Last night the remaining tools were forced to endure a fake wedding ceremony for which both lad and ladette-to-be had to write their own vows (one girl promised "to look good and freak it out in the bedroom"), and then compose and sing a song about fidelity (there were very few experts on the subject among them). As with the dire dating show Take Me Out, there is meant to be some sort of female empowerment inherent in the format, but this may be the most perversely sexist show on television. The dissatisfied wives and girlfriends who have enrolled their hopeless partners in the academy don't need re-tooled tools to go home with; they need a stern lecture about making a clean break and a fresh start. Failing that, they should all be incarcerated in the Tool Academy house until they've completed a four-year degree course in climatology. I'd watch.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/jan/25/horizon-science-under-attack-review
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