Showing posts with label National Geographic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Geographic. Show all posts

Monday 10 July 2017

Genius: portraying Albert Einstein as a human being, not a Hollywood stereotype

I recently watched the National Geographic docudrama series Genius, presenting a warts-and-all look at the life and work of Albert Einstein. In these post-truth times in which even a modicum of intellectual thought is often regarded with disdain, it's interesting to see how a scientific icon is portrayed in a high-budget, high-profile series.

A few notable examples excepted, Dr Frankenstein figures still inform much of Hollywood's depiction of STEM practitioners. Inventors are frequently compartmentalised as either patriotic or megalomaniac, often with a love of military hardware; Jurassic Park's misguided and naive Dr John Hammond seemingly a rare exception. As for mathematicians, they are often depicted with more than a touch of insanity, such as in Pi or Fermat's Room.

So does Genius break the mould or follow the public perception of scientists as freaky, geeky, nerdy or plain evil? The script is a fairly sophisticated adaptation of real life events, although the science exposition suffers as a result. Despite some computer graphic sequences interwoven with the live action, the attempts to explore Einstein's thought experiments and theories are suggestive rather than comprehensive, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his scientific legacy. Where the series succeeds is in describing the interaction of all four STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and mathematics; and the benefits when they overlap. The appalling attitudes prevalent in the academia of his younger years are also brought to vivid life, with such nonsense as not questioning tutors piled onto the usual misogyny and xenophobia.

Albert Einstein

Contrary to the popular conception of the lone genius - and counter to the series' title - the role of Einstein's friends such as Marcel Grossmann and Michele Besso as his sounding boards and mathematical assistants is given a high profile. In addition, the creative aspect of science is brought to the fore in sequences that show how Einstein gained inspiration towards his special and general theories of relativity.

The moral dimension of scientific research is given prominence, from Fritz Haber's development of poison gas to Leo Szilard's persuasion of Einstein to both encourage and later dissuade development of atomic weapons. As much as the scientific enterprise might appear to be separate from the rest of human concern, it is deeply interwoven with society; the term 'laboratory conditions' applies to certain processes, not to provide a wall to isolate science from everything else. Scientists in Genius are shown to have the same human foibles as everyone else, from Einstein's serial adultery (admittedly veering to Hollywood family drama at times, paternal guilt complex etal) to Philipp Lenard's dismissal of Einstein's theories due to his anti-Semitism rather than any scientific evidence. So much for scientific impartiality!

The last few episodes offer a poignant description of how even the greatest of scientific minds lose impetus, passing from creative originality as young rebels to conservative middle age stuck-in-the-muds, out of touch with the cutting edge. General readership books on physics often claim theoretical physicists do their best work before they are thirty, with a common example being that Einstein might as well have spent his last twenty years fishing. Although not as detailed as the portrayal of his early, formative years, Einstein's obsessive (but failed) quest to find fault with quantum mechanics is a good description of how even the finest minds can falter.

All in all, the first series of Genius is a very noble attempt to describe the inspiration and background that led to some revolutionary scientific theories. The irony is that by concentrating on Einstein as a human being it might help the wider public gain a better appreciation, if not comprehensive understanding, of the work of scientists and role of STEM in society. Surely that's no bad thing, especially if it makes Hollywood rethink the lazy stereotype of the crazy-haired scientist seeking world domination. Or even encourages people to listen to trained experts rather than the rants of politicians and religious nutbars. Surely that's not a difficult choice?

Sunday 15 January 2017

Devoted to dinosaurs: Joan Wiffen and the role of the amateur scientist

I was recently at a second hand book stall, browsing a first edition of Graeme Steven's Prehistoric New Zealand. The market stall owner told me that she had thumbed through the book and was amazed to learn that New Zealand had any wildlife prior to the moa. This seemingly widespread lack of knowledge about the nation's past is no doubt partially due to the small number of both practitioners and finds, although the state education system cannot be considered blameless. Still, in an age of easily-accessible information via the World Wide Web and the likes of the National Geographic Channel, such gaps do seem rather surprising.

Of course a lack of public knowledge concerning ancient life isn't restricted to New Zealand. I recall several amusing (yes, I know it sounds smug) encounters at London's Natural History Museum, where I discovered that parents of dinosaur-crazed children cannot differentiate giant ground sloths from dinosaurs, let alone bipedal carnosaurs from quadrupedal sauropods.

The poor understanding of New Zealand's past is exacerbated by the low population and correspondingly small amount of funding available. Therefore perhaps it's not surprising that amateurs have made significant discoveries, from the Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club's discovery of a giant penguin fossil at Kawhia to Joan Wiffen, the 'Hawke's Bay housewife' (an epithet that always causes me to grit my teeth) who discovered New Zealand's first dinosaur fossils and much more besides.

I've previously discussed the joys of amateur fossicking from a primarily fun aspect but also mentioned how New Zealand relies on non-professionals. The Kawhia penguin is a case in point, as it would have eroded within a year had it not been discovered. Indeed, I was recently collecting some Pleistocene marine molluscs above a Taranaki river valley, on a steep slope prone to severe flooding. These fossils had been uncovered following a landslide caused by a severe rainstorm in 2015 and would no doubt be washed away with the next one.

Fossil hunting in New Zealand

In addition to the lack of professionals, the discipline's funding within New Zealand has decreased over the past half century. The Marsden Fund is a key sponsor of science projects but less than 10% of proposals are successful. The obvious wider issue here is that for the foreseeable future there is unlikely to be any private funding for scientific research that isn't financially viable in the short-term; let's face it, most paleontology isn't going to earn big bucks. That isn't to say there aren't some income streams available, especially around museums, merchandise and occasionally site tourism. However, New Zealand's dinosaur, marine reptile and pterosaur remains are mostly isolated fragments, hardly likely to prove star attractions for even the most ardent dino enthusiast.

Which brings us back to Joan Wiffen. She went from a minimal secondary education (due to her father's prejudice) to an honorary science degree from Massey University - whilst still supporting the view that it is the duty of married women to do all the housework. Although she may not have actively negated the Hawke's Bay housewife appellation, the term is hardly suitable for an extremely conscientious scientist; after all, if her husband had been the team leader, he probably wouldn't have been referred to as a Hawke's Bay electronics technician!

Having recently finished reading Wiffen's 1991 book Valley of the Dragons: The Story of New Zealand's Dinosaur Woman I was struck by the obvious lack of professional expertise available in New Zealand as recently as the 1970s and 1980s. Even today, the thirty or so professional paleontologists in the country don't have their own organisation and fall under the auspices of the Geoscience Society of New Zealand. Yet I've long considered geology to be an extremely conservative discipline (think that meteorologist Alfred Wegener's continental drift hypothesis gained little traction for decades until evidence of plate tectonics was found, rather than there being any active interest in resolving the mystery) and so can do few favours to outsiders.

Therefore, Joan Wiffen faced almost complete indifference from scientists who proclaimed there were no relevant strata in which to locate dinosaur remains. Apparently someone had previously noticed reptilian bones in a Te Hoe Valley stream bed - which is what sparked off Wiffen's first expedition - but no-one had the interest or funding to follow it up. Her narrative hints at the disdain professionals felt for amateurs in general but happily this situation has changed markedly in the interim, with citizen science helping to bridge gaps in many fields. In the case of New Zealand paleontology, the notable finds by amateurs have included previously unknown species, adding to the evidence that areas of the 'lost' continent of Zealandia have been continually above water since the Mesozoic.

My recent Taranaki excursion was child's play compared to the deprivations Wiffen and co endured in their rat-infested self-built hut, not to mention funding the entire work themselves. From learning how to remove rock matrix via acetic acid (in an old baby bath, no less) to building a stereo microscope stand from a pillar drill base, the Hawke's Bay team certainly utilised classic kiwi number eight wire ingenuity.

In a pre-internet age - it took six months just to pin down the location and land owner of the area marked 'reptile bones' - gaining technical advice from foreign experts was slow and cumbersome. Ironically, in later years New Zealand professionals visited Wiffen's fossil preparation workshop to gain insight into their operation, including as to how she and her friends achieved such high standards. Clearly, her work wasn't the product of a casual dilettante but the output of a highly motivated and hard-working scientist, albeit an unpaid one.

The American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould frequently observed that his disciplines were forms of historical science, built upon a series of unrepeatable events created by the complex interaction of disparate factors. Therefore deposition and preservation - even the discovery - of fossils are unique circumstances; remains that are visible today may be little more than dust tomorrow. We owe Joan Wiffen and her colleagues an enormous debt for increasing the sum of human knowledge at their own time and expense, purely for the love of science. And if any Hawke's Bay residents want to pick up where she left off, then I'm sure both professionals and posterity would be most grateful!

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Discovery FM: science programming on the radio

Considering the large amount of trash on satellite TV documentary channels (yes you, Discovery Channel and National Geographic, with your constant stream of gullible, gibbering 'experts' hunting down Bigfoot, UFOs and megalodon), I thought I'd do a bit of research into science programming on that long side-lined medium, radio.

Having grown up with BBC Radio in the UK I've always listened to a variety of documentaries, particularly on Radio Four. Although I now live in New Zealand one of the joys of the internet is the ability to listen to a large number of BBC science and natural history documentaries whenever I want. The BBC Radio website has a Science and Nature section with dozens of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programmes from latest news shows such as Inside Science and Material World to series with specific subject matter such as the environmental-themed Costing the Earth.

A long-running live broadcast BBC series that covers an eclectic variety of both scientific and humanities subjects is novelist and history writer Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time. Over the past sixteen years distinguished scientific guests have explored numerous STEM topics in almost two hundred episodes. Although much of the science-themed material leans towards historical and biographical aspects, there has also been some interesting examination of contemporary scientific thought. The programme is always worth listening to, not least for Bragg's attempt to understand - or in the case of spectroscopy, pronounce - the complexities under discussion.

One of my other favourites is the humorous and wide-ranging The Infinite Monkey Cage, hosted by comedian Robin Ince and physicist/media star Brian Cox. Each episode features a non-scientist as well as several professionals, the former serving as a touchstone to ensure any technicalities are broken down into public-friendly phrasing. Many of the show's topics are already popular outside of science, such as SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and comparisons of science fiction to fact. The programme is well worth a listen just for the incidental humour: you can almost hear steam coming out of Brian Cox's ears whenever a guest mentions the likes of astrology. Despite having a former career as a professional pop keyboard player, the good professor is well known for his disparaging marks about philosophy and other non-scientific disciplines, cheekily referring to the humanities in one episode as 'colouring in'.

I confess that there are still many episodes I have yet to listen to, although I notice that a fair few of the programme descriptions are similar to topics I would like to discuss in this blog. In fact, an episode from December 2013 entitled "Should We Pander to Pandas?" bares a startling similarity to my post on wildlife conservation from three months earlier! Coincidence, zeitgeist or are the BBC cribbing my ideas? (It wouldn't be the first time, either...)

A final example of an excellent series is the hour-long live talk show The Naked Scientists, covering both topical stories and more general themes. In addition to the programme itself, the related website includes DIY experiments using materials from around the home and an all-embracing forum.

Although consisting of far fewer series, Radio New Zealand also broadcasts a respectable variety of science programming. There are currently thirty or so titles available in the science and factual section on line, including some interesting cross-overs. For instance, back in 2006 the late children's author Margaret Mahy discussed her interest in science and the boundaries between fact and fiction in The Catalogue of the Universe. Thanks to the internet, it isn't just radio stations that supply audio programming either: the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, releases ad-hoc Science Express podcasts. So far I've been very impressed with the range on offer and it's always good to find in-depth discussion on local science stories.

The United States has a decent range of science programmes on various internet streams and the non-profit NPR network, with the related NPR website dividing the material into obvious themes such as the environment, space, energy and health. Most the programmes are very short - as little as three minutes - and often consist of news items, usually accompanied by a good written prĂ©cis. NPR also distributes Public Radio International's weekly call-in talk show Science Friday, which is extremely popular as a podcast.  The associated website contains videos as well as individual articles from the radio show, although interestingly, the archive search by discipline combines physics and chemistry into one topic but separates nature, biology, and human brain and body, into three separate topics.

Planetary Radio is the Planetary Society's thirty-minute weekly programme related to the organisation's interests, namely astronomy, space exploration and SETI. For any fan of Carl Sagan's - and now Neil deGrasse Tyson's - Cosmos, it's pretty much unmissable.

Talking of which, various scientists now take advantage of podcasting for their own, personal audio channels. A well-known example is deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk, which as the name suggests, frequently concentrates on space-related themes. In addition to the serious stuff, there are interviews with performing artists and their opinion on science and once in a while some brilliant comedy too: the episode earlier this month in which Tyson speaks to God (who admits that amongst other divine frivolities, monkeys and apes were created as something to laugh at and that the universe really is just six thousand or so years old) is absolutely priceless.

Physicist Michio Kaku has gone one further by hosting two weekly shows: the live, three-hour Science Fantastic talk show and the hour-long Exploration. The former's website incorporates an archive of videos, some as might be expected concentrating on futurology, whilst the talk show itself often covers fruity topics verging on pseudoscience. The latter series is generally more serious but the programme is slightly spoilt by the frequent book-plugging and over-use of baroque background music.

The good news is that far from reducing radio the internet has developed a new multi-media approach to traditional broadcasting, with comprehensive archives of material available from a multitude of sources. One thing the US, UK and New Zealand programming has in common is the inclusion of celebrities, especially actors, both to enhance series profile and to keep content within the realm of comprehension by a general audience.

All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised by the variety and quality of audio programming emerging from various nations, as opposed to the pandering to new age, pseudoscientific and plain woolly thinking that frequently passes for science television broadcasting. Even book shops aren't immune: I was recently disappointed to notice that a major New Zealand chain book store had an 'Inspiration' section twice the size of its STEM material. So the next time you see a team of researchers in on a quest for a species of shark that has been extinct for over a million years, why not relax with good old-fashioned, steam-powered radio instead?