Eugenics

[ardcarp]

Did anyone see this?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008zc7

Any thoughts?

[gradus]

As shocking as it's producers intended and compulsive viewing if like me you are almost completely ignorant about the origin and development of the subject.

[ardcarp]

I knew a bit about Francis Galton and the eugenics he named and spawned. I admired hugely the man with neurofibromatosois who was courageous enough to be the programme's co-presenter. [We have family friends whose son has the same condition.] I was less than happy with the...how shall I put it...intellectual rigour with which the programme was put together. Conflating the 'special schools' of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, not to mention the 11+ exam, with Hitler's mass murder of Jews, homosexuals and 'mental defectives' was breathtakingly ridiculous. And there was no consideration given to changing mores of the times. I was also somewhat shocked by the the lack of explanation about the Darwin/Galton link. They were indeed related as half-cousins, but there it ends. Darwin's (and indeed Mendel's) fascination about how species changed, and which gave rise to our understanding of evolution and genetics was judgement-free and had nothing to do with the crackpot ideas of head-shapes and hand-sizes being indicators of normality or abnormality in humans. The programme also repeated itself in an unnecessary way as if it had shot and recorded a lot of material and cobbled it together haphazardly. I fear we have another episode of Science's Greatest Scandal next week. Is there any more to say?

[gradus]

Perhaps it's the old maxim at work, never let the facts spoil a good story.

[ardcarp]

Oh dear. Second episode last night. Good intentions, yes, but repetitive [same 'fact' on the lips of three different people] and much loose thinking.

[oddoneout]

Oh dear. Second episode last night. Good intentions, yes, but repetitive [same 'fact' on the lips of three different people] and much loose thinking.

This is why I've largely given up watching such programmes. I have a feeling that they are now constructed with an eye to being repeated on commercial channels, where ad breaks would cause viewers to completely forget what they had seen/heard just a couple of minutes previously... It's also 'useful' padding(possibly justified as 'getting the message/important points across') which can possibly be edited out to accommodate ad breaks and still come in as 'an hour long'.

[Frances_iom]

... I have a feeling that they are now constructed with an eye to being repeated on commercial channels, where ad breaks would cause viewers to completely forget what they had seen/heard just a couple of minutes previously......

I'm afraid this is now permeating much of R4 programmes where the story is split between two 10 minute sections stretched to fill a nominal 30min slot - "The long view" is such a cobbled together programme obviously intended to act as the bread sandwiching an ad break - another has been some of those 15min mini programmes between the 1pm news + 2pm programme - some obviously aimed at the American market.