Dumbing Down Nature

I’ve always found Natural History a fascinating subject. And I used to look forward to natural history programmes on the Beeb. The zenith of such programmes was of course anything that had the magic name of David Attenborough associated with it.

Alas, the BBC seems now to be determined to plunge to the nadir with programmes such as Ocean, which started last night amid much trumpeting. Sample: “[the series] seeks to provide a better understanding of the state of our oceans today, their role in the past, present and future and their significance in global terms”.

Dear lord, but it was dire. The science was dumbed down practically to oblivion, being shouldered out of the way by lots of material designed to show that the cast and crew were having an awfully big adventure. Science for the “me, me, me!” generation… I note that on that web page showcasing the cast is a quote from explorer Paul Rose: “We are here to understand the Earth’s oceans and put them on a human scale”. Perhaps it’s just me, but that quote seems to make no sense whatsoever. Still, I see that I wasn’t the only person who gets irritated by this dumbing down of science, this review by Sam Wollaston pretty much sums up the programme as the pile of tosh it was.