Scary piece by Lisa Jardine about a hero of mine (and hers) where it seems she may have lost her admiration for her father Jacob Bronowski. I have long had the “I beseech you …” Auschwitz scene burned into my psyche, that it was always the punctuation to the grand sweep of science he had presented; That whatever his secret WWII military career, the positive progress of science has always come with that joined-up-moral caveat. And of course he was a man of knowledge well beyond science too. Good to see the Parkinson interview, with Lisa’s commentary on his health at the time. He died so soon afterwards. And good to see any doubts restored in Lisa’s mind too. Phew.
She spends a lot of time justifying her involvement and – by proxy – the programmes existence.
I guess, but her involvement is pretty clear, as his daughter and clearly impressed by the man and the programme (as I was / am). But yes, justifying the sincerity of the programme and its maker, is the point.
Funnily enough, I never saw the programme as “pro-science” particularly, just about the evolution of human civilisation, using science as a series of subjects to join up the story … As you know I’m not particularly pro-science myself, and I saw Bruno as much more enlightened on science’s real place. (He’s a Blake scholar and a poet too.)