I’ve made reference, and noted others doing the same, to Dr Jacob Bronowski’s 1973 BBC TV series “The Ascent of Man”. As a 17 year old I was already doing the sciences for A-level and intending to do engineering at Uni, but tremendously influential on the history and evolution of science and humanity. Interesting right now, with Oppenheimer in the cinemas, with his friend Leo Szilard involved in the “chain reaction” thinking, and the moral dilemmas in applied science. Not just the bomb, but Auschwitz features famously too. The same thread picked-up by Durrenmatt’s “Die Physiker” (The Physicists) as a minority subject in the 3rd year of my Aero Engineering degree at Imperial.
Anyway, the reason to post that thought today is that I noticed the full series of “The Ascent of Man” is up on BBC iPlayer having been reminded of it by David Deutsch’s reference to it in the “Optimism” post from yesterday. Deutsch is one of those fellow travellers also influence by Bronowski.
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