Genes, racism, ageing and evidence
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2020
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Neuroscientist and former record producer Daniel Levitin & geneticist Adam Rutherford join Rana Mitter to discuss the latest scientific discoveries about memory and the human genome. How difficult is it to confront pseudoscience? Jillian Luke reveals how blushing in Renaissance art has been weaponised by white nationalists, while Suda Perera explains why medical aid workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are treated with distrust.
Daniel Levitin has published The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well. You can download his BBC Proms Lecture about music and science as a podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02xfqpc Adam Rutherford's latest book is called How To Argue With a Racist. You can hear him on BBC Sounds presenting Inside Science and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.1 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:37.1 | An American capitalist, a Russian tax advisor and a breathtaking heist. |
| 0:42.9 | You're saying fraudsters have stolen more than quarter of a billion dollars from the Russian state. |
| 0:48.3 | Based on a true story, a musical about doing the right thing at any cost. |
| 0:53.8 | Mr. Magnitsky, if we changed our mind. |
| 0:57.3 | Stand up and fight for justice, stand up for the law. |
| 1:00.6 | If we don't stand for this, then what is it we're for? |
| 1:04.2 | Magnitsky, the musical by Johnny Flynn and Robert Hudson on BBC Radio 3. |
| 1:09.7 | Why are you telling my story? |
| 1:11.2 | Because you were unbreakable. |
| 1:14.0 | Available now on BBC Sounds. |
| 1:19.6 | Hello. |
| 1:20.8 | In the past couple of weeks in Britain, the news has been full of science and pseudoscience. |
| 1:26.2 | What does he think about eugenics, teenage pregnancy, race, |
| 1:29.8 | women and sex? It no longer matters. Number 10's latest controversial advisor is out. |
| 1:37.1 | So that advisor with questionable views on the subject of race and eugenics is gone. But the legacy |
| 1:42.7 | of the row has sparked off a wider discussion on what is |
| 1:45.8 | real science and what is prejudice dressed up in a lab coat. Meanwhile, coronavirus dominates the |
| 1:51.8 | headlines and the bathrooms. I have to say, I've just been in an office washroom in the last |
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