Science's Epic Fails
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2017
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Science's Epic Fails
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by actor and comedian Rufus Hound, Professor Alice Roberts and Dr Adam Rutherford to discuss some of the great scientific failures, and mistakes made by some very well known scientists. They look at how some of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time, from Darwin to Einstein, got key elements of their own theories wrong, or in the case of others, followed a path of understanding that would later be completely disproved. They discuss why failure in science is no bad thing, and ask whether getting it wrong, is a fundamental part of the scientific method, and should in fact be applied to many other areas of life.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Robin in and I'm Frank ox and in the moment you're going to be hearing me saying hello |
| 0:03.9 | I'm Robin in and I'm Frank ox because this is the longer version of the infinite monkey cage |
| 0:08.9 | This is the podcast version which is normally somewhere between 12 and 17 minutes longer than that that is broadcast on radio |
| 0:16.6 | For it's got all the bits that we couldn't fit in with Brian over explaining ideas of physics |
| 0:21.4 | I do object to the use of the word longer though because that's obviously a frame specific state |
| 0:26.8 | We haven't got time to deal with that because even in the longer version we can't have a longer intro |
| 0:30.1 | Can we let them listen? I've got an idea coming to have a podcast version of this intro to the podcast |
| 0:34.9 | Which can be longer than the intro to the podcast yeah, and then we can have a podcast version of the podcast in just a podcast |
| 0:39.8 | I'll start by now, but if you're still hearing this and then what's going on? |
| 0:42.3 | And then we can have a podcast podcast podcast version of the podcast and then it would be podcast hello |
| 0:46.4 | I'm Robin in and I'm Frank ox today |
| 0:48.3 | We're going to do something unusual on monkey cage and not deliver a |
| 0:52.4 | Fatuous and juvenile introduction that runs the risk of trivializing science which is a pity |
| 0:57.6 | That's because virtually every politician is performing that service admirably |
| 1:02.4 | 2017 looks set to be the year of the people who know they are right the year in which with jaily |
| 1:09.0 | Certitude feelings are elevated beyond evidence |
| 1:12.0 | But science is the enemy of the certain to paraphrase the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman |
| 1:18.0 | The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty and this experience is a very great |
| 1:25.2 | Importance when a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem. They are ignorant when they have a hunch as to what the result is |
| 1:32.0 | They are uncertain and when they are pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be they are still in some doubt |
| 1:39.1 | Science Feynman concludes is a satisfactory |
| 1:41.6 | Philosophy of ignorance a way of thinking in which doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed |
... |
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