The Infinite Monkey's Guide To… Failure

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Cox and Robin Ince embrace failure in its many forms, with a frank look at the importance of making mistakes. They examine the flaws in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with the anthropologist Alice Roberts, as she tells them no idea is totally watertight. And sometimes scientific error even leads to important discoveries – just ask the heart patients who took a pill that did nothing for their medical condition but did boost their libido and which we now know as Viagra. But other failures in the field of medicine have had more serious consequences, and Dr Chris van Tulleken questions why we’re not better at drug development for the poorest parts of the world.

New episodes will be released on Wednesdays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the full series on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3K3JzyF

Producer: Marijke Peters Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem

Episodes featured: Series 15: Science’s Epic Fails Series 11: Serendipity Series 25: What Have We Learnt From Covid?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to introduce myself. My name's
0:04.0	Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport
0:07.5	podcasts. I'm lucky to do that at the BBC because I get to work with leading
0:11.1	journalists, experienced pundits and the biggest
0:13.3	sports stars. Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights
0:17.4	straight from the player's mouth. But the best thing about doing this at the BBC is
0:22.0	our unique access to the sporting world.
0:25.0	What that means is that we can bring you podcasts that create a real connection to
0:28.9	dedicated sports fans across the UK.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head over to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more.
0:37.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:40.0	Hello I'm Brian Cox.
0:42.0	I'm Robin Ince and this is the infinite monkeys guide to
0:46.2	well today is our blooper real obviously not bloopers from our show as just never are any are they?
0:53.5	It's very professional.
0:54.5	Or the alternative description I've heard is that it's a sea of confusion.
0:59.1	Yeah, I have heard that our producers just kind of sit there and go, what are we going to do with this?
1:04.4	Well, we'll try our best. So the bloopers that we are talking about today, not so much the news
1:08.8	reader not noticing his hairpiece slipping off. There's a really 70s sort of script line, isn't it that?
1:15.2	News readers don't wear hair pieces.
1:17.6	Well, that's, yeah, they do and they're much better.
1:20.8	Hair piece technology.
	...

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