Hot water

Adam Rutherford

A widely-reported BBC bias story this week concerned a BBC freelancer on Twitter - namely Inside Science presenter Adam Rutherford. 

He got told off by the BBC for sounding off on Twitter against Labour MP Graham Stringer. 

Adam didn't think that Mr Stringer (a former analytical chemist) should be appointed to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee because of his 'sceptical' views on global warming, and urged his followers on Twitter to protest against the Labour MP's appointment. 

That's a striking affirmation of the BBC's policy - a policy many a BBC tweeter regularly ignores on all manner of issues. 

Listening to this week's Inside Science, Adam (in passing) mentioned his telling-off:

Some controversy followed with questions about the scientific credentials, the gender imbalance and some of the opinions of some of the members of the committee. As you may be aware this has been the source of some indignation from some of us in the science community. I got myself in some hot water earlier this week by tweeting about it. Setting that aside...

Inside Science then broadcast an interview Adam recorded "last week" (i.e. before the storm about his tweet) with the resolutely non-sceptical-about-global-warming, anti-Brexit Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb, focusing on how outrageous both of them felt it is that there aren't enough woman on the committee, and on Brexit-related matters.

I've noted before how Inside Science does sometimes seem to take on a campaigning role on various issues. Though Adam Rutherford went too far even for the BBC on Twitter (by directly attacking a Labour MP), his programme often 'goes too far' for me on air in the way of pushing agendas, despite often being very interesting. I doubt even this will make that change. 

'Inside Science' and the EU

Adam Rutherford

As expected, Radio 4's Inside Science covered the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee's report on the influence of EU membership on UK science. The report didn't specifically recommend In or Out  and added some negative points about EU regulation, but it was overwhelmingly positive about the UK's EU membership as regards science and argued that Brexit would mean a loss of influence. 

I expected the programme to reflect that (as that's what the report says) and, yes, Adam Rutherford (the Guardian journalist who presents Inside Science) did give a fair and full introduction to its findings. 

I have to admit that, on past experience, I was expecting the worst here as Adam doesn't always keep his (impeccably left-liberal) opinions to himself whilst presenting the programme, so this was all for the good.

Even better, he then interviewed persuasive people from both sides of the EU referendum argument - Viscount (Matt) Ridley and Professor Paul Boyle of Leicester University - and seemed to be allowing their discussion to flow without letting his own opinions intrude too much. 

So I thought, 'This deserves a clean bill of health'.

And then, just as the interview was nearing its close, Adam Rutherford unfortunately reverted to type and started steering the discussion towards a particular conclusion, beginning by putting a point to Matt Ridley which he'd already put to him at the start of their interview (so why bring it up again at the end of the interview?).

This was Adam Rutherford's opening question to Viscount Ridley:

I asked Matt Ridley if he's somewhat out of kilter, according to this very report, with the vast majority of the scientific community.

Ten minutes later then he asked it again, and...

Matt Ridley

...well, here's a transcription of the closing part of the discussion, so you can see for yourselves what happened thereafter (including the final leading question):

Adam Rutherford: Matt,  the report does say "overwhelming support" for remaining in Europe. You are somewhat out on a limb in the report committee and not representing science in general. Is it not the case we will have...the UK will not have a key role in decision-making for science, in the UK and across Europe, and in those funding decisions?   

Matt Ridley: I think we will still have a big role in the European Research Area, whether we're inside or outside the European Union. I don't actually think that it will make a huge difference in science. I think the main reasons for leaving Europe are different - i.e. to regain control over the people who make decisions that effect our lives and in order to re-embrace the world in terms of trade and intellectual property and so.  

Adam Rutherford: But that sounds like a non-scientific argument to me. That sounds like the broader issues of remaining in Europe separate from what you are on the committee to determine, which is the role of the EU for science.  

Matt Ridley: Well, again, to be fair, our committee didn't recommend remaining or leaving, either way. It remained neutral on that point. It simply explored the relationship between the UK and the EU in terms of science and found it to be a fruitful one. I thinks it's one that's very likely to continue, whether we're inside the EU or not.  

Adam Rutherford: Paul, does it matter? Do we need to be part of EU in order to maintain excellence in science? 

Paul Boyle

Paul Boyle: I think it absolutely does matter. We have a consensus of opinion. I think the report itself and, indeed, the words from the chair of that report were clear. There's overwhelming evidence. They found it very difficult to find researchers who would speak against. Don't forget: Not all researches receive money from the EU. It's not as if they're all necessarily benefiting individually from this. They can all see the benefits to the system in the UK of being part of Europe. I think it's essential. And, of course, as a vice-chancellor at a university, I'm hoping that our colleagues in universities, our students and others, make sure they are registered to vote and put the point forward. 

Adam Rutherford: Paul Boyle and Matt Ridley. 

Interpolation

On a less flippant note - and to give praise where praise is due - Radio 4's Inside Science broke away from its climate change obsession and gave a fascinating 'breaking news' take on the gravitational waves story. Presenter Tracey Logan was suitably excited.

Outside Pluto

In the original spirit of this blog, I'd just like to recommend this week's BBC Inside Science as a fine piece of BBC broadcasting. 

It reported on the initial findings of News Horizons's fly-past of Pluto and its moons, and presenter Adam Rutherford was clearly excited - and rightly so, I think.

Yes, BBC Inside Science bangs on about climate change far too much (always from the same perspective) and, yes, the programme can be very PC (and recently fell hook, line and sinker for the Sir Tim Hunt 'scandal', with a finger-wagging special) and, yes, the programme's recent links to the Open University mean that its main presenter must be presented in a way that makes him as if he's down with da young folk...

...but, still, it can be fascinating at times - and, when he's not finger-wagging, Adam can be a likeable presenter. 

It's the science that counts though and this week's edition had plenty of it, including a fascination insight into the process whereby Pluto found itself regulated from the top flight of planets into the Championship. 

And did you know that the (now) dwarf planet's name came courtesy of an eleven-year-old English girl named Venetia Burney. (We even heard her speak in an archive clip).

Pluto and its moons are turning out to be so interesting that the BBC seriously ought to think about sending a reporter there to cover it. The licence fee would surely stretch to that (despite what Roger Bolton says). I think Jon Donnison would be ideal for the job. 

Adam and Ellie

In the post above - which, by the Paul Daniels-like magic of Google Blogger, appears above this later post - I refer to my various, fleeting 'catches' of BBC bias this week.

There were two: Countryfile on BBC One and BBC Inside Science on Radio 4.

Both are prime examples of generally excellent BBC programmes that are, to those minded to worry about BBC bias, often scarred by BBC bias.

As for Countryfile, besides some excellent farming stuff, we had Ellie being staggered by gannets plunging into the sea (which was fun) and those pretty Rastafarian sheep I posted about the other day. There was also, inevitably, some heavy BBC plugging (the Countryside Calender).

Watchers of BBC bias, however, might have cavilled at three things: 

• (1) a kittiwake expert's prognosis that kittiwake decline in the UK is down to the decline of sand-eels due to global warming [one for people who don't like the BBC featuring experts who think such things are down to global warming]. 
• (2) another BBC feature [following Springwatch] on how much harm humans are causing the animal population with our careless discarding of plastics [one for those who don't like the BBC to be a campaigning organisation, even if the cause is a very good one].
• (3) Tom Heap's carefully-balanced-but-very-blatantly-skewed piece about the need for local councils and communities to give our time-honoured, unjustly-maligned gyspy/traveller communities a much more sympathetic hearing [one for those who think the BBC is drippingly 'left-liberal' over such matters and prepared to whitewash claims of mass criminality and anti-social behaviour on behalf of the 'marginalised' in the interests of BBC niceness].

The last one in particular did seem to be clearly arguing a case - a controversial case - possibly in breach of BBC editorial guidelines [but, given that he ended with a 'balanced' question (his get-out-of-jail-free card) and featured people from the 'other side of the argument', that would be very hard to 'prove'].

BBC Inside Science, also heavily interested in global warming stories, followed up its 'special' last week on 'sexism in science' (following Sir Tim Hunt's apparently deeply unjust misrepresentation - and subsequent filleting -  by a mixture of activists and cowardly academics) by featuring....some listener responses. 

All but one of those listener responses (reporting positive and negative stories about female experiences in science) got an uncritical hearing. The exception? This one, from Michael:

Every week I listen to your programme to find out about science, but this week the programme was completely devoid of any science. Equality in the work place is a very important issue but there are lots of programmes who deal with these issues. Please just stick to the science and leave these issues for others to deal with.

That brought the following highly defensive 'editorial' from BBC Inside Science presenter (and Guardian columnist) Adam Rutherford:

Well, Michael and others, it is a valid point [meaning, as you'll see, that it's NOT a valid point at all!] but I believe that science is part of culture, not outside of it. The overwhelming majority of the content of Inside Science does concern (global warming) new discoveries or the process of discovery, but the culture in which that research is done is also science, and that is done by people. My mission on this programme is to show how science works - or doesn't - from beginning to...well, there is no end. Lab life is part of that and social issues are part of that package. 

BBC Inside Science can be fascinating but Adam's wrong not to realise that his mission is a mission that might appeal to his colleagues at the Guardian/BBC but might not be one wholly appreciated by people beyond his circle (like Michael) - especially if it's skewed too blatantly in the direction of a cause, as BBC Inside Science can sometimes - as with last week's edition - give the impression of being.

"Great Britain - a nation of marvellous migrant mongrels!"

Guardian journalist and BBC presenter Adam Rutherford was back on presenting duties for Radio 4's week science magazine programme BBC Inside Science. He began by reporting on that fascinating study into the genetic history of the British 'Caucasian' population which hit the headlines this week. 

It showed, as you are probably aware: (a) that Britons have barely moved from where they has settled in around 600 AD over the course of 1,400 years; (b) that almost all 'Caucasian' Britons have a significant genetic inheritance from the original inhabitants of these isles; (c) that all of these ancient communities can be linked to specific communities in other Western European countries (especially France and Germany); (d) that the Celts are a diverse bunch with less in common with each other than they have with, say, the English; (e) that ancient regional/county dividing lines reflect the DNA evidence (especially the one between Devon and Cornwall); and (f) that the conquerors (the Romans, the Vikings) had very little genetic impact. 

All very interesting. I couldn't help getting the feeling, however, that Adam Rutherford was using the study on today's BBC Inside Science to make a point, to get across a particular message - and that he was doing so with all the subtlety of a pumped-up Viking warrior on a big night-out.

Can you spot what message he might have been trying to get across from his introductory and closing remarks?:

But first, the election is looming and one of the perennial topics is immigration.  Well, believe it or not, we're absolutely a nation of immigrants and over the last 10,000 years there has been wave after wave of immigrants coming over here, taking our jobs, breeding with our women.

Great Britain - a nation of marvellous migrant mongrels! - by a long shot my favourite study of the year so far.

And there was far more where that came from.

Some Guardian writers/BBC presenters just can't stop themselves from pushing an agenda it seems, courtesy of the BBC.

Inside Radio 4's brand of science

Given that BBC Radio 4 doesn't offer its listeners much in the way of dedicated science programmes, I should probably refrain from complaining too much about Inside Science, but...

As Inside Science is a weekly magazine show dedicated to news about science, you might reasonably expect it to be free from the kind of left-wing point-scoring which - either subtly or with the application of an king-sized sledgehammer - pervades so much of the rest of Radio 4's output. 

Yet, bizarrely, Inside Science rarely seems to go an edition without ensuring that some left-wing point or other is scored. 

I've heard violent attacks on the Daily Mail, sneers at UKIP and mockery of opponents of mass immigration during the course of this year's editions of Inside Science - and we're not even out of February yet. 

As a case in point, I was happily listening to this afternoon's edition, which began by discussing brain-machine interfaces and, among other things, the way they are offering hope to people suffering from the terrible condition known as locked-in syndrome, when presenter Adam Rutherford changed the subject and read out a listener letter's (from a Jago Tremain of Norwich) wanting to know if there was a gene 'for narrow-minded intolerance' and 'nastiness', following last week's edition of the programme which dismissed the idea of a 'gay gene'. 

Jago says that gay people have caused far less suffering than intolerant fundamentalists over the centuries [probably true, given the tiny percentage of people in any given population who are gay]. He also says that he wants intolerant, narrow-minded, nasty, anti-gay people 'cured' of their intolerance if ever such a gene is found. 

(Adam described that as his "favourite letter to Inside Science yet".) 

A professor (Tim Spector) then appeared, talking about genetic research into conservative v liberal views, straightforwardly linking the phrase "right-wing" to "fundamentalist" and, thus, in the context of Adam Rutherford's build-up, inevitably linking right-wingers to 'intolerance, narrow-mindedness and nastiness'. 

Charming.

The thought has crossed my mind before that Inside Science, especially when Adam is presenting it, has had something of the feel of the Guardian's science coverage about it.

Admittedly, the Guardian's science coverage is some of the best in the British media, but a significant slice of it is (inevitably) tinged by the Guardian's very particular political biases. Often strongly so. And Adam Rutherford's editions of Inside Science seem to partake of that spirit on a surprisingly regular basis.

I could have kicked myself....kick, kick, kick...that I didn't check this out earlier, but I thought I'd google Adam today and....aha!.... of course he's a regular columnist at the Guardian (among other things), writing a fair few left-leaning pieces amongst his straight-down-the-line science pieces there. [I'd assumed he was a BBC employee, doing what BBC employees seem to do so naturally.]

Why isn't that surprising? 

Odds and Ends

As it's Sunday night, there are various loose threads that I've left dangling in my head over the past few days and I don't want any passing cats to start playing with them and make a mess on the carpet. Much better to make that mess on a blog. 

Bouquets and brickbats galore for the BBC follow. 

A bouquet first. 

Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time this week looked at the sources modern academics use to study early Chinese history. This was In Our Time at its best. I can't say I was exactly drooling at the subject matter beforehand but I found it absolutely fascinating. It helped having three engaging academics to talk about it, especially Roel Sterckx of Cambridge University. (My goodness, that man is fluent and interesting. Less Linda Colley, more Roel Sterckx please BBC.) 

If you were wondering (and knowing you, of course you were!) the earliest Chinese written records of historiographical value are the 'oracle bone inscriptions' of the Shang dynasty (c1600-1700 B.C.- c1050 B.C.). They date from around 1200 B.C. They are inscriptions written on the shoulder blades of oxen and turtle shells, divination records of the Shang king's consultations with his royal ancestors. On the bones a question was put (such as "Will the king become ill this month?"). A priest then cracked the bone with a hot poker and wrote down the prognostication from the cracks in the bones, seen as the answer from the ancestors. There about about 200,000 fragments of these bones around the world, some 400 in Cambridge University Library alone. They allow academics to work out the movements of the Shang royal family, and mention such things as childbirth and toothache. 

I also like the fact that Melvyn Bragg is unusually conscientious as a Radio 4 blogger. His contributions dominate the Radio 4 blog. Without him the Radio 4 blog would be semi-comatose. (Actually, I think we're a better Radio 4 blog than the Radio 4 blog!)

Now a brickbat, and I'm lobbing it straight at Jeremy Paxman. 

What is it with the likes of Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys that they only ever seem to have one tone when interviewing a scientist about some matter of general scientific interest - a tone of sustained (if good-natured) bemused scepticism tinged with moments of 'gee whiz!' surprise? It's always the same question too: 'What's the point of this?', with 'Why are we wasting our money on this?' often chucked in as a bonus question. Last Monday's Newsnight saw The Great Paxo interviewing The Sky at Night's excellent Professor Chris Lintott about the comet-chasing Rosetta probe and those are the questions he put and that's the tone he struck. As to the 'waste of money' question, Chris replied:

Well, you have to think where the money's gone. The money doesn't go to the comet. The money's spent here on earth. It goes to people, it goes to technology and it goes to industries in this country and throughout Europe.

And while I'm chucking brickbats at the BBC's science coverage, I've got to say that the larkiness of programmes like Radio 4's Inside Science can be really wearing. Larky, larky, larky. If the larkiness led to laughs it would be OK, but it's almost always a laugh-free kind of larkiness. Yes, Humour and the Higgs-boson can certainly go together, but they certainly didn't during the exchanges on this week's edition. Come on, Inside Science, treat us like adults please, or do I have to send Melvyn Bragg in to sort you out? I will, you know. I will send in Melvyn Bragg to sort you out. 

There were no laughs whatsoever during this week's Four Thought. The previews of Four Thought rarely tempt me to listen, but this week's edition sounded interesting - and most unlike the sort of thing you usually hear on Radio 4. It was a talk by a former British soldier who served in Afghanistan, and made for a genuinely thought-provoking listen. 

Emile Simpson gave an account of how the strategy in Afghanistan evolved over time to become ever more subtle and sophisticated. Concrete examples were given as to how British strategy changed as the early idealistic aims of the war ran into the messy reality of Afghanistan and how growing local knowledge led to nuance and greater success in Britain's military activities. I don't think I've really done full justice to the shrewdness of Emile Simpson's arguments there, so please listen for yourselves.

Time for another brickbat. (This is like a game of bouquet-brickbat table tennis). 

Newsnight's Ethical Man, Justin Rowlatt, was back on the programme this week discussing the tax dodges of China's elite. It was just what I'd have expected from him and Newsnight. It was based on a Guardian report and the work of a left-leaning American investigative journalists' group, and featured the leftist Tax Justice Network's Richard Murphy (described, as ever, merely as a "tax expert"). It inevitably framed the Western banks and accountancy companies and ended with Justin saying, "And let's not forget who's ultimately responsible for that". 

Can you guess who? "Ultimately we should say perhaps we're responsible and we should be looking to clean up this offshore haven", said Justin. 

Yes, elements in China's elite are engaging in tax avoidance but the Chinese aren't the guilty ones, oh no. Yes, we are "ultimately" the guilty party. It says so on Richard Murphy's oracle bone inscriptions. 

Now, if ever I heard the authentic voice of the Guardianista-BBC Left, that's it, in full flow. Thanks again, Newsnight.

We're due another bouquet, I think, after that rant and I'm returning to More or Less. 

A reader had seen an NHS poster at his local surgery which warned, scarily, that 'Two or more large glasses of wine a day could make you three times more likely to get mouth cancer.' Is that true? Well, More or Less investigated and, to cut a long story short, no, it isn't, and it's wrong in so many ways. Mouth cancer isn't common and, by itself, the stats actually reveal that the increased risk of mouth cancer from drinking two large glasses of wine a day actually carries a 0% risk. The increased risk from tobacco, however, is 22% - and here's where it gets interesting because the increased risk for people who use tobacco and alcohol is 61%. It seems to be the combination of the risk from tobacco and alcohol where the heart of the risk really lies. Please excuse me then while I pour a third large glass of wine then. Hmm, very nice.

Finally, as someone who used to write a classical music blog, I was very interested in Who Killed Classical Music? on Radio 4 the other day. It was written and presented by a young composer named Gabriel Prokofiev. Yes, Prokofiev. He's the grandson of the great Sergei himself. 

Though pleasantly nuanced, it's general thesis was a familiar one to classical music lovers -  that the modernists and avant-gardists of the Twentieth Century (Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, et al) had alienated Western audiences to a disastrous degree (unlike their traditionalist counterparts in the reactionary Soviet Union, such as that wonderful tunesmith Sergei Prokofiev). The post-war avant-garde in particular felt that the kind of tuneful, romantic classical music that led up to WWII was irredeemably contaminated by Nazism and that mass appeal was a dangerous thing. They denounced traditional, tonal composers and became an authoritarian, dominating presence looming over the classical music scene. Meanwhile, the hated bourgeois audience went back to their tuneful classics, ever shrinking in number as more and more people found that the only contemporary music they liked was popular music (or jazz.)

Gabriel's granddad

Now, as the programme made clear, the influence of the avant-garde has declined sharply in the last couple of decades, and tunes and audience appeal are very much back in vogue. Still, despite that - and despite Classic FM - audiences remains small and knowledge about classical music minimal. Gabriel felt hopeful things are beginning to improve though.

Here's where the BBC comes in. 

If there's one thing reading classical music magazines for 25 years of so has taught me it's that lots and lots of British classical music fans of a traditional bend - those who like tunes and dislike too much dissonance - blame a particular institution above all for that avant-garde dominance of British contemporary music in the decades after the war (especially from the late 1950s onwards). That institution is the BBC. They regarded it as having been a deeply malign influence at that time.

As Gabriel was broadcasting on the BBC at the time, he presumably felt it was impolite to mention that fact. 

The man who usually gets the blame is former Radio 3 controller Sir William Glock. He certainly did have a strong bias towards the avant-garde (among many other biases). Sir William went on to control the Proms and stamped his radical mark on that too. Rumours of a hit list of traditional, conservative contemporary composers - tunesmiths to a man - who Sir William banned in favour of anti-tonal, experimental modern music abound and seem to have some truth. Some defenders of William Glock say that Radio 3 was actually worse under his successors, Robert Ponsonby and Sir John Drummond. 

I'm banging on about all this because you may be unfamiliar with it - and because it interests me (and it's me and Sue's blog!). It's a peculiar area of BBC history, where the BBC seems very clearly to have been strongly intent on guiding and shaping public taste in classical music and conditioning them to admire a particular type of contemporary classical music. 

I'm sure some of you might draw analogies with how the present BBC seeks to guide and shape public opinion on other matters.