Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:55:29.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scientific broadcasting as a social responsibility? John Maynard Smith on radio and television in the 1960s and 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2020

HELEN PIEL
HELEN PIEL*
Affiliation:
The School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

John Maynard Smith (1920–2004) was one of Britain's most eminent evolutionary biologists. For over forty years, from 1954 onwards, he also regularly appeared on radio and television. He primarily acted as a scientific expert on biology, but in the late 1960s and the 1970s he often spoke on the implications of science (biology and more generally) for society. Through four case studies, this paper analyses Maynard Smith's scientific broadcasting against developments within the BBC as well as the relation between science and society in Britain. It finds that while Maynard Smith acknowledged and accepted increasing mediation through the BBC and its producers, he stayed publicly and privately critical of both format and content decisions in his reflections on the science–media relationship. At the same time, we find that over a decade before the 1985 report by the Royal Society on the public understanding of science, Maynard Smith came to think of engagement with the public via the media as scientists’ responsibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 89 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Greg Radick, Charlotte Sleigh, Amanda Rees and the reviewers for their help and comments on this paper. Other stimulating thoughts came from audience members at the BSHS Postgraduate Conference in Manchester 2018. Many thanks also go to Jonathan Pledge, curator at the British Library, and Kate O'Brien, archivist at the BBC Written Archives Centre.

References

1 Ken Geering to John Maynard Smith, 5 December 1967, John Maynard Smith Archive, The British Library (subsequently JMSA) Add MS 86765.

2 Smith, John Maynard, The Theory of Evolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958Google Scholar. For an analysis of the book in relation to popular science see Piel, Helen, ‘Complicating the story of popular science: John Maynard Smith's “little Penguin” on The Theory of Evolution’, Journal of the History of Biology (2019) 52, pp. 371–390Google Scholar.

3 Presentation address, 12 July 1988, JMSA Add MS 86760.

4 Jane Gregory and Steve Miller, Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility, New York and London: Plenum Trade, p. 41.

5 E.g. Paulu, Burton, Television and Radio in the United Kingdom, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Crisell, Andrew, Understanding Radio, 2nd edn, London & New York: Routledge, 2002Google Scholar; Asa Brigg, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, 5 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961–1995; Curran, James and Seaton, Jean, Power without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain, 7th edn, London and New York: Routledge, 2010Google Scholar. For the lack of historical studies see Pickering, Michael, ‘The devaluation of history in media studies’, in Conboy, Martin and Steel, John (eds.), The Routledge Companion to British Media History, London and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 9–18Google Scholar.

6 Schirrmacher, Arne, ‘State-controlled multimedia education for all? Science programs in early German radio’, Science and Education (2010) 21, pp. 381–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar. LaFollette, Marcel, Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008Google Scholar; , LaFollette, Science on American Television: A History, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012Google Scholar. Gouyon, Jean-Baptiste, ‘Science and film-making’, Public Understanding of Science (2016) 25, pp. 17–30CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7 Boon, Timothy, Films of Fact: A History of Science in Documentary Films and Television, London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2008Google Scholar; , Boon, ‘British science documentaries: transitions from film to television’, Journal of British Cinema and Television (2013) 10, pp. 475–497CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Boon, ‘Formal conventions in British science television, 1955–1965’, Nova Època (2014) 7, pp. 51–69Google Scholar; , Boon, ‘“The televising of science is a process of television”: establishing Horizon, 1962–1967’, BJHS (2015) 48, pp. 87–121Google Scholar; , Boon, ‘“Programmes of real cultural significance”: BBC2, the sciences and the arts in the mid-1960s’, Journal of British Cinema and Television (2017) 14, pp. 324–343CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Allan Jones, ‘Speaking of science: BBC science broadcasting and its critics, 1923–1964’, PhD thesis, UCL, 2010; , Jones, ‘Mary Adams and the producer's role in early BBC science broadcasts’, Public Understanding of Science (2011) 21, pp. 968–983Google Scholar; , Jones, ‘Clogging the machinery: the BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953’, Media History (2013) 19, pp. 436–449CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Jones, ‘Elite science and the BBC: a 1950s contest of ownership’, BJHS (2014) 47, pp. 701–723Google Scholar; , Jones, ‘Exceptionalism and the broadcasting of science’, Journal of Science Communication (2017) 16, pp. 1–11Google Scholar.

8 Morley, Neil J., ‘Munro Fox and the public promotion of biology in the mid-twentieth century’, Archives of Natural History, 2019, pp. 88–104, p. 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Jared R. Keller, ‘A scientific impresario: Archie Clow, science communication and BBC radio, 1945–1970’, PhD thesis, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, 2017.

10 Merchant, Paul, ‘Particular popular science: British scientists writing, speaking and broadcasting on science and religion from the 1980s’, Notes Rec. (2018) 72, pp. 365–381CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Charlesworth, Brian and Harvey, Paul, ‘John Maynard Smith’, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (2005) 51, pp. 254–265Google Scholar.

12 Archibald Clow to John Maynard Smith, 15 September 1954, BBC Written Archives Centre (subsequently BBC WAC) RCONT1, John Maynard Smith Contributor File I.

13 Smith, John Maynard, ‘Birds as aeroplanes’, New Biology (1953) 14, pp. 64–81Google Scholar.

14 Archibald Clow to John Maynard Smith, 1 December 1959, BBC WAC RCONT1, John Maynard Smith Contributor File I.

15 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 198.

16 ‘Who knows?’, Radio Times (1957) 1694, p. 25. Pollock was later replaced by G.P. Wells.

17 Radio Times (1960) 1886, p. 50; Radio Times (1967) 2278, p. 38.

18 Cf. Keller, op. cit. (9), pp. 179–202, on the development and format of Who Knows?.

19 Jones, ‘Speaking of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 108.

20 Timothy Boon and Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, ‘The origins and practice of science on British television’, in Conboy and Steel, op. cit. (5), pp. 470–483, 473.

21 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 257.

22 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 194.

23 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 35.

24 Aubrey Singer, ‘Science broadcasting in Britain’, Science (1966) 154, pp. 743–745, 743.

25 Singer, op. cit. (24), p. 744.

26 Singer, op. cit. (24), p. 744, original emphasis.

27 Gregory and Miller, op. cit. (4), p. 122.

28 Dijck, José van, ‘Picturizing science: the science documentary as multimedia spectacle’, International Journal of Cultural Studies (2006) 9, pp. 5–24, 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Reid, R.W., ‘Television producer and scientist’, Nature (1969) 223, pp. 455–458, 457Google Scholar.

30 John Maynard Smith, ‘Science and media’ (1983), reproduced in Smith, Maynard, Did Darwin Get It Right?, London: Penguin, 1993, p. 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Van Dijck, op. cit. (28), p. 7.

32 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 264.

33 This approximation is based on the listings in the BBC Genome project (http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk), a record of the Radio Times from 1923 to 2009. The number may be slightly inflated, although I have tried to unpick all the repeats from the original broadcasts.

34 JMSA Add MS 86765 contains several letters of viewers congratulating Maynard Smith on programmes, and showing genuine interest in the content by asking questions.

35 Paul Ferris, ‘Sound waves: keeping science pure’, The Observer, 22 March 1964, p. 23.

36 ‘Maynard Smith, Prof. John’. Who's Who & Who Was Who, at www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-27114, retrieved 17 October 2018.

37 BBC WAC RCONT1, John Maynard Smith Contributor File I; and RCONT12, John Maynard Smith Contributor File II.

38 JMSA Add MS 86831.

39 John Maynard Smith to Archibald Clow, 19 July 1965, and John Maynard Smith to Mick Rhodes, 13 December 1966, BBC WAC RCONT12, John Maynard Smith Contributor File II.

40 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 268.

41 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 257.

42 Keller, op. cit. (9); Boon, Films of Fact, op. cit. (7); Jones, ‘Speaking of science’, op. cit. (7).

43 John Maynard Smith to Mick Rhodes, 2 November 1965, JMSA Add MS 86765.

44 Mick Rhodes to John Maynard Smith, 27 October 1965, JMSA Add MS 86765.

45 These appear to be, from the titles and brief descriptions in the Radio Times: ‘Mules, maize and mongrels’ (1954), the ‘Looking alike’ three-part series (1960), ‘Jigsaws and penny-whistles’ (1963), ‘Information’ (1964), ‘DNA and evolution’ (1967), and the outlier, ‘Cheese’ (1997) – which appears to have discussed bacteria. ‘Scientific knowledge and the way to find it’ and ‘The scientific interpretation of evidence’, two of his three talks for the Christianity and the Natural Sciences series (1965), were concerned with scientific methods. Cf. JMSA Add MS 86606.

46 The article discussed the feasibility and desirability of eugenics. The science is discussed only insofar as it is necessary to understand the larger arguments around what applied eugenics might mean for human society, whether or not it would be ‘worth bothering’ and what biologists should do about it.

47 John Maynard Smith, Robert McKenzie and Erskine Childers (interviewers), ‘Talking of things to come’, The Listener (1966) 1924. ‘Horizon: pesticides and prosperity [sic]’, Radio Times (1964) 2116, p. 13.

48 Mick Rhodes to John Maynard Smith, 3 March 1967, JMSA Add MS 86765.

49 Cf. Radio Times (1967) 2260, p. 38; 2261, p. 42; 2262, p. 50 and 2263, p. 50.

50 Maynard Smith, op. cit. (30), p. 28, original emphasis.

51 Lawrie, Alexandra, ‘Who's listening to modernism? BBC Features and audience response’, Media History (2018) 24, pp. 239–251Google Scholar, 239 f. Audience Research Report, Biological Backlash, 4, Dreams and goals, 14 April 1967, BBC WAC R9/6/183, LR/67/418.

52 Audience Research Report op. cit. (51). See also Keller, op. cit. (9), pp. 238 ff.

53 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 236.

54 Keller, op. cit. (9), p. 239.

55 Leach 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, p. 7, JMSA Add MS 86765.

56 Kendrew 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, p. 8, JMSA Add MS 86765.

57 Kendrew 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, p. 11, JMSA Add MS 86765.

58 Thorpe and Leach 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, pp. 12 f, JMSA Add MS 86765.

59 Leach 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, p. 8, JMSA Add MS 86765.

60 Maynard Smith 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, pp. 8 f, JMSA Add MS 86765.

61 Maynard Smith 1967, ‘Avoiding Action’, p. 9, JMSA Add MS 86765.

62 E.g. Boenink, Marianne, Swierstra, Tsjalling and Stemerding, Dirk, ‘Anticipating the interaction between technology and morality: a scenario study of experimenting with humans in bionanotechnology’, Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology (2010) 4, pp. 1–38Google Scholar. Hard outcomes or impacts refer to anything quantifiable, whereas soft impacts are less easy to determine: ‘the way technology influences, for example, the distribution of social roles and responsibilities, moral norms and values, or identities’.

63 ‘Out of the air’, The Listener (1967) 2015, p. 606.

64 Mick Rhodes to John Maynard Smith, 3 February 1967, JMSA Add Ms 86765.

65 John Maynard Smith to Mick Rhodes, 6 February 1967, JMSA Add MS 86765.

66 John Maynard Smith to Mick Rhodes, 22 September 1967, JMSA Add MS 86765.

67 Radio Times (1967) 2292, p. 38.

68 Maynard Smith, ‘The conscience of the scientist’ script, BBC WAC TLN 21 TC 1612. The broadcast, based on a speech (see below), has been published in The Listener; cf. Smith, John Maynard, ‘The conscience of the scientist’, The Listener (1969) 2106, pp. 178–180Google Scholar. It was so successful that it was repeated, the producer informed Maynard Smith in his thank-you letter. Laurie John to John Maynard Smith, 22 July 1969, BBC WAC RCONT12, John Maynard Smith Contributor File III.

69 Maynard Smith, The Listener, op. cit. (68), p. 178.

70 Maynard Smith, The Listener, op. cit. (68), p. 179.

71 Maynard Smith, The Listener, op. cit. (68), p. 180.

72 Maynard Smith, The Listener, op. cit. (68), p. 180.

73 Bell, Alice, ‘The scientific revolution that wasn't: the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science’, Radical History Review (2017) 127, pp. 149–172, 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar. John Maynard Smith to Contracts Department, Talks, 26 June 1969, BBC WAC RCONT12, John Maynard Smith Contributor File III.

74 Undated notes, likely 1969, Maurice Wilkins Papers, King's College London (subsequently MWP), KPP178/11/1/4.

75 Jonathan Rosenhead, ‘The BSSRS: three years on’, New Scientist, 20 April 1972, pp. 134–136, 134. Also see anon., ‘More about social responsibility’, Nature (1969) 221, p. 1190.

76 Patrick Baldwin to Maurice Wilkins, 19 February (undated), MWP KPP178/11/1/2.

77 FRSs to whom Wilkins et al.’s letter sent, 19–21 February 1969; others, not FRS, to whom letter has been sent, MWP KPP178/11/1/2.

78 Anon., op. cit. (75), p. 1190. Letters of support to Wilkins et al.’s letter, MWP KPP178/11/1/2.

79 Wilkinson, ‘Scientists draw up code of ethics for Brave New World’, MWP KPP178/11/1/2. Anon., ‘Public and private responsibility’, Nature (1969) 222, p. 320. Maurice Wilkins to Anthony Wedgwood Benn, 19 June 1969, MWP KPP178/11/1/2.

80 Minutes of SSRS Committee, 23 April 1969, MWP KPP178/11/1/4.

81 Committee meeting, 25 June 1969, and ‘To all members of the Science Advisory Board’, 6 January 1970, MWP KPP178/11/1/4.

82 Muddiman, Dave, ‘Red information scientist: the information career of J.D. Bernal’, Journal of Documentation (2003) 59, pp. 387–409, 393Google Scholar.

83 Richie Calder, ‘Scientific hippies’, New Statesman, 2 May 1969, pp. 617–618, 617.

84 The society still decided ‘to maintain good relations and seek invitations to P. seminars’, however. Minutes of SSRS Committee Meeting, 7 May (no year), MWP KPP178/11/1/4. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs emerged in the 1950s, drawing on Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein's manifesto on the nuclear threat. In 1995, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Pugwash and its co-founder, Sir Joseph Rotblat. ‘About Pugwash’ (n.d.), at https://pugwash.org/about-pugwash, retrieved 25 August 2018.

85 Bell, op. cit. (73), p. 152. Among the original letters of support were also several Nobel laureates, a majority of FRSs, a lord and a DBE, as well as OBEs.

86 ‘Bernal and the social function of science’, lecture by Chris Freeman filmed at the University of Sussex, 1997, Vega Science Trust, at http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/86, retrieved 14 May 2019. Muddiman, op. cit. (82), p. 388.

87 Muddiman, op. cit. (82), p. 391, citing Bernal, J.D., The Social Function of Science, London: Routledge, 1939Google Scholar.

88 Desmarais, Ralph, ‘Jacob Bronowski: a humanist intellectual for an atomic age, 1946–1956’, BJHS (2012) 45, pp. 573–589, 574Google Scholar.

89 E.g. J.D. Bernal, Joseph Needham, Dorothy Needham, Lancelot Hogben and Sir Julian Huxley, who had been active in the social relations of science movement or were part of what Gary Werskey has termed the ‘visible college’. See Filner, Robert E., ‘The social relations of science movement (SRS) and J.B.S. Haldane’, Science & Society (1977) 41, pp. 303–316Google Scholar; and Gary Werskey, The Visible College: A Collective Biography of British Scientists and Socialists of the 1930s, London: Free Association Books, 1978. Cf. Letters of support to Wilkins et al’ letter (as of 2 April 1969), MWP KPP178/11/1/2.

90 Cited in Bell, op. cit. (73), p. 166.

91 Cited in Bell, op. cit. (73), pp. 165 f.

92 Gregory, Jane and Lock, Simon Jay, ‘The evolution of “public understanding of science”: public engagement as a tool of science policy in the UK’, Sociology Compass (2008) 2, pp. 1252–1265, 1253CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 Gregory and Lock, op. cit. (92), p. 1254.

94 Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 90.

95 Boon, ‘Programmes of real cultural significance’, op. cit. (7).

96 Michael Peacock, ‘BBC2’, Ariel, April 1963, pp. 4–5, cited in Boon, ‘Programmes of real cultural significance’, op. cit. (7), pp. 327 f.

97 Boon, ‘Programmes of real cultural significance’, op. cit. (7), pp. 327 f.

98 Gerald Leach, ‘Notes on Horizon policy’, attached to Leach to Daly, 9 January 1964, T14/2, 195/1, cited in Boon, ‘Programmes of real cultural significance’, op. cit. (7), p. 330, Leach's emphasis.

99 Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 103. Ramsay Short, ‘Reason for calling the meeting’, 7 January 1964, T14/3,316/1, cited in Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 102.

100 Boon, ‘Programmes of real cultural significance’, op. cit. (7), p. 331.

101 Aubrey Singer to AHOBTel (II), 10 January 1959, T14/1502/2, cited in Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 97.

102 Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 100.

103 Watt, ‘Foreign TV reviews: Horizon’, Variety (1964) 235, p. 30. Boon, ‘The televising of science’, op. cit. (7), p. 87.

104 Radio Times (1966) 2225, p. 15.

105 BBC WAC T63/74/1 First Ten Years, and T63/109/1 Selfish Gene, JMSA Add MS 86765.

106 Peter Jones to John Maynard Smith, 31 December 1974, JMSA Add MS 86765.

107 Smith, John Maynard, ‘J.B.S. Haldane’, in Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.), The Founders of Evolutionary Genetics, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, pp. 37–51, 49Google Scholar.

108 Maynard Smith, op. cit. (107), p. 49.

109 Maynard Smith, op. cit. (107), p. 49; see also JMSA Add MS 86817.

110 John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins, 1997, at www.webofstories.com/play/john.maynard.smith/17. He ultimately left the party after the invasion of Hungary in 1956.

111 Ebbrecht, Tobias, ‘Docudramatizing history on TV: German and British docudrama and historical event television in the memorial year 2005’, European Journal of Cultural Studies (2007) 10, pp. 35–53, 36Google Scholar.

112 Ebbrecht, op. cit. (111). See also Boon, Films of Fact, op. cit. (7); Boon, ‘British science documentaries’, op. cit. (7), on British science documentaries.

113 For literature on the Lysenko affair see, for example, Medvedev, Zhores, The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969Google Scholar; Joravsky, David, The Lysenko Affair, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970Google Scholar; Jones, Greta, ‘British scientists, Lysenko and the Cold War’, Economy and Society (1979) 8, pp. 26–58Google Scholar; Paul, Diane B., ‘A war on two fronts: J.B.S. Haldane and the response to Lysenkoism in Britain’, Journal of the History of Biology (1983) 16, pp. 1–37Google ScholarPubMed; Harman, Oren S., ‘C.D. Darlington and the British and American reaction to Lysenko and the Soviet conception of science’, Journal of the History of Biology (2003) 36, pp. 309–352Google Scholar; Roll-Hansen, Nils, The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science, Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2005Google Scholar; Teich, Mikuláš, ‘Haldane and Lysenko revisited’, Journal of the History of Biology (2007) 40, pp. 557–563CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfe, Audra J., ‘What does it mean to go public? The American response to Lysenkoism, reconsidered’, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2010) 40, pp. 48–78CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and deJong-Lambert, William, The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair, Dordrecht: Springer, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Werskey, op. cit. (89), also devotes a section to it.

114 John Maynard Smith to Peter Jones, 6 January 1975, JMSA Add MS 86765.

115 John Maynard Smith to Peter Jones, 10 February 1975, JMSA Add MS 86765.

116 Singer, op. cit. (24), p. 744.

117 Boon, ‘British science documentaries’, op. cit. (7), p. 477.

118 Peter Jones to John Maynard Smith, 28 January 1975, JMSA Add MS 86765.

119 Van Dijck, op. cit. (28), p. 14.

120 Corner, John, The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction to Documentary, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996Google Scholar, referenced in Gouyon, Jean-Baptiste, ‘Science and film-making’, Public Understanding of Science (2016) 25, pp. 17–30, p. 18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

121 Van Dijck, op. cit. (28), p. 10. Maynard Smith saw potential dangers in the voice-over as a method of presentation as well. He feared that it rendered scientists invisible as people. Cf. Maynard Smith, op. cit. (30), p. 26; and T. Beardsley, ‘Scientists to be seen and heard’, Nature (1983) 305, p. 6.

122 Morley, op. cit. (8), p. 89.

123 Morley, op. cit. (8), p. 98.

124 Merchant, op. cit. (10), p. 377.