![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Infinite Monkey Business
May. 18th, 2012 03:23 pmLast Christmas there was an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage that really bothered me, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Well, I knew what triggered it: Mark Gatiss was on as one of the guests, and he brought his delightful mix of wry humour and dark fantasy, but it seemed to me that when he played either of these cards, they shut him down. In listening to it again, it's not quite as obvious as it was the first time, and perhaps it is a fault of the final edit or my reading too much into it, but my first impression was very definitely that it went ( like this: )
I quite like The Infinite Monkey Cage. It's an occasional series on Radio 4 that serves science and comedy like bangers and mash. I love science, and I love comedy! It's a great match! Its hosts are a particle physicist* and the comedian who delivers my very favourite bit ever done on the ignorance of the creationist/intelligent design crowd. It brings on interesting ideas and interesting guests. Obviously TIMC has a heavy atheist bent but that's fine; 90% of my friends are atheist or agnostic and I don't believe that's a coincidence.** That is not what bothers me – what bothers me is the belittling way they dismiss anything ... else. It wasn't just that it was Mark Gatiss they were dismissing (though that was part of it, I'll admit), but the coldness of their reaction to his bit of fun. It is a science show and they don't have time to get into the unscientific – there is a running thing about avoiding philosophy – but a bit of banter harking to the tropes of sci-fi, a genre which at its best is about the interplay of science and philosophy, is that so bad that you can't even run with it a little? Why even bring Mark Gatiss on the show if you recoil from the slightest glimpse of imagination?
*to whom I do a terrible disservice in that comic; he's actually the one who delivers the technical information about teleporting, but I went for a cheap parroting of Alistair McGowan's impression of him on The Now Show. I haven't even seen the show where he allegedly goes on about how amaaazing the universe is!
**I mean, not in a 'divine plan' kind of way, namely that I find the company of such people vastly preferable to the alternative, in general
( And then Tealin brought out the big words and smashed things with her brain hammer. )
I quite like The Infinite Monkey Cage. It's an occasional series on Radio 4 that serves science and comedy like bangers and mash. I love science, and I love comedy! It's a great match! Its hosts are a particle physicist* and the comedian who delivers my very favourite bit ever done on the ignorance of the creationist/intelligent design crowd. It brings on interesting ideas and interesting guests. Obviously TIMC has a heavy atheist bent but that's fine; 90% of my friends are atheist or agnostic and I don't believe that's a coincidence.** That is not what bothers me – what bothers me is the belittling way they dismiss anything ... else. It wasn't just that it was Mark Gatiss they were dismissing (though that was part of it, I'll admit), but the coldness of their reaction to his bit of fun. It is a science show and they don't have time to get into the unscientific – there is a running thing about avoiding philosophy – but a bit of banter harking to the tropes of sci-fi, a genre which at its best is about the interplay of science and philosophy, is that so bad that you can't even run with it a little? Why even bring Mark Gatiss on the show if you recoil from the slightest glimpse of imagination?
*to whom I do a terrible disservice in that comic; he's actually the one who delivers the technical information about teleporting, but I went for a cheap parroting of Alistair McGowan's impression of him on The Now Show. I haven't even seen the show where he allegedly goes on about how amaaazing the universe is!
**I mean, not in a 'divine plan' kind of way, namely that I find the company of such people vastly preferable to the alternative, in general
( And then Tealin brought out the big words and smashed things with her brain hammer. )
