As a bit of a veteran of BBC radio debates, I can tell you that one of the biggest challenges is the way in which the host can limit your ability to react and respond to whoever you are debating with. This can be really frustrating and when one holds views that do not synch with BBC- as is the case with myself -it is also very predictable. You are told not to interrupt, your mic voice is turned down..so many ways to keep you in your box. It is against this factual background that I invite you to listen to THIS interview on the BBC earlier today between Professor Lisa Jardine of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and Dr David King of the campaign group Human Genetics Alert. Funny how Lisa gets to bully, hector, interrupt and contradict the polite Dr King. I felt sorry for Dr King – but then again if he will insist on holding views contrary to BBC group think, what can he expect?
BACK TO THE EGG…
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Yes, I heard that – what an ignorant, shouty woman.
I too heard that and my immediate thought was “She’s had her microphone turned up, or his has been turned down”. Followed by “Shut up and wait your turn, you rude cow”.
I have no axe to grind in this argument but as soon as her megaphone voice started I took sides – and it wasn’t hers.
Lisa Jardine is a historian!
How the hell did SHE get to head up the HFEA?
Were there no eugenicists, Marxists, Maoists or ex-NUS troughers available….no Blacks, Harrabins even?
Must be great to go from lilypad to lilypad like Patten, Ashton,Slipman and our Lisa!
We are all Masons now!
She slagged off her father in January this year, falsely accusing him of causing unnecessary deathand destruction during WW2 (see her Wikioedia entry). With man-hating credentials like that I’m surprised she doesn’t have her own series.
Good stuff David, thanks for pointing this out.
I wonder if we could have an “Interview manipulation” tag for this. I’m sure the subect will come up again. Just a thought.
The tags we have could be very useful for research purposes – anyone wanting to put together evidence – for a case against the BBC’s fidelity to it’s commitment to impartiality – now has several years of documented bias to look through.
(thinking further, maybe we should keep back-up copies of all this information on this blog?)
PS: Lisa Jardine is another History of Science pest. She always stresses the (very important) point that science isn’t just single Great Men or Women having Eureka moments, but the gradual assimilation of many good ideas from many different people over time.
In itself this is an excellent point, but she takes it too far. In my opinion there IS a place in the History of Science for the stories of flashes of inspiration, dreams that gave people ideas, serendipitous discoveries, and lone geniuses outthinking everyone else on their own. It happens a lot.
She particularly likes to go on about Hooke, Wren and Halley, to the detriment of that solitary genius par excellence Isaac Newton, who simply sat down and thought about things till he had solved problems that had baffled mankind for centuries. Not the story she wants to tell, so she puts him down…
She often does Radio 4’s “point of view” on Friday nights, as well. A real BBC talking head
As a raft of substantiated information now reveals, there seems to be some trouble in certian quarters getting back what has been dished out with impunity, and the reaction is like an explosion in a Toys R Us outside a Mothercare.
The shift now seems to be… ‘OK, I am totally misguided, but I’ve been allowed to be for years and no one should be permitted to contradict this!’
Not sure that will play well even with then sofa sheeple, who can recognise BS when it’s played out in front of them.