Pour yourself a coffee, open a packet of biscuits, and sit yourself down in a comfy chair to read Ben Pile's long and utterly fascinating survey of the descent of science broadcasting and in particular the BBC's Horizon strand. With side swipes at, among others, Paul Nurse, Simon Singh, Iain Stewart and David Attenborough it is unmissable. Take this bit:
Nurse’s contempt for ‘politics and ideology’ and ‘polemicists and commentators’ is simple contempt for the viewer. Nurse asks for his trust, but does not reciprocate — the viewer is too easily misled, not being sufficiently equipped, too vulnerable to ‘others who don’t understand the science’. Science is just too complicated for the public. The values of the contemporary Royal Society are now identical to the values of the producers of Horizon: the public is a dangerous, contemptible moron.