AMEN.

Wow.
Astonishing.

To to bandwidth issues I can't view the clip here, but I have seen the entire series, and I'm certain I know which episode this is. I agree - I've never seen any single programme episode as moving as this one.

Why can't we get programmes like this today? In fact when was the last time we had anything that covered science with due respect without dumbing down?

of desire to see and desire to create real, unpatronising science programming that will give us something decent eventually. Ben Goldacre - his rudeness notwithstanding - is the obvious poster-boy, but we also have the unmissable 'More Or Less' and the rather good 'Infinite Monkey Cage' on Radio 4, and I think that there are an increasing number of a) mainstream journalists realising that science has value in and of itself and b) scientists who realise that making themselves better understood in laymans' terms is not cheapening or selling out their science, but a vital part of keeping it alive and meaningful.

My little brother, of whom I am inordinately proud, is a talented doctor of genetic biology, and is currently in the early stages of trialling a lecture programme for journalism students designed to give them a grounding in what scientific method is and why it is important to understand: essentially to pass to this next generation of communicators precisely the message that Bronowski is giving here. I'm sending this clip to my bro - in fact, I'm buying him the box set.

1st housewife: 'Ere, that Dr. Bronowski, 'e knows everything.
2nd housewife: Oh, I wouldn't like that. It'd take all the mystery out of life.

Seriously though, I remember the origal programmes and the ending, with him standing ankle deep in the mud at Ausschwitz, and well..good call, Patrick.

so it's not that bit where Delboy falls through the opened bar hatch in the pub then?

Haven't seen the series for nearly 30 years, but if memory serves - right up there with the likes of Clark, Attenborough, Bronowski and Olivier:

Wonderful stuff from Sagan.

Thank you Patrick.

More than 30 years since I first saw it, that is the only part of Ascent Of Man that sticks in the memory (although my memory turned out to be somewhat different).
Stimpy is right. It would have to be leavened with celebrity. Before TAOM who has heard of Bronowski? Very few I suspect. But the producers at that time went with an erudite and articulate man, who was quite old, wasn't particularly photogenic but was charismatic and who could communicate. They were confident this man could draw in an audience and that he had something important to say. He wasn't afraid to promulgate complex ideas, but he could explain them and make them perfectly comprehensible.

As ever, you're eye for quality remains true. I still can't get past the first 01:40 of the following, as my "best bit of TV ever"

Or Tiswas. Can't believe it. This must be the serious crowd.

I haven't seen that TAOM series but the clip was jaw-dropping, especially wading into the ashes of his relatives. No celebs, no stupid music selection, just the gravity of the situation. Nice posting.

Thanks Patrick for bringing this to our attention. I notice it is on sale at amazon.co.uk for £24.98, so I am going to use my Xmas voucher for this very purpose.

I notice from one of the reviews on Amazon that David Attenborough commissioned The Ascent of Man. He is someone for whom I have the highest regard, having produced some of the most thought-provoking TV of the last 30 years, including the recent Planet Earth series, which I thought was as mind-blowing as any of his other nature programmes

is his use of his hands. It is as if he is a conductor of ideas, each movement of them perfectly reinforcing what he is saying and dictating the cadences of the intellectual flow of his narrative.

But that clip is astonishing. If I wasn't still half way through World At War (and broke post Christmas) I'd get this right away. Will add to my list

Just some rambling thoughts, but I was lucky enough to work in the department that made this at the BBC 20 years ago, and as I was starting out I overlapped with some of the programme makers who made it. There is so much to say about why that quality of programme not on TV now, but perhaps it was a time when everything aligned? The lack of alternative channels, not fighting for an audience, the expectation that that was what TV was for (remember, Play for Today was running at the same time). Recently I was asked about re-making one of Kenneth Clark's series for TV (at least in title), and found myself in the very strange position of wondering how I could make it work for a current audience. My initial reaction was that it had to be far more intelligent, insightful, and brilliant than anything I had made before and I would demand exactly the same from the presenter. That was my reaction - that I was hardly worthy and that the only way I could get close was by appreciating the unique brilliance of those that came before - Bronowski, Jonathan Miller, Clark.

I didn't do it in the end, partly because I couldn't find an approach that would work for me (and as you can tell, not feeling I was good enough to match what had gone before). A while ago an article talked about how TV is attempting to ape cinema, to the detriment of TV. I had to agree with it as that has been my approach for a while (to let the visual dominate dialogue). Perhaps it is the wrong approach for the kind of material that Bronowski was tackling (as a side note, the director of that episode, Mick Jackson, went on to direct 'DNA: Life Story', 'A very British Coup' and that programme about a nuclear attack which I'm sorry to say I've forgotten the title of, before moving to Hollywood).

Funnily enough, In Our Time is one way I get my regular dose of knowledge, although Bragg's pronunciation of foreign names is hysterical. I wanted one of the panelists to tell him that nowhere on this planet is Don Quixote pronounced Don Kwiksot! Although I'm waiting to be corrected.

is that the dialogue doesn't dominate the visual, nor vice-versa. I have the series on DVD and also the original tie-in book, which is pretty much the dialogue from the series plus illustrating photos. Having seen the series it is simply impossible to read the book without hearing Bronowski's voice and seeing his gestures, which as Patrick Crowther perceptively points out, are perfectly tailored to not just illustrating his points but defining their very shape and the way you remember them.

One of the parts of the series which most conclusively blew my mind was the sector in which he explains how the combination of Arabic mathematics and European representative art came together to create perspective - and how that allowed far more than the representation of three dimensions in art: it allowed people to *think* in three dimensions, to turn complex forms and objects around in their head, which led via Da Vinci's minly theoretical inventions to the abililty to create the machines that facilitated the industrial revolution. His easy depiction of this combination of the social, the practical, the artistic, the mathematical and the completely abstract - all drawn together with those precise hand gestures, those perfectly-picked words - completlely re-wired the way I thought and, at a time when I was completely disenchanted with anything to do with academia, made me fall in love with learning for its own sake all over again.

Another one of those wonderful, East European polymaths. His book on Art and Illusion is wonderful, and in common with those great writers, incredibly clearly written.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Illusion-Psychology-Pictorial-Representation...

And just found him on youtube, talking to Charlie Rose about his Story of Art. Apparently his mum said that Freud was the best teller of Jewish jokes she had ever met.

The interview begins 45'30" in.