I watched, as I always do, this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (BBC4, 28,29,30 December), given by Dr Alison Woollard under the title “Life Fantastic: Am I a Mutant?”. They were essentially about (human) developmental biology.
Lecture 1. Revealed how the transformation from a single cell into a walking, talking, multi-trillion-celled organism we call the human body takes place.
Lecture 2. Looked at how diversity in the natural world has come from genetic mutation, explored how species adapt and change to survive and at the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin.
Lecture 3. There’s one certainty in life: death. Every living thing eventually dies. But why? How do cells know when to stop living? What happens when they age? And are there ways of halting that process?

RI Auditorium: Christmas Lectures 2010
Now I know I’m a scientist and way above the experience level of the target audience (young teenagers), but I am not an expert on cell biology so I should be able to learn things. But I didn’t. And I found the series dull and pedestrian (although better as it went on) — which has been a feature of the RI lectures in recent years.
This is partly down to the lecturers. I found Woollard’s style wooden and lifeless, especially in the first lecture; for someone who professes to be excited by what she was talking about there was little or no trace in the delivery. It was almost lecturing by sound-bite. And she was easily upstaged at the end of the first lecture by Prof. Sir Paul Nurse, who frankly should have been giving these lectures as he is clearly a natural communicator.
But the pedestrian nature of the lectures is also in part down to the way they have been dumbed down over recent years. Years ago there were six lectures in the series and the audience were expected to crane their necks to understand, but at the same time they were taken on a much better explained journey — logical step by logical step — with lots of practical demonstrations and models. In recent years the lectures have been commercialised, gradually reduced in number to the present three and made bland. The audience are now spoon fed a series of facts in vaguely connected steps with little useful explanation or demonstration of how one gets from A to C. Clearly the kids are not expected to be able to follow logic, understand demonstrations or have to crane their necks to understand. And I feel damn sure many don’t understand and can’t follow what’s going on.
Let me give a trivial example. At the start of lecture one Woollard bombarded the auditorium with 200,000 pieces of confetti, which scarcely created a carpet, and compared this with the 40 trillion cells in the human body. OK, as Woollard said, to create that number would take 6 years at the rate of 200K/second. I find this a useless comparison because it relates to nothing tangible — who can really envisage what 6 years is like? Wouldn’t it be better to point out that if this is 200K pieces then 40 trillion would fill the auditorium (how many times over?) and that the 200K wouldn’t even be enough cells to make your little finger? This can be related to things the audience can see and relate to. Isn’t that a more easily understood, because more tangible, comparison? It is really hard, even for me, to relate to the sheer scale of 40 trillion!

Christmas Lectures 2013
OK I understand in part why this dumbing down has happened. There is a level of scaredness that something might go wrong with a demonstration and someone get hurt. Has this ever happened during the lectures? I very much doubt it.
There is also the question of cost. These lectures are not cheap to stage. Apart from taking the lecturer away from their day job for an extended period to prepare, there is the cost of building and acquiring all the demonstrations as well as the several technicians that are required to do it. We are talking about a cost well into five, probably six, and maybe even seven figures. That money has to come from somewhere which is why the lectures have been commercialised through sponsorship and reduced in number.
In my view this dumbing down has to change if we really are going to inspire the next generation of scientists. I have no problem with funding these lectures, at least in part, through sponsorship; given the cost that is sensible as long as the sponsor isn’t calling the tune. But wouldn’t it be a great idea if the Department of Education contributed the equivalent of a couple of headmasters’ salaries each year? — a flea-bite in the overall education budget, but surely a significant contribution to bringing on the next generation of scientists. If this happened we could go back, as I believe we should, to a series of six lectures, with really inspirational lecturers who are also great communicators, and proper “wow, so that’s how it works!” demonstrations.
I’m thinking of the great lectures of some years ago: eg. Prof. Eric Laithwaite (engineering, 1966 & 1974) and David Attenborough (animal communication, 1973). Who do we have now to come up to their standard? Well let’s start with Prof. Sir Paul Nurse, Prof. Steve Jones, Prof. Alice Roberts. We need inspirational lecturers; recent years have seen too many who really aren’t.
But I seem to be in a minority of one. From what I see on Twitter, and elsewhere, the modern generation of young scientists lap up these lectures and think they’re brilliant. Maybe they are if you’ve been brought up on yoghurt and fish fingers. I believe that kids need to be brought up on something more substantial; you build robust adults by feeding them roast beef and proper vegetables. The same is true of scientists.