Science 'fact' explored

Anyone who, like myself, was already well into their twilight years when the 1960s broke tiresomely on mankind, will remember what terribly backward steps many of the ideas of that decade were.

The young people of the time, of course, claimed free love and psychedelic chemicals as their own, but those were already popular in rest-homes by the late '50s.

Take my word for that.

The idea the young of that period did introduce, and it still clings to the feeble minds of alternative types to this day, is that humankind should somehow return to nature.

That idea is behind the sickening network of health-food stores polluting the Western world, the rise of the word ''holistic'' and, for some reason nobody fully understands, dreadlocks.

The reason I can still play the occasional round of tennis, enjoy a gin pahit before tiffin and almost get on top of my houseboy Raoul in Greco-Roman wrestling, is modern, Western, medical science.

And modern, Western, medical science is in its early stages.

Anyone with a hint of nous must be aware that science will eventually replace our bodies with machines, allowing us total freedom from death and decay, pain, misery, hunger, and most of all, hippies.

There will be no brave new world for hippies.

Michio Kaku explains the concept quite well while discussing cyborgs in Doctor Who: Specials - The Science of Doctor Who.

And the Henry Semat professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York: futurist; communicator and populariser of science; author of several books about physics and related topics, including two New York Times best sellers, and radio, television, and film regular should know.

''I'm sometimes asked the question: how much of the science fiction in Doctor Who is science fact?'' he says, despite the fact he probably just says that to make the show's creators happy.

But no matter: ''I believe that given enough time, almost all of Doctor Who could become science fact,'' he concludes.

''Already we have prosthetic limbs. Also we have cochlear implants: we can give back hearing to people who are deaf.''

The Science of Doctor Who is one of many shows celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who, a show which explores through its Daleks and Cybermen ways of throwing off the shackles of the imperfect organic vessel.

Kaku turns up alongside an array of actors, comedians and talking heads, including Scott Adsit, who plays Pete Hornberger in Tina Fey's 30 Rock.

Why?

God knows, but who cares?

The Science of Doctor Who is entertaining, and runs on UKTV on November 17, six days short of the 50th anniversary of the show's first transmission on November 23, 1963.

Now that was a good idea from the 1960s.

-  Charles Loughrey

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