'Controversy' (BBC Broadcast)

Date:
[1972]
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/3/5/3
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: 'Controversy' (BBC Broadcast). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/42
    CONTROVERSY CHâHCE AITO NECESSITY 11 en pq EH m en PORTER s Good evening. It's not often that a pure scientist, working in an important, but rather complicated area of science sets the cat among the pigeons in quite the way that tonights speaker has done. Professor Jacques Monod is a Hobel Prize Winner in Medicine, and has contributed significantly to our understand ing of the mechanics by which life evolves®! This has led him to make certain philosophical deductions which leave little comfort for those people who would like to cling to traditional beliefs of Man's purpose in life. Inevitably, Monod's ideas have already come in for a lot of criticism and we have four participants in tonights programme who may wish to take issue with Monod on a number of points after they've heard him speak. Por the last 25 years Jacques Monod's working life has centred on the search for an under standing of the molecular mechanics of life. In 1945 Monod joined a remarkable team of scientists at the Pasteur Institute. Vho had set themselves the task of understanding precisely what chemistry Trias involved in the growth and adaptation of living cells. Some jjiay think it arrogant to assume that mere chemistry can explain life, but the team were amused not intimidated by their own presumption,