The ending sequence from episode 11 of Jacob Bronowski's excellent 1973 series, The Ascent Of Man. It was commissioned for the then new BBC Channel 2 by David Attenborough as a scientific counterpoint to 1969's Civilisation
jacob was my grandmother's first cousin. i've never seen this before. i don't know how he managed to keep speaking so eloquently whilst flooded with the sorts of feelings that made him spontaneously walk into that water. my mum, dad, brother and i visited auschwitz, ourselves, when i was 22, back in 2002. everything about the place felt so ordinary. there was still grass. there were still birds in the trees. just buildings and fences and tarmac. same sky. same earth as everywhere else i've ever been. the stillness of the place is like something from a dream. how can it be so still, one asks oneself? his family was my family. all the polish side i can never know. i'm only here because his cousin, annie flatto, left poland to come to london. otherwise, i wouldn't be here, either. i wish i believed we were better, now.
This series was a personal companion through my late teens and early 20s. Now in my late 30s I can see a new dogma has manifest itself. A dogma I was unknowingly a part of, even through those years over a decade ago. I would think it possible I was mistaken. Many of my former friends, the mainstream 24h news media and social media have brought upon this new dogma and the past few years have accelerated this dogma to the point were applying any brakes may be futile. The dogma of the ill-informed emotionalist.
wholeheartedly agree. I have this series on dvd, a BBC library copy.... it is one of the difficult programs I have ever subjected to, but at the same time most necessary and life changing, and has completely changed my views on faith and religion.
I have come back to this moment of film many times over the years. This crystalizes the problem and the answer to the everyday evil in the world like nothing else. The most important 3 minutes you may ever spend. Hear it, contemplate it. Changed my life.
It was said by Jacob Brownowski himself that this scene was unscripted and unrehearsed by him. "The words just came to me" he was quoted as saying in an interview. You can certainly tell that these words come strictly from the heart. No stuttering, no grunting, no searching for the right words. Just a straight out belief in what he is saying and he is quite at ease in ruining a good pair of Gucci slippers to help make his point.
Jacob B. Is a Western Bigot. Seeing only the West's culture as THE WAY to the future of mankind. It is the West that has ascended to incredible heights which is causing the DESCENT OF MAN! WESTERN industrialization has placed enough carbon into the Earth's atmosphere to speed the ceaselessly calving glaciers and polar ice caps to now cause coastal flooding globally. The world continues to pump additional carbon causing a runaway HEATING of the globe. We have fallen over the edge and gravity is throwing us down into the abyss. In 2122 the flooding will have removed miles inland and eliminate coastal villages and island nations!
I watched this epsiode for the first time over a decade ago and I credit this part for being a catalyst for a drastic shift in my views and character evolving into largely a skeptic and humanist mindset.
Daniel, Elements such as Messers Farage, Johnson and Trump, and anyone else with an inclination to bring division into society need to watch this powerful and poignant message from the late, Great Dr. Jacob Bronowski. Brexit will only bring destruction to the Pax Europa, which has given us all relative peace within Europe following World War II. It is the creation of the European Union that has guaranteed us all this peace. "We have to touch people."
Danial, the man and his Series suffers from a lack of good marketing. If more people could be introduced to his work I am sure he would go more mainstream.
Jacob Bronowski is one of the greatest philosophers of all time, for he searched continually for answers and for truth, which he describes with a honesty and simplicity which can really never be bettered . And in this final moment of his immensely powerful series the Ascent of Man, he faces himself with the awful realisation that the pond in which he now stands contains the traces of his very own people. It is in the history of television now or before, an overarchingly powerful moment which should never be forgotten, in which he explains what men who once they believe they have absolute power and right over all others, will do. Unforgettable.
I first saw this at a public lecture by Lord Winston at City University around 2017. It has lived with me since and I think is the greatest testament to both human light and darkness I have ever heard!
I saw this series when it aired. I was in high school and took a discussion course on the series in college. This clip from the Knowledge and Certainty episode has gripped me ever since I first saw it. I experience it as a physicist and as a human being. It touches the heart of both science and humanity. I especially carry these powerful quotes in my mind as I go through my life and as I teach: “Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.” And “When people believe that they have absolute knowledge with no test in reality, this is how they behave,” and finally, quoting Oliver Cromwell, “Think it possible that you may be mistaken!” I am so grateful to Jacob Brownowski for his wise, heartfelt presentation of these ideas.
Incredibly powerful. One can't help but be deeply moved by his hands getting down into the mud, touching tragedy and horror while sharing knowledge of its roots.
One of the greatest achievements of the television age. I watched the entire series when it first premiered on Public TV and it has stuck with me ever since. There's also a book that was published concurrently.
A brilliant man, who could convey knowledge in such a way that it would never be forgotten. This scene, which I watched when The Ascent of Man was first broadcast, left me with a sense of great sadness and a vivid picture of the dangers of absolute power with the attendant evil of perverted science.
Is this the most profound piece of TV ever? The Ascent of Man was an example of the heights to which TV can aspire in enlightening us. That it was a virtual one-off speaks volumes about where we area headed?
Dr. Jacob Bronowski was the reason I decided to study science and social science in college and graduate school. BTW, he was also a world class scholar of the poet William Blake.
At 13 I adopted this episode 11 knowledge or Certainty as the concious basis for my system of ethics. In this episode he expounds on the rise of Quantum mechanics while simultaneously Hitler's nightmare was raising it's ugly head in the same country.
This whole shot is just genius, from the words he uses to ,most powerfully, the way he approaches the pond that probably contains the remains of some of his relatives. He steps towards the ponds edge, and your immediate thought is 'careful don't get too close you'll get your feet wet', the moment he steps in fully suited and booted you KNOW he's making a serious point, such a brilliant cue 'pay attention!', you can almost feel the cold water rushing into your own shoes, and then he reaches into the mud, such an unforgettable piece of documentary making. All apperently unscripted, which is even more amazing.
This framework of thinking is how I define my life and work. It's not what you know, it's how you correctly communicate what you found to others in decency and reciprocal respect. All of those words have different meanings to different people. Like thermodynamics, the journey in discovery often is a path to find other people's perspectives on the same words and one should not be afraid of oscillations but embrace them in a fuller understanding of ourselves. The freedom to do that is the literal definition of liberty and nothing more.
What a heartfelt, poignant, and valid statement. The contribution/instruction he made to our collective human endeavor is superb. Dr. Bronowski rules supreme!
Jacob Bronowski was the greatest mind of the latter-half of the 20th century (because the first-half belonged to Einstein), or at the very least the most eloquent. "Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible...We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power...We have to touch people." A monumental task no doubt, but no truer words are needed today and for the generations to come.
It is the epitome of the genius to be able to have a collective of knowledge so vast and yet be able to reduce it's importance to a few words that all of us can understand. I have his series The Ascent of Man, on on CD and I treasure them.
We were shown this clip in my high school theory of knowledge class in the IB program. I didn't really understand what he was saying back then, but looking back now I think this is really great stuff to be showing young adults. I should have tried to appreciate that class more.
"WE HAVE TO TOUCH PEOPLE" Yet right now, some speak of "human animals" to be exterimnated, banished, demonised. Spoken by survivors of that hell in which the wonderful Bronowski stands pleading. The lash goes on, more puddles to be filled. God ( or whomever) save us from ourselves. Shalom. Salaam. Síocháin.
Budzinski, is quite the philosopher. Was searching for an old BBC/PBS series. Stumbled upon Ascent-of-Man. Definitely makes ya think about society, progress, yesterday & tomorrow.
The series was called The Ascent of Man. But there are still some aspects of learning that man seems incapable of grasping. When they are about to succeed in destroying the planet and all life forms, which is happening now, then maybe someone will make a sequel called The Descent of Man.
Here are 3 additional sentences to understand our situation: There are horrible things. Today's world is better than yesterday. We can still do better.
Actually Brownowski named it contrary to Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man". Because it was about how we progressed outside of and away from the simple need to survive and reproduce.
The key to so many of the world's problems is found at 1:50 to 2:10 "When people believe they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of Gods."
I was rewatching this series recently and wondered if anyone had posted this moment from it. Thankfully, yes. One of the comments mentioned the Michael Parkinson interview he did with Bronowski and here that is. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DFgnGUL78MU.html It's over an hour long but I've queued it, in the link, to the part where they discuss this moment from the series.
I saw this series on TV as a young child, and even then, it was gripping, and this particular scene was chilling. Although my parents were descended from European Jews, we were not religious, and I never had a sense of belonging to any particular religious or ethnic group. And unfortunately, genocide is not unique to WW2; it goes on today, and it goes back for as long as there have been human populations on Earth. So it's not about Jews and nazis so much as it is about people, and how our inner monsters can surface at any time if we are not mindful.
Well with science, the technique of asking questions that matter in a systematic way that conveys a reasonable and rational degree of rigorous assessment, it will never be absolutely certain of anything other than it's the ability to ask reasonable and rational questions that guide your decision-making, to know yourself better than if you do nothing. Think for yourself.
Anyone who claims "the science is settled" needs to watch this video. Germany's eugenicists of the 30's and 40's also claimed the science is settled which led to genocidal horrors. The lesson from Bronowski is to be humble, and to understand that you might be wrong in your beliefs.
The reference to Leo Szilard is an interesting. If any one person could be considered to be the originator of the atomic bomb, it was him. It was he that first conceived the nuclear chain reaction and patented it. It was he that authored the famous letter to Roosevelt, signed by Albert Einstein, that persuaded the president to set up the Manhattan Project. It was also Szilard that tried to moderate the use of the first atomic bomb with a petition of involved scientists to use it first in a demonstration to the Japanese. However, he found that it was a beast beyond his control.
There used to be slightly longer clip of this. Bronowsky said "I had not been long back from Hiroshima when I heard someone say, in Szilárd's presence; that it was the tragedy of scientists that their discoveries were used for destruction. Szilárd replied, as he more than anyone else had the right to reply; that it was not the tragedy of scientists, it is the tragedy of mankind.
He makes the point in his BBC Parkinson interview (1973) a year before he himself died, that the Holocaust was possible because the Nazis had help - the people who dehumanised their fellow human beings in their own eyes by shutting the gas chamber doors and herding in the next victims in the queue. We continue to dehumanise people we don't like today in 2023 which is what makes his documentary continually prophetic. The moment we dehuamnise any human we don't like we're no better than the Nazis and their accomplices.
This segment is marred somewhat for me by the quotation from Cromwell who was a dictator perfectly convinced in his own knowledge and committed genocide himself.
@@zedro1000 Oliver Cromwell was a devout puritan, and was particularly intolerant of Catholics and Quakers. He was the very opposite of a person who doubted his own beliefs. The words of Cromwell was pleading to to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to consider the possibility that they were mistaken in the matter of their royal alliance. It was, in no way, an expression of his own uncertainty. Following the turning down of his plea, he became convinced war was inevitable.
Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with seeking absolute knowledge. Absolute power on the other hand is not meant for man and I agree that it will corrupt absolutely.
There is no such thing as absolute knowledge. Those who say that they know something absolutely, with total certainty, should not be trusted. Certainty has been the cause of most of the atrocities in history. Science, by it's very nature, is not absolute knowledge and it would be the end of science and of the scientific method, if it ever began claiming that it was.
On the road to pursuing absolute knowledge there is a roadside inn called Eureka, ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect ) were ones resignation to the travails of constant travel are salved by the false belief that absolute power IS the culmination of absolute knowledge. (The ends justify the means) Why continue down a tortured path of a hard scrabble road searching fort truth when you can, with enough power, proclaim your OWN truth, and be done with it?
To inelegantly paraphrase this video: Absolute knowledge _is_ absolute power. You cannot have one without the other. However neither are possible to attain and the delusion you can or have often leads to appealing acts in the name of misplaced certainty.
Should watch Nic Roeg’s Eureka. It’s all these talking points in a film about a gold prospector. The director obviously was inspired by this series and also Sagans Cosmos. The opening of the film is a reference to Cosmos.
Robin Harding You do not know me! I'm not one of those pack idiots that make trouble on the beautiful island. I merely see that a handful of weak heads offends a nation, thanks to its media antipropaganda, and calls all small and great as bad.I also see how drunken English performers perform in Poland where they make their favorable vacation and I do not condemn all of England because of one per cent idiot. Are you one of those who perform abroad? Stay healthy. (Also in the head)
Jacob Bronowski developed the science of maximum efficiency killing with the fire bombing of German Cities using the area block buster and incendiary bombing technique as Leo Lizards Atomic weapons hadn't yet been developed in time due to Uranium and Plutonium production issues.
The fire bombing of Tokyo was estimated to have killed over 1 Million civilians in a single night. 'My Father, The Bomb and Me' Documentary, Curtis Lemay wasn't smart enough himself to come up with the technique on his own. His daughter discovered what he did during the war. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cCeL4J0mz2o.html
Here's a quote from a BBC article: news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9444000/9444270.stm >""In 1943 the Ministry of Home Security were seeking a Mathematician to help with plans to bomb German cities. The calculations were complex. They asked MI5 for their view of Dr Bronowski. The Security Service provided a very negative report, but the department decided to appoint him anyway, as he was the best qualified. MI5 wrote back, warning that anything secret Bronowski saw would go straight to "Communist Party headquarters". >Dr Bronowski kept his job, and did it so effectively that he was invited to the US to help advise them on their attacks on Japanese cities." Take note of the tone of the article. Also, remind yourself that Britain is anti-semitic, and that Jews people have consistently been persecuted throughout history for no reason whatsoever.
@@sm-xc6fn yeah, this is definitely a hit piece on Brownowski. Another quote "He quoted anonymous colleagues of Dr Bronowski who considered him "an agitator of the Communist type" who was "disseminating seditious doctrines". It is funny that the guy was considered seditious to the well being of England and the war effort YET he HELPED the war effort by contributing a mathematic insight into particular areas of the war. For this he is, I guess, from all of the twitter on this site, a seditious Polish born emigre/patriot of England, right up their with the Polish compatriot Alan Turing. Make up your mind folks, the editors of history are waiting for the galley proofs to put this baby to bed.
