1131st General Monthly Meeting
40 Years of the ABC Science Unit
Robyn Williams, ABC Radio and Television Broadcaster and author
Date: Wednesday, 3rd November, 2004
Time: 7:00 pm
Venue: Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, University of Sydney
(City Road, behind the Forum Restaurant)
Hear tales from the road of Australias best-loved and most experienced science broadcaster.
Come and hear one of Australia's Living National Treasures speak about his decades of reporting science in Australia and around the world. What were the highlights and low points? What has he learned along the way? What would he never do again? You'll have to come to find out.
Enquiries: Prof. P.A. Williams
email: P.Williams@uws.edu.au
or phone the Society - details on the Main page.
Robyn Williams, science journalist, broadcaster and living national treasure,
presents Radio National's Science Show and Ockham's Razor . Over the decades,
Robyn's sharp wit and keen sense of humour has helped him present science in a
way that is accessible to anyone. He has contributed dozens of stories and
interviews to both Quantum and Catalyst on ABC TV. You may not know however,
that Robyn's acting credits include The Goodies, Monty Python's Flying Circus
and Dr Who!
Robyn has been President of the Australian Museum Trust, Chairman of the Commission for the Future and President of the ANZAAS Congress. He was the first journalist to be elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and was appointed AM in the 1988 Australian Bicentenary Honours list.
Robyn has written more than 10 books.
Report on the General Monthly Meeting
Robyn Williams addressed the Society on the subject of 40 years of ABC Science and his personal experience of the last thirty years of it. He drew our attention to the depressing observation that almost all the media science students at UTS recently quizzed could not think of a single prominent Australian scientist.
He also spoke of the "and finally" syndrome in news line-ups, where major scientific news is relegated to the final spot as if it was quirky and not part of the mainstream. He quoted Paul Davis' observation that "science is the only real news because the other stuff keeps coming around." He noted that the public was always interested in science and medicine. In viewer surveys about the news this is what they wanted most. Yet there are remarkably few Science Units in the world. This is because they need a "critical mass". They need experience and support.
Peter Pockley set up the science unit 40 years ago and is still reporting science in Australia today. Williams said that Pockley went for ideas not information. Williams' own "The Science Show" began in 1975. Back then, with no Saturday afternoon shopping, people went home and listened to the Science Show which brought them up to date on latest scientific discoveries and occasionally hoaxed them with bogus broadcasts such as Sir Clarence Lovejoy (performed by the late great Professor Fred May) and Homo Micturans the story of the Great Fossil Beer Can for the 200th Science Show. Our own Hon. Secretary, Prof Jak Kelly was a part of that broadcast, due to his thermoluminescent dating skills.
Williams made the point that without science journalists one has only stenographers reporting science. The Science Community has had to accept that science journalists are not publicists but should ask probing questions. Their role, he said, is to bring the culture of science to the broader community.
The speaker joined a large group of members for a Thai feast in Newtown afterwards.