![]() ![]() One of my favorite sequences in this documentary is when Bronowski takes the viewer from the posts and lintels of the Greek temples, to the arches in the Roman aqueduct in Segovia, to the somewhat prettier arches in the Mezquita in Cordoba, to the cathedral at Reims with its magnificent flying buttresses. ![]() The name of the last episode is “The Long Childhood.” Indeed, these can be pithily described by saying that humans retain many childlike characteristics throughout their lives. What is this human spirit? It is a composite of many qualities, what Bronowski calls “a jigsaw of human faculties,” which include our wide behavioral flexibility, our capacity to play, our need to create, our curiosity about the natural world, our sense of adventure, our love of variety. This brings Bronowski to one of his main points, one of the themes of this series: that art and science are not fundamentally different rather, they are two manifestations of the human spirit. Man alone leaves traces of what he created.” “Every animal leaves traces of what he was. Even with an archaeologist giving me advice, I was only able to create stone tools of the sophistication of an Australopithecus-randomly beating the stone until a sharp edge was created.) Thus both our creative drive and our knowledge are involved in this quintessentially human activity. (I’ve actually tried making stone tools with various types of rock, and let me tell you that it’s not so easy. What’s more, creating a stone tool requires a sense of the structural properties of the rock. Since the behavior is learned and is not an instinct, it requires a preconception of what the toolmaker wants to create, a certain amount of imagination is required to picture the goal before it is realized. As Bronowski notes, this simple ability, to chip away at a stone until a cutting edge is left, is a remarkable indication of human uniqueness. We thus begin with H omo erectus, learning how to chip away stone to make tools. Yet for Bronowski, the word “science” not only refers to the modern scientific method, but rather encompasses all of humanity’s efforts to understand and manipulate the natural world. In this program, his topic is the history of science. Bronowski was a polymath: he did work in mathematics, biology, physics, history, and even poetry. I had doubts that anyone could produce a series to match Civilisation, but Bronowski made something that might even be better. The Ascent of Man is a remarkable program. So like my review of Clark’s work, this review is about the documentary and not the book (though since the book is just a transcription of the series, I’m sure it applies to both). I watched this series right after finishing Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, as I’d heard The Ascent of Man described as a companion piece. Running the (Full) M… on The Madrid Half-MarathonĢ023: New Year… on From Gold to Glory: A Slice of…įifty years from now, if an understanding of man’s origins, his evolution, his history, his progress is not in the common place of the school books, we shall not exist. Alicante & the I… on Summertime in Andalucía: Jerez…Īlicante & the I… on The Monastery of El Escor… ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |