Grade Level: SrH-Adult Producer: BBC Closed Captioned: No

Running Time: 3x50 mins Country of Origin: Great Britain Study Guide: No

Copyright Date: 2011 Available in French: No

Has the onward march of progress come to a shuddering halt?
 

For most of the 20th century science offered us and our leaders a powerful, optimistic vision: the promise of building a new and better world. That dream failed.

Now new, powerful sciences have risen up, which say it is dangerous to change the world, that we tamper with its natural balance at our peril, and that we cannot even change ourselves – we are the slaves of the codes within us.

This pessimistic and conservative story, put forward by biology, genetics, ecology, computer science and economics, has come to dominate our politicians’ imaginations, but this series reveals that it is underpinned by a distortion of science which has become a powerful myth. A myth that is preventing politics from changing the world for the better.