New Scientist - 02.18.2020

8 February 2020| New Scientist | 31

Don’t miss

Last chance

Maternality, the second

instalment of a two-part

art exhibition about

the politics of mothering,

focuses on the

childbearing body.

Ends on 15 February

at Richard Saltoun

Gallery in London.

Visit

Orchids, the 25th

annual orchid festival at

London’s Kew Gardens,

opens on 8 February.

It highlights the

wildlife and culture of

some of Indonesia’s

17,504 islands, and

includes a whimsical

volcano made of flowers.

Read

Mathematics for

Human Flourishing

(Yale University Press)

by Francis Su weaves

parables, puzzles and

personal reflections to

show how mathematics

meets basic human

desires and builds virtues

that help us all flourish.

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15,000 men, found no evidence
that the organ’s length or girth
correlates with any particular
population, racial category
or ethnicity, while intelligence
is a complex trait influenced
by a score of genes and their
interaction with our environment.
Rutherford hunts widely to
account for the persistence of
such racist ideas. But in the end,
he faces down the biggest issue
at the core of many of these
racist stereotypes: is race truly
a biological classification?
We are constantly told that it is
a social construct, but scientists
muddy the waters by appearing
to contradict this as they perhaps
carelessly mention both race and
ethnicity in their research papers.
Rutherford is clear that the
majority of geneticists think
genetic differences between
ethnic groups are meaningless
in terms of behaviour or
innate abilities. But he also
acknowledges the contradiction
because scientific papers are still
published in which genes for
complex traits like intelligence
seem stratified along racial lines.
Race science is pseudoscience,
but genetics and evolutionary
research are inextricably tied up
with race, and are often used by
racists to justify themselves.
Rutherford accepts that the field
of human genetics has a dark
history, “founded by racists in a
time of racism”, but also argues
that genetics “has demonstrated
the scientific falsity of race”.
He writes that scientists’
reluctance “to express views
concerning the politics that
might emerge from human
genetics is a position perhaps
worth reconsidering”. After all, he
argues, those who misuse science
for ideological ends show no such
restraint, and embrace modern
tech to spread their messages. ❚

Robots going rogue

Star Trek’s new spin-off explores what happens

when tech backfires, finds Simon Ings

TV

Star Trek: Picard

Amazon Prime Video

STAR TREK first appeared on

television on 8 September

1966. It has been fighting
      the gravitational pull of its
      own nostalgia ever since – or
      at least since Star Trek: The Next
      Generation began 21 years later.
      The Next Generation was the
      series that gave us shipboard
      counselling (a questionable
      idea), a crew that liked each
      other (a catastrophic idea) and
      Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc
      Picard, who held it all together,
      pretty much single-handedly.
      Now Picard is back, retired,
      written off, an embarrassment,
      a blowhard. And Star Trek: Picard
      is a triumph, praise be. But
      something bad has happened
      to the “synthetics” (read: robots)
      who, in the person of Lieutenant
      Commander Data (Brent Spiner,
      returning briefly), promised so
      much. Any machine that can do
      what these robots are expected
      to do will be able to down tools –
      or worse. Picard’s take isn’t yet
      clear, but the consequences of
      all the Federation’s synthetics
      going haywire is painfully felt.
      The Federation has all but

abandoned its utopian remit,

and is now just one more faction

in a fast-moving, galaxy-wide

power arena (echoes of Trump

are entirely intentional). Can

Picard, the last torchbearer of

the old guard, bring it back to

virtue? One jolly well hopes

so – and not too quickly since

Picard is a great deal of fun.

There are already exciting

novelties, although the one

I found most intriguing may

just be an artefact of getting

the show off the ground.

Picard’s world – troubled by bad

dreams as much as it is enabled

by world-shrinking technology –

is oddly surreal, discontinuous

in ways that aren’t particularly

confusing but can jar.

Is the Star Trek franchise

finally getting to grips with the

psychological consequences of

its mastery of time and space?

Or did the producers shove as

much into the first episode to

get things rolling? The latter

seems likely, but I can hope.

The new show bears its

burden of twaddle. The first

episode features a po-faced

analysis of Data’s essence.

No, really. His essence.

How twaddle became a key

part of The Next Generation is

a mystery: the first series never

felt the need for it. Yet, like a

hold full of tribbles, twaddle

now seems impossible to shake.

But why cavil? Stewart brings

a new vulnerability and even

a hint of bitterness to grit his

seemlessly fluid recreation of

Picard, and the story promises

an exciting and devastating

twist to the show’s old political

landscape. Picard, growing old

disgracefully? Oh, make it so! ❚

Patrick Stewart reprises

Jean-Luc Picard, now retired

20 and distinctly written-off

19

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