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Thinking Allowed: Happy families? - Science's first mistake

27/10/2010

Happy families? - Science's first mistake

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Happy families? - Science's first mistake

Laurie Taylor discusses the family and why we should be sceptical about science.

Laurie Taylor asks if there ever was a golden age of marriage and family life and considers whether science overplays its claims to knowledge and truth.

Was there ever a golden age of the family? Political debates about the family often invoke a norm of family life in which marriages lasted and children thrived. But a new report suggests that pre-marital sex, cohabitation, single parenthood and illegitimacy have been rife for two centuries. It's the post war period from 1945-1970 which is unusual for its high rates of enduring marriages. Many people in the past didn't ever marry because of the problems in obtaining or affording a divorce. The historian Professor Pat Thane discusses families, real and ideal, with Laurie Taylor. Also, are most scientific claims little more than delusions? The Professor of Information Systems, Ian Angell talks about his co-authored book 'Science's First Mistake' which critiques science's claims to 'truth'.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.

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