Despite – perhaps because of – the Bishop of Manchester’s comments, last night I took up my invite to the launch of the Body Worlds show at MOSI. My main reason was to see what all the fuss was about for myself. And I wasn’t alone – there were upwards of 350 other people there, seemingly for pretty similar reasons.

Having started downstairs with drinks and finger food (not on a theme, thankfully), we were then invited to go upstairs and view the show – housed in the grade 1 listed 1830 warehouse. As soon as we shuffled in, a reverent hush descended. People read carefully, walked slowly, studied closely. I wasn’t sure what to expect or how I’d feel, I suspect others were the same. But mostly, it’s case after case of bones and organs, laid out and labelled as if this was an old school medical building (not dissimilar to Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh).

There are actually very few posed “plastinated” figures – maybe half a dozen or so. Some are not exactly to my taste (playing poker) but all of them are fascinating in terms of their displayed anatomy and physiology - detailed, beautiful, complex. Literally peeling away the skin has allowed me to see what's underneath - and it's pretty darn amazing. So no, there’s no gore, nothing to be squeamish about, no sensationalism - just freaks like me.

And while I’m about it, let’s clear up a widely-misquoted “fact”: these bodies are willingly donated to Von Hagens in the full knowledge of how they’ll be used and presented. So if you were thinking about donating your body to medical science, don’t fear – you won’t end up in here like this. You’re more likely end up as some junior med students’ cadaver… (probably a much worse fate knowing some med students!).

The worst bit about it? Honestly? The plastic plants throughout the space. Why were they thought to be necessary? Maybe the good doctor “did” them too. Oh, and the gorilla – wrong, just wrong (has to be seen to be believed).

But apart from that, it was not nearly as sensational, or possibly even as creative, as I thought it might be. And no, there wasn’t a single protester or placard in sight…


technorati tag: gunther von hagens, body worlds 4, mosi

Labels: art, science

The Edinburgh Medal (Edinburgh International Science Festival) - Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet

It struck me that The Lancet sounds like The Guardian of the science publishing world – a journal that has challenged and set publishing guidelines about research results and reporting, and has challenged its own publisher’s connections to an arms fair selling cluster bombs and torture equipment.

He spoke on the theme of Science and Society with both vision and tenacity, drawing on the topics of human dignity and ethics in particular. He addressed the three “terrors” of our modern world - eco-scide, disease and war. His message, that we have ability to choose our fate but we are tied to our poorest, weakest neighbour. Can our science knowledge save us from those three disaster scenarios? It’s still unknown, unsure… His advice as to the best possible solution was mass co-operation between nations and people, but our very natures seem to driving these three and us all to destruction.

But with two competing narratives - globalisation and human rights development – it becomes a case not of “what you should do” but “what do you do or are you doing”. Altruism rules. Close (in every sense) human co-operation seems to result in more meaningful relationships and connections, with the immediate benefits of co-operation being more visible to all parties. Help your neighbour becomes a way of keeping us all thriving and alive. When we are more specific and local about our actions, making one small but strong connection, we see benefits, which knock on to others.

There are inherent dangers in this theory, he admits – that the local action can be perceived as only being passed on to those we “like”/ those like us, whereas “the other” becomes more remote and therefore a risk (illustrated in John Carey’s The Intellectuals and The Masses). But here’s his crazy moment of it-might-just-work – could we find a way to match up the poorest and richest three billion people on the planet?

This biological underpinning of 'do unto others' is indeed a strand of compassionate evolution (ref Darwin's The Descent of Man, with his desire to “render those artificial barriers [between people] obsolete”). Hobbes (and Dawkins?) might have us believe that human life on the planet can be nasty, selfish, brutish and short... but Horton’s certainly got other ideas.

technorati tag: edinburgh international science festival, richard horton, the lancet

Labels: science, spirituality