I’ve always – at least as far back as I can remember – considered myself a scientifically oriented person. When I was a child, the highlights of TV were the scientific and mathematical programmes or segments presented by David Bellamy, Patrick Moore, and, most of all, Johnny Ball.
These presenters made science seem, not just a collection of facts, but as connections and patterns that made sense. Their science you could see for yourself, and not just copy down out of a textbook. That’s also what drew me to computers – the stuff I know about computers I know not because I read it in a book or learned it on a course, but because I’ve done it and seen it for myself. That was as true of the 12-year-old me with his ZX-81 and his Think of a Number as it is today.
Science was about what could be demonstrated. I can’t imagine any science programme in the 1980s that talked about “consensus opinion” holding the same interest for me. And so I just wonder, is it a coincidence that all three of these people who led me into science are on record as not believing in global warming?