Customer Reviews

A Science Odyssey: In Search of Ourselves

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4 star:		(1)
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For anyone curious about the origins of psychology, this video is a "must see". It entertains and informs the audience of the origins of modern psychology - abreviated, of course - shedding light into the thoughts of Freud, Skinner, and others; it evens discusses the speculative origins of the Nazi genocide of Jews and eugenics. An excellent and entertaining video, I highly recommend it for the video of WWI "shell shock" cases, as well as the history behind modern psychopharmacology.

This is a great video; I plan to buy at least two copies, so that I can loan a copy out and never worry about being without to share with friends. I gave it four stars only because I felt that it needed more time to expound on the details of Freud's development of his theories and its complete exclusion of Jung's work. In fact, I know you can't cover everything in a single one-hour video, but I feel that Jung was mis-represented by being excluded. Do your own research...

(This review applies to the entire boxed set of Charles Osgood's "A Science Odyssey" with some comments directed towards this specific title in particular.)

We all hated science in school, right? Science was boring. Science was for nerds. Science was dry and dusty facts about rocks and larvae and the solar corona, which sounds kind of like a beer from the tropics.

Well, Virginia, science doesn't have to be dull, and this series is proof. "A Science Odyssey" is a superb, fascinating set of documentaries on the science *and* the humanity behind the science. It's all extremely literate, doesn't dumb-down its subject one bit, and is chock full of interesting scientists who are enthusiastic about their fields of endeavor. Yet this is science your grandmother could understand. These shows strike the perfect balance between being substantive and being accessible to the lay person.

"A Science Odyssey" ran on PBS late in 1999, and dealt with scientific learning through the 20th century, each episode starting in an appropriate 1900 location for that show's theme and ending in its modern counterpart. Rather than just deal with one narrow topic for two hours, each episode has a broad conceptual theme, and shows connections between each that are often not readily apparent: for example, "In Search of Ourselves" is about breakthroughs in behavioral understanding throughout the 20th century. Once upon a time concepts such as battlefield trauma were unknown and not understood. As soldiers coming from the front of World War I were seen to act in ways never before witnessed, a new field of study was born as doctors filmed these strange cases of battle fatigue. This footage is shown here and is fascinating if you've never seen it. Soon a whole range of behavioral theories bloomed, and commercial fields--advertising in particular--began utilizing their findings to more effectively sell Americans cars and toothpaste. It's always fascinating how new knowledge winds up affecting us in ways we cannot fathom at first.

Charles Osgood hosts, and fortunately does not talk in rhyme here. The scripts are extremely well-written, the "theatrics" are kept to a minimum and the historical footage is fascinating. It all moves very quickly, appropriate for this television sound-bite age, but you come away smarter after each one. This should not be out of print. In fact, it should be on DVD, but I'm not holding my breath. These shows were made for the millenium, and are probably considered too "dated" to be of interest today.

(P.S. 10/20/05: I'm happy to report I was wrong about my prediction--PBS has finally put these on DVD! [It's about time. What's the matter, PBS, did you run out of cooking videos and Andre Rieu?]

Also, a note if you do get these on DVD: For some unimaginable reason [other than stupidity], if you choose "Play" from the menu, THE DISCS DO NOT START AT THE BEGINNING. They start either after the Prologue, or after the Prologue and Introduction depending on the disk. You thus miss the whole "set up" of each episode, the central question or issue. So instead of pressing "Play" in the root menu, go into the chapter selections and start with the first chapter, "Prologue.")