And unlike the painting one can say that it is true and will always be so. Chemistry also provides clear examples of how wrong Sir Karl Popper and here we are in agreement was in relation to falsification being the key basis of science. In chemistry one can prove the existence of compounds and what they are made of these will remain true forever. And the future he sees in nanotechnology, building beautiful structures molecule by molecule.Lewis Wolpert is professor of biology as applied to medicine at University College London. The latest radio audience figures are released today They will be a triumph for everyone. They always are; once the station bosses have spun them to show that, yes, while it is true that fewer people may be listening, and while those people may listen for only a short time before switching off, the station can still boast more self-employed Volvo-driving cheese-lovers than all its leading rivals Hurrah. As Mark Twain almost said, there are lies, damned lies, and radio audience figures.The new ratings will be particularly keenly anticipated at Talksport.
So far, Kelvin MacKenzie's station has failed to increase its listenership significantly by changing to a sport-led schedule; but what has happened is that its audience is now dominated by young, upmarket males Mondeo men, if you like who should be rather attractive to advertisers, a theory voiced in regular on-air promotions. Advertisers, unfortunately, seem to be failing to get the message, if my admittedly sporadic listening to Talksport is anything to go by. From time to time, for instance, you will be hit by a blitz of ads for a product called Sunraisia prune juice (and apologies if that is spelt incorrectly, as I have yet to see the drink actually on sale anywhere). If you have heard those ads, you will remember them: excruciating poems extolling the health-giving properties of the mighty Australian prune, recited in a monotone by what sounds like a dangerously catatonic Dame Edna Everage.Another advert running on a regular basis is for something called Justin Toper's Astral Connection, which turns out not to be some kind of surgical device, but a horoscope sent to your mobile phone each morning in the form of a text message. What makes these ads particularly noticeable is that Talksport's relatively small audience means that the advertisers are given more spots for their money, leading to a high repetition factor.You also hear frequent plugs for Talksport Singles, a dating service, which I find confusing, given that the station now seems to be aimed at an almost exclusively male audience.Are we to deduce from all this evidence that the average Talksport listener is a constipated homosexual with an unhealthy interest in astrology? Clearly Kelvin needs more and better figures to convince advertisers that his station is moving in the right direction, and he is not convinced he will get them from Rajar, the body reporting this morning. Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research) was set up by the BBC and the commercial stations before Kelvin went into the business and compiles its figures by sampling a thousand or so people in a survey area of over a million, having them fill in a detailed diary of their radio listening and then extrapolating the results.Kelvin thinks Rajar samples the wrong people ie, not Talksport listeners who are then left too much to their own devices by the diary system.
He believes a wrist-mounted gizmo that actually records what the respondent is listening to would be a fairer, more exact system.He can be quite vehement on that point and on many others that he thinks skew the radio industry in this country in favour of the BBC. Showing extraordinary self-knowledge, he once described himself to me as "an irritable bugger", particularly on the subject of the BBC, which is able to spend truckloads of our money on signing up big names, whom it can then promote on its television channels. And on top of all that, it doesn't have to interrupt its programmes with advertisements for prune juice.MacKenzie's irritation is understandable. While local commercial stations can fight the monolithic BBC networks with their localness, it is much more difficult for national stations such as Talksport and Virgin, which would have to spend millions to get the profile the BBC does for its programmes and personalities. Classic FM manages to compete by providing a genuinely popular alternative to its main BBC rival, Radio 3; and Talksport is now doing something similar (not rivalling Radio 3, obviously.
Talksport's Alan Brazil is in no immediate danger of being asked to present the midday concert) by taking on Radio 5 Live at breakfast-time and teatime with the kind of populist programming you could not imagine the BBC doing. The Sports Breakfast is co-presented by Brazil, an excitable former Scottish international striker, and Mike Parry, a mouthy Scouser with a background in tabloid newspapers, who now holds an executive position at Talksport.Their show is an acquired taste, but I am beginning to warm to it Brazil is cuddly, with a nice line in verbal gaffes. On Tuesday, when they were talking about the Leeds football players' skinhead hairstyles, Brazil asked listeners to phone in if they were "intimidated by guys walking around with their heads shaved off".Parry, something of a professional controversialist, balances Brazil's cheery banter by playing Mr Nasty, a role I suspect comes fairly easily to him. In fact some mornings his voice is indistinguishable from that of the "irritable bugger" upstairs.