The Scientific Secrets Of Doctor Who Part 32

The Doctor's scientific adviser The creation of the Cybermen was the result of the production team on Doctor Who making a conscious effort to get their science right. In early 1966, the series had a new producer and a new script editor: Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis. Both men wanted to make the series more directly relevant to its viewers.

They did this in a number of ways: they phased out stories set in the past (at least, those that didn't include monsters); they set several stories in the present day and near future; and they sought a professional scientist to act as an adviser on the programme the only time that has ever happened on Doctor Who.

Davis met with four noted scientists from very different fields. Dr Alex Comfort was a physician and psychiatrist who had just published books on the biology of ageing (a subject we'll return to in Chapters 14 and 15). Eric Laithwaite was a professor of heavy electrical engineering. The astronomer and TV presenter Patrick Moore later appeared as himself briefly in the Doctor Who story The Eleventh Hour (2010). Lastly, Dr Christopher 'Kit' Pedler was a surgeon and pathologist whose chief interest was the retina in the eye. One thing united this diverse group of scientists: they were not merely expert in their particular areas but also good at communicating scientific ideas to the general public in an engaging way.

Of the four scientists, Pedler seemed the best fit for the needs of Doctor Who. When Davis asked him how the programme might work the Post Office Tower which at the time was a newly completed landmark on the London skyline into a story, Pedler suggested the idea that became The War Machines (1966), which we'll discuss more in Chapter 13. When Davis proposed a story about Earth turning out to have a twin planet (which we talked about in Chapter 1), Pedler already interested in the field of cybernetics conceived a story about the man-machines that would live there.

It's an important distinction because it's hard to imagine anyone volunteering to have machine parts inserted into their bodies so that they could go into s.p.a.ce. We can understand it more if the machine parts are a short-term fix to save a sick person's life. In fact, that happens now: each year, some 40,000 patients in England are fitted with pacemakers. A pacemaker is an electrical device containing a battery and computer circuit that is implanted into the body to keep the heart beating regularly. It's one of a number of medical devices that can be fitted into the bodies of sick patients for example, some kinds of hearing aid are fitted surgically. The devices don't always need to be electrical, either. Some people have excess fluid in their heads which puts pressure on the brain and can prove deadly. Cerebral shunts use simple valves to drain this fluid from the skull via plastic tubes. Artificial limbs might not be electrical, but they have become increasingly sophisticated in design.

These devices all help people who would otherwise suffer to live active, normal lives. But imagine a person who kept on being ill, and so needed to be fitted with ever more devices. On a world such as Mondas, where people were continually ill, there'd be good reasons for scientists to develop new and better devices to help them: artificial hearts instead of pacemakers; artificial hearing instead of hearing aids; artificial brains instead of cerebral shunts. But if you went to go so far as to replace the people's brains, would they be people any more?

In fact, the Cybermen don't go that far they keep their human brains. In The Tenth Planet, they still have human hands, too. One Cyberman in that story denies that the conversion process has turned them into robots, but reveals that something fundamental has been lost:

'Our brains are just like yours except that certain weaknesses have been removed ... You call them emotions.'

Cyberman Krail, The Tenth Planet (1966)

Clynes and Kline argued in favour of modifying people not just to free them to explore s.p.a.ce but so that they could feel it, too. However, they didn't really address the psychological impact of being converted into a man-machine. In The Age of Steel (2006), we discover that the Cybermen's emotions are blocked by an 'inhibitor chip' implanted into them. The Doctor switches off these chips by remote control, allowing the Cybermen to feel emotions again and to understand what they have become. As a result their heads explode.

That seems key to the enduring success of the Cybermen as monsters: many stories include scenes of people being converted into Cybermen where it is a terrifying thing. It scared audiences in 1966 and continues to scare us today. In Dark Water and Death in Heaven (2014), Danny sees losing his emotions and becoming a Cyberman as a fate worse than death.

The Cybermen's lack of emotions is often used in Doctor Who to explain how they behave: cold and logical, they want to convert us to be like them because they think it's an improvement. But perhaps something else can explain the Cybermen's history of conquest and destruction. Note that the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet have individual names: we meet Gern, Jarl, Krail, Krang, Shav and Talon. In all other Cybermen stories, they are no longer individuals. Science can give us an insight into the consequences of removing a person's individuality.

'I did my duty for Queen and Country.

I did my duty for Queen and Country...'

The Cyberman formerly Yvonne Hartman, Doomsday (2006)

In July 1963, American psychologist Stanley Milgram became interested in the argument made by n.a.z.is who had been put on trial after the Second World War. Although they admitted committing terrible acts, these n.a.z.is said that could not be held responsible because they'd been following orders. Was that a fair excuse? Milgram aimed to answer that question scientifically.

He devised an experiment involving three people: the person conducting the experiment and two volunteers, who were told they were helping a study of memory and learning. The experiment required one volunteer to be the 'teacher' and the other the 'learner' and, to decide who would be which, the volunteers drew slips of paper. The volunteers were then put in separate rooms where they could hear but not see one another. The volunteer whose slip said 'teacher' was given a list of questions to ask the learner. If the learner got an answer wrong, they would receive an electric shock, administered by the teacher. With each wrong answer, the power of the electric shock would be increased.

Before asking the first question, the teacher was given an electric shock to understand what it felt like. Of course, because the roles of 'teacher' and 'learner' had been chosen randomly by choosing slips of paper, the teacher would know that they could very easily have been the learner and so suffered what happened next.

What the teacher didn't know was that both slips of paper had said 'teacher', and the person in the role of the learner was only pretending to be a volunteer. In fact, they were part of the experiment, too. When the learner on purpose answered a question wrongly, the teacher administered electric shocks, but that was also a trick. The learner just pretended to be in pain. After a series of 'shocks', the learner would start banging on the wall, begging the teacher to stop but the person conducting the experiment would advise the teacher to go on. After more 'wrong' answers, the learner would become silent, as if the shocks had left them unconscious. But still the teacher would be told to administer more shocks.

The real purpose of the experiment was to see how much pain the teacher would be prepared to inflict on a total stranger just because they'd been told to do so by a figure of authority the person running the experiment. The horrible result was that Milgram reported that in twenty-six of the forty times he ran the experiment (i.e. sixty-five per cent), teachers were prepared to inflict an electric shock after the learner had become silent. Many teachers questioned what they were doing or showed clear signs of distress but they still obeyed.

Over the years, there have been a number of concerns about Milgram's experiment questions about how he gathered data, doubts that his results can be applied to the behaviour of the n.a.z.is in the Second World War, and the ethics of conducting such an experiment in the first place. But conducting the experiment again, and in different locations round the world, has produced broadly similar results. A range of other, subsequent experiments have built on Milgram's findings and given us a better understanding of a process called deindividuation.

When we are in groups, in the presence of authority figures or feel anonymous, our behaviour can become bolder, more impulsive and less likely to consider risks. It's been shown that making people wear a uniform at school, in the police or the army makes them feel less like distinct individuals, so they act more as a group. That can have positive results: it can make us work better together. But deindividuation can also be behind negative behaviour, too. It has been used to explain riots when, because they're part of a crowd, people commit crimes and acts of violence they would never normally dream of. Sometimes those in riots dress alike, or share logos or symbols, even if they're not consciously wearing a uniform.

Technology can play a part in deindividuation, too. For example, people who are generally shy and polite can become more aggressive while driving a car because being inside the car makes them feel safe, anonymous and strong. We can imagine how the same person might behave if they were turned into a Cyberman: they might be bolder and more aggressive not because of the loss of their emotions but because the metal suit makes them powerful and also look just like all the other Cybermen.

'Everyone shares the same information. A daily download published by Cybus Industries. You lot, you're obsessed. You'd do anything for the latest upgrade.'

The Tenth Doctor, Rise of the Cybermen (2006)

The twin planet concept of Mondas gave Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis a narrative excuse to explore a 'what if' scenario for human development. In Rise of the Cybermen (2006), the makers of Doctor Who tried to make the connection between the Cybermen and ourselves feel closer by presenting a different origin story for the Cybermen, this time on a parallel version of Earth. Here, it's not weakness and old age that make many people modify themselves; rather they are tricked into being upgraded by their love of mobile technology and new applications. John Lumic, the inventor of the Cybermen on this alternative Earth, says his previous 'inventions have advanced the whole planet', and calls the process of becoming a Cybermen 'the ultimate upgrade'. He almost makes it sound attractive.

We can also see deindividuation at work all around us today in the way people use mobile technology. With social media, we can share all kinds of information news, entertainment, the details of our lives but there's a tendency to share material we know our peer group will value or approve of. That reinforces the values of that group, and makes it even harder for members to share something different. As part of that group, and safely anonymous or at least physically remote from other people on the internet, we're more likely to be outraged if the group's values are challenged. That means we are more likely to respond with fury. Online, we might insult and threaten people in a way we would never do in person. There are even specific terms for this online behaviour, such as 'trolling' and 'flaming'.

We might illegally download music, films and TV programmes from the internet when we'd never break the law in the offline world. We can tell ourselves that 'everyone' is doing it, that our individual actions won't make any difference. But that's missing the point: we do it because we're acting as part of a group, and as a group activity with many individuals all acting just as we are this kind of online behaviour can sometimes wreck livelihoods and lives. When we feel safely anonymous in a large group of people who all seem to agree with us, it's easy to lose our fear of consequences.

'You have fear. We will eliminate fear from your brain.'

The Cyber Controller, The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)

In The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), a man called Eric Klieg solves a series of logical puzzles to gain access to the honeycomb of 'tombs' where the last Cybermen are frozen. He tells the Doctor (who surrept.i.tiously helps him with some of the puzzles when he gets them wrong) that 'everything yields to logic', and is certain that proving his intelligence to the Cybermen will convince them to ally themselves to him.

In Chapter 1, we cited the Doctor's claim that 'Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' And Klieg has got it wrong here. The Cybermen set the logical puzzles so that only those with intelligence would be able to get through just the right kind of specimens for being turned into Cybermen. It has all been a trap.

We'll talk more about the problems of logic in a moment, but it's interesting that this story takes place on the Cybermen's adopted home planet, Telos. 'Telos' is the Greek word for goal or purpose, and was used by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in the fourth century BC to discuss his ideas about things having an ultimate purpose. For example, Aristotle claimed that the telos or intrinsic purpose of an acorn was to become an oak tree.

Teleological thinking has sometimes been applied to evolutionary biology, usually to argue against Darwin's theory of natural selection (which we discussed in Chapter 11). In a famous example, Darwin himself wrote in On the Origin of Species that it seems 'absurd in the highest possible degree' that the human eye, 'with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection'. Some have argued that the eye couldn't have evolved by chance, that there must have been some kind of plan or purpose from the start. That is a teleological argument.

Yet Darwin went on to refute that suggestion, explaining that the eye could have started in our distant ancestors as very imperfect and simple such as a nerve rendered sensitive to light that would have given that ancestor a slight advantage and so been pa.s.sed on to its children. Over millions of years and many generations, slight improvements in the ability of this sensitive nerve would continue to offer advantage, so the eye could slowly develop into the form we know it today. In fact, fossil evidence shows us exactly this kind of development, and the presence of many different kinds of eyes across the animal kingdom makes it clear that vision can develop in lots of different ways.

So why would the writers of The Tomb of the Cybermen call the Cybermen's planet Telos? The word suggests that the Cybermen consider themselves to be humanity's ultimate form what humans were always meant to be: evolution with purpose. From the Cybermen's point of view, if we could only get past our primitive, emotional objections and look at things logically, we would all agree with them.

That certainty is a chilling thought. Without fear, the Cybermen have no reason to doubt that they might be wrong. In fact, time after time in Doctor Who that's the Cybermen's downfall. Just as Klieg in The Tomb of the Cybermen makes a.s.sumptions about his own importance, the Cybermen's logic is clouded by their own sense of superiority. In The Tenth Planet, they a.s.sume they can save their planet by bringing it closer to Earth and draining energy but, apparently because Mondas is weaker than Earth, it is the one that's destroyed. In Silver Nemesis (1988), the Cybermen take charge of a special Time Lord weapon which they a.s.sume they'll be able to use to their advantage but it has already been programmed to destroy their s.p.a.ce fleet. In The Time of the Doctor (2013), the Doctor uses a logical line of argument to convince a wooden Cyberman to shoot itself. The Cybermen a.s.sume that they're the superior form of humanity, but humanity keeps on defeating them.

The Polish mathematician and biologist Jacob Bronowski argued in his influential BBC series on the history of science, The Ascent of Man (1973), that certainty is the opposite of scientific knowledge. Science, as we have seen, is a provisional series of statements based on evidence and testing, with tests that can be repeated. Those tests depend on doubt.

We can use machines to extend and enhance life. We can send machines into s.p.a.ce and expand the reach of human consciousness and understanding. Technology allows us to share what we have learned much more quickly and easily. But our machines can also make us overly confident. It's not just that without fear we have no science. Worse, we become monsters.

But what of machines that are more than extensions of human consciousness machines that can think for themselves?

The sun came out from behind a dark bank of clouds and gleamed on the armoured black limousine as it cruised along the narrow streets of Canterbury towards the Westgate. The sleek modern steel-and-gla.s.s surfaces of the vehicle contrasted strangely with the ancient grey ragstone walls and drum towers of the squat medieval city gate. The limousine pa.s.sed smoothly through it and on to the A290, the old Whitstable Road, climbing steadily northwards, uphill, towards the University of Kent.

The Doctor, Ace and Raine were following at a discreet distance in the pale blue VW Karmann Ghia they'd collected from the house in Allen Road that morning. The Doctor was a small man in a straw hat and neat, dark jacket with a paisley scarf at his throat. Ace and Raine were both young women, both dark haired and attractive, but within those parameters they could hardly have been more different Ace tough and compact, Raine languid and elegant.

The Karmann Ghia followed the limousine through the stone gates, pa.s.sing between the squat fortress towers and out into the sunlit road beyond. Ace was at the wheel; she offered a low, steady and highly critical commentary of the other drivers in the thickening traffic. They drove along the Whitstable Road and took a left turn onto University Road, the gradient of the hill growing steeper as they approached the campus. The traffic had thinned now, but there were increasing crowds of people on foot, streaming past on either side, also heading towards the university. The limousine they'd been following was parked close to the square brown brick buildings of Darwin college. A large cordon of protesters were being forced steadily away from the car by a mixture of campus security officers and local police.

The protesters mostly appeared to be students, but there were people of every age in the group, including a number of small children and a baby in a papoose. Everyone, except the children, seemed to be holding placards. Three burly men in matching shiny grey suits, short cropped hair and sungla.s.ses stepped out of the limousine, holding the door open for a much smaller, younger man with long fair hair tied back in a bun. He was dressed in jeans, a tweed jacket and sneakers. The three burly men were busily scanning the crowd, while apparently scratching their armpits.

'They've got guns in shoulder holsters,' said Ace.

'They're taking security very seriously,' said the Doctor.

'Who is that bloke?' Ace watched as the young man was quickly surrounded by the bodyguards and the small group began to press through the crowd, towards the college buildings.

'Raymond Luthier,' said the Doctor. 'An old student made good, come here to speak about his achievements.' He scanned the ma.s.s of protesters. 'Apparently not everyone is pleased about them.'

'He's made a fortune from his computer business,' said Raine. 'Like that Facebook chap.'

'Luthier has stirred vastly more controversy than any Facebook chap,' said the Doctor. He nodded at the crowd, holding placards which carried slogans such as Canterbury Says NO to the Canterbury AI and AI = Against It! and If it's Artificial it's not Intelligence. 'Of course, it's partly envy. Only a few short months ago he was in their midst. Just another undergraduate.'