BBC4 Wednesday

Paul George said:

8.30pm Thoroughly Modern: The Bicycle

4/4. Showing as part of the Birth of Now season. Major improvements
were made by the Edwardians to bicycles, and it has even been
suggested that the gene pool was enlarged by their popularity.

I've heard the gene pool improvement theory before. It goes like
this:- Before the invention of the bicycle there was no cheap reliable
transport for the masses to use, so many a young man was restricted to
the number of young ladies that he could court, which lead to a large
number of first-cousin marriages, hence the effect of poor genes
became concentrated. When young men could get out and about on
bicycles, they went further afield to court, thus preventing the need
to marry their cousins, and so improving the condition of the
population in general.

David Lloyd

David Lloyd said:

Paul George said:

8.30pm Thoroughly Modern: The Bicycle

4/4. Showing as part of the Birth of Now season. Major improvements
were made by the Edwardians to bicycles, and it has even been
suggested that the gene pool was enlarged by their popularity.

I've heard the gene pool improvement theory before. It goes like
this:- Before the invention of the bicycle there was no cheap reliable
transport for the masses to use, so many a young man was restricted to
the number of young ladies that he could court, which lead to a large
number of first-cousin marriages, hence the effect of poor genes
became concentrated. When young men could get out and about on
bicycles, they went further afield to court, thus preventing the need
to marry their cousins, and so improving the condition of the
population in general.

Likewise with the wages of farm labourers. The bicycle gave them a much
wider choice of employers, so they could shop around for the best deal.

In message <[email hidden]>

Marc Brett said:

David Lloyd said:

Paul George said:

8.30pm Thoroughly Modern: The Bicycle

4/4. Showing as part of the Birth of Now season. Major improvements
were made by the Edwardians to bicycles, and it has even been
suggested that the gene pool was enlarged by their popularity.

I've heard the gene pool improvement theory before. It goes like
this:- Before the invention of the bicycle there was no cheap
reliable transport for the masses to use, so many a young man was
restricted to the number of young ladies that he could court, which
lead to a large number of first-cousin marriages, hence the effect
of poor genes became concentrated. When young men could get out and
about on bicycles, they went further afield to court, thus
preventing the need to marry their cousins, and so improving the
condition of the population in general.

Likewise with the wages of farm labourers. The bicycle gave them a much
wider choice of employers, so they could shop around for the best deal.

The geneticist Steve Jones from UCL has referred to the impact of the
bicycle on diversification of the human gene pool in his books and other
writings and presentations. However a friend of mine whose research
expertise is in Social and Political Sciences, and who had compiled a
large database from UK census information, when alerted to Steve Jones'
hypothesising, was unable to find any strong evidence for greater
mobility of partners in marriage following the invention of the bicycle.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

Paul George said:

8.30pm Thoroughly Modern: The Bicycle

4/4. Showing as part of the Birth of Now season. Major improvements
were made by the Edwardians to bicycles, and it has even been
suggested that the gene pool was enlarged by their popularity.

Managed to catch the last 10 mins. Loved the race on Edwardian
machines.
Also liked the closing comment about how the age of the car is drawing
to an end, but bicycles will be with us forever.

POHB said:

Managed to catch the last 10 mins. Loved the race on Edwardian
machines.
Also liked the closing comment about how the age of the car is drawing
to an end, but bicycles will be with us forever.

If you check the BBC4 schedules, it's being repeated several times over
the next few days.
19:30 on Sunday
03:10 on Monday

I thought I spotted more than that in the paper, but that's all that's
showing on the BBC website.

I haven't watched it yet. I think I recorded it at about 03:00 this
morning.

--
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