Published Resources Details
Broadcast News Item
- Title
- Robyn Williams shares his favourite stories from 50 years of the Science Show
- In
- ABC News
- Imprint
- Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 30 August 2025
- Url
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-08-30/105706348
- Format
- HTML
- Contains
- Image; Sound; Video
- Abstract
Fifty years ago, Australia's longest running science program was born.
Robyn Williams recorded the first episode of ABC Radio National's Science Show at the 13th Pacific Science Congress in Vancouver, Canada in 1975.
It was the middle of the Cold War and the internet had not yet been imagined.
And yet, many of the topics discussed at the conference still ring true today.
The first episode featured scientists concerned about the nuclear arms race, the rate of animal extinction, and the impact of burning fossil fuels and climate change.
The only give away it was the 70s was the theme of the conference: Man's Future in the Pacific - and the funky theme tune at the beginning of the episode.
"Looking back on it a couple of years later I thought 'Bloody hell, this was a real warning on something people should act on'," Williams told David Marr on Radio National's Late Night Live.
"It just shook me that the scientists here were saying what we needed to pay attention to and people weren't."