100 Humans: Life's Questions. Answered. 2020

This show is really bad.

While there ae interesting and amusing moments in some episodes, they are few and far between and passing off their agenda driven experiments as science is completely wrong. At best some of the experiments could be used as a demonstration to back up more in depth scientific studies but in this show the experiments are presented as proof of the writers biases. There are some moments in the show where the hosts say they are surprised by the results and that they expected the results to be different but it's more likely that they will make claims that even contradict the results of the experiment.

So far I have watched 5 episodes but by rights episode 4 should have been my last but I guess I watched more so that hopefully I can spare others from the same time wasting. I'll focus on episode 4 for the rest of this review just because it is so bad and while many of the problems with the experiments are repeated in other episodes I felt this one was especially negative in it's effect on viewers - many of whom I'm sure will lap it up. If you really want to watch human experiments that tell you something interesting then watch Mindfield on youtube premium. While not perfect by any means, the host (Michael from Vsauce) takes a much more rigourous and scientific approach while trying to identify problems with the experiments.

Spoilers:
Ep 4 started ok then from 10mins in at the end of their expert interview with Jody Armour (Prof of Law, USC) he mentions how a 3yr old white girl was once observed to have identified a black baby as a "Baby maid". He then explains that the 3yr old obviously wasnt being prejudiced or bigotted but the interview ends and the voice over refers to "racist children".

From here on the episode goes downhill quickly, they talk about an experiment from the 1940's where children were offered dolls with different skin colours and asked to pick one. The voice over descibed the results of the experiment as "bigotted todlers" overwhelmingly chosing the white doll but doesn't explain what race the children were (the experminents that I am aware of showed that children of all skin colours chose the "white" doll). They also use stock photos to push the idea that it was biggoted white todlers who were at fault.

They continue to push this agenda by glossing over a "more recent study" where white children specifically were showen to still hold biases against minorities. Where is the science in this crap? They are cherry picking nformation and presenting it as unquestionably true while ignoring the words of their own experts.

This episode also has a test where the Humans are presented with 3 males on one side and 3 females on the other side and challeneged to ask them some questions in order to match them up as the best matches. The first human to try is a straight white guy (he even calls himself out on this) and he gets one cople correct but fails to realise that the other 4 individuals are homosexuals. After showing one Human they are already claiming that it's his straight white bias yet all but one Human gets it wrong, including all the gay Humans. They do show one lesbian who matches them in hetrosexual pairs and she is surprised that she didn't consider that some of them might have been gay. They even have Dr Nicole Holliday (Sociolinguistics expert) explain that based on the odds you'd be more likely to be right matcing them in hetro pairs yet at no point do they ever acknowledge that just maybe the experiment was flawed and that they primed people to accept the typical male female option. Like many of the experiments, there was probably something interesting that they could have found out but they were too busy pushing their biased preconceptions.

How can we ever hope to really accept people and their differences if we keep making the same biased mistakes in how we identify the problems?

The male and female doctor experiment was so superficial and lame that I wouldn't know where to start. Sure the results showed that the Humans imagined that the female is more intelligent but because people imagined that she might be paid less has no reflection o the reality of whether or not she would be... you know, if they were real doctors. Then Dr. Juliet A. Williams, PhD (Professor of Gender Studies) says that, "it's correct that men and women who do they same job are not paid the same so, thats just a fact"... except that it's not. Other experts would diagree with her but I would take a guess that to get the title "Professor of Gender Studies" you need to share her biases on this topic.

The final test was a shooting range where they had real people popping up from behind obstacles holding either a gun or an outstretched hand holding a phone. The only two targets they were really observing were the last two where a guy in a red shirt pops up from one side and a guy in a greenish shirt on the other, both with phones. Everybody keeps shooting the guy in the red shirt so they get them to swap sides in case that makes a difference but they keep shooting the guy in the red. They never consider the vastly different posses of the two actors even though the guy in the red is holding the hone outstrecthed at the Human shooter and appears to be oscuring his face with the phone and the green guy is holding his phone much lower and in a less agressive stance. The guy in the red is well known to the Humans as he has been working behind the scenes with them but if he is obscuring his face then that doesn't make much difference and some of them seemed surprised when it was revealed who he was (diferences in eye sight may have also accounted for variance in the results).

They weren't actually afraid for their lives and were probably just focsed on who was holding a gun and who had a phone.

This episode should get neative stars, its atrocious!

Dr Nicole Holliday (Sociolinguistics expert)