Unintelligent design

On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines, for example, guarantee that many of us will suffer from chronic back pain. Our joints wear out long before we do. Our skin even gets damaged by sunlight.

So what can be done about it? Obviously the answer is not much — but that didn’t prevent Can Science Make Me Perfect? With Alice Roberts from pretending to give it a go.

The premise was that Roberts would draw on other, less incompetently constructed life forms to create an improved version of herself — the way she’d be if evolution hadn’t cocked things up so badly. As befits someone whose name appears in programme titles, Roberts clearly relished her God-like role. Before long, she’d decided to give herself a chimpanzee’s shorter, stiffer spine and an emu’s shock-absorbing legs. Warming to her task (or possibly just getting carried away), she then opted for large revolving ears, eyes big enough to see in the dark and, to make childbirth easier, a kangaroo’s pouch.