Eduard Punset: Goodbye To A Great Scientific Popularizer

His charisma, his unmistakable voice, his Albert Einstein-style hair, his remarkable facility for infecting us with a passion for science … Eduard Punset was this and much more, a figure as mediatic as he was loved who marked a before and after in the field of scientific dissemination on Spanish television with its program Redes. Today, with his loss at the age of 82, he leaves us without a doubt a great void.

He had the appearance of a clueless scientist, and although in his personal career he had been linked to politics and law, Punset knew very well what he wanted to convey on that program that was broadcast on Sunday morning. They were almost 18 years presenting and directing Redes, achieving in turn, something that only figures like Carl Sagan achieved in their day: awakening the scientific curiosity of thousands of viewers.

With interviews like the one with Roger Penrose or Max Tegmark, almost instantly made us want to become physicists or cosmologists to continue delving into the origin of the universe. With conversations like those he had with Jane Goddall, Lawrence Krauss, Antonio Damasio or Steven Pinker, we were able to understand ideas and theories about our origins, what emotions really are or what possible future awaits us as humanity.

Physics, biology, psychology, neuroscience, cosmology … Eduard Punset invited us on a journey of knowledge and exciting discoveries through his own enthusiasm and a curiosity magnetized by tireless optimism. And it conquered us. It is not easy, therefore, to say goodbye to someone who encouraged and even awakened vocations in hundreds of young people. Fortunately, we have his great audiovisual legacy and also his numerous publications.

Eduard Punset, the politician who opened the doors of the world of science to us

There are those who always viewed with skepticism the fact that Eduard Punset was considered a scientific popularizer. He came from the world of law, had a postgraduate degree in economics from the University of London and also had a long career as a politician. First within the Democratic and Social Center party of Adolfo Suárez and later as an MEP from 1987 to 1994.

It was his great ability to communicate that Televisión Española proposed him to present a science program. And indeed, Punset did not have any academic degree or training related to much of the areas in which he delved into each week. However, he had something much better: charisma, scientific intuition and a clear ability to transmit knowledge in a simple way, infecting us in turn, his same passion.

Networks, scientific knowledge available to everyone

If in the United States they had Carl Sagan in the 80s in the Cosmos program , in Spain we had Eduard Punset in Redes . And it didn’t matter that the show aired at dawn. Every week it had thousands of loyal viewers ready to be surprised, to make the laymen of the world of neuroscience, astronomy or biology, sudden passionate of those singular universes.

The show began airing in March 1996 and it was in 2008 that it made a small change that would make history. Redes was renamed Redes 2.0 and every week, Eduard Punset interviewed an internationally renowned specialist. Suddenly and for the first time, the world of science came to our country in a new and especially close way.

Whoever had to get up early the next day would leave the program to record. Because if there was one thing for sure, it was that each week something new was learned and we met first-hand figures as relevant as Oliver Sacks, James Watson and Francis Crick, Steven Pinker, Robin Dunbar, Lawrence Krauss, Roger Penrose, Jane Goodall, Antonio Damasio , Daniel Dennett or Lynn Margulis.

Those interviews in English were dubbed by himself, getting used almost without realizing it, to understand all those ideas, theories and scientific perspectives through his voice and his unforgettable charisma.

Eduard Punset and dissemination through his books

While presenting the Redes program , Eduard Punset began a new equally successful endeavor: book publishing. Works such as The Journey to Happiness (2005), The Soul is in the Brain (2006) or Why We Are As We Are (2008) began a time when, suddenly, access to basic scientific topics was no longer cumbersome, If not the opposite. Immersing yourself in those pages was a pleasure, it was to undertake a stimulating and educational journey.

In his books we no longer heard his voice, but that unmistakable imprint of the popularizer remained, who makes complex things easy, who offers theories, rigorous data and who turns science into a way in which one always wants to know more. Perhaps for this reason, other works such as El viaje al amor  (2007), The journey to the power of the mind (2010) or The Dream of Alicia (2013) arrived in which Eduard Punset arrived at another discipline in which he would end up staying: the self help.

The Networks program ended in January 2014, and little by little, it was detaching itself from the field of scientific dissemination to focus precisely on that area of ​​personal growth and self-help through the Apol cabinet (Psychological Support Online).

His progressive withdrawal from the media was fueled by his health problems in recent years. Today it has left us, and with its emptiness, whether we like it or not, the world of science is more orphaned for a simple reason: the world needs scientists, but also personalities who know how to transmit the magic of knowledge to us.

Eduard Punset had the brilliance of a nebula and the passion of a child who yearns to know everything. Its sparkle will last forever. There we have his audiovisual and literary legacy to remember it every time we need it.