David Malone (independent filmmaker)

David Hugh Malone, author of The Debt Generation, is also director of television documentaries on philosophy, science and religion originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC and Channel 4. David is also the Green Party's parliamentary candidate for Scarborough and Whitby in the 2015 general election. He currently lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Career

David Malone was born in North Shields and grew up in 1970s London.^[1] His father, Adrian Malone, was also a documentary producer. Malone spent nine years in America before joining the BBC Science Department and working there for nine years. He then started his own documentary company, I-330 Ltd, and moved to North Yorkshire.^[2]

Documentary Work

Malone's documentaries include

Icon Earth (1995) for BBC Horizon, examining the human race's relationship with scientific progress.
The Flow of Time (1999), The film focuses on the problem of explaining time in physics throughout history, featuring Roger Penrose, Faun Flynn, Robert Iliffe, Jim Al-Khalili and Louis Sass.
Testing God (2001), on the clash between science and religion in three episodes:
Killing the Creator

Darwin and the Divine

Credo Ergo Sum
Soul Searching (2002), on consciousness in two episodes:
Know Thyself

The Undiscovered Country
What We Still Don't Know (2004), on issues raised by cosmology, hosted by Sir Martin Rees in three episodes:
Episode 1 Are We Alone?

Episode 2 Why Are We Here?

Episode 3 Are We Real?
Voices In My Head (2006), on how science and religion interpret the phenomenon of people hearing disembodied voices. The phenomenon is well-established historically amongst poets, artists, and theists, especially prophets, and used to be considered completely normal for creative people. In modern day society however, it is seen as a sign of madness. This documentary looked into the scientific explanations and how it seems to be particularly prevalent amongst creative people. The documentary featured John Lill as the presenter.^[3]
Dangerous Knowledge (2007), The film looks at three mathematicians (Georg Cantor, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing) and a physicist (Ludwig Boltzmann), whose genius has profoundly affected the way we understand mathematics and science, but who all died in tragic circumstances. The film begins with Georg Cantor, the mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and struggled greatly to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann struggled to prove the existence of atoms; his work may have contributed to his eventual suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker and father of computer science, committed suicide after being chemically castrated by the British authorities for his homosexuality. The film also talks to the latest in the line of thinkers pursuing the question of whether there are things that mathematics and the human mind cannot know. They include Gregory Chaitin and Roger Penrose.
High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos (2008). The film looks at how developments in 20th century mathematics have affected our view of the world, and particularly how the financial economy and earth's environment are now seen as inherently unpredictable. The film looks at the influence the work of Henri Poincaré and Alexander Lyapunov had on later developments in mathematics. It includes interviews with David Ruelle, about chaos theory and turbulence, the economist Paul Ormerod about the unpredictability of economic systems, and James Lovelock the founder of Gaia theory about climate change and tipping points in the environment.
The Secret Life of Waves (2011)
Heart vs Mind: What Makes Us Human? (2012). The films asks if we are right to see the heart as merely a brilliant pump or whether it should be allowed to reclaim something of its old place at the centre of our humanity.
Metamorphosis: The Science of Change (2013). The film explores the science behind metamorphosis. How does it happen and why? And might it even, in some way, happen to us?

Financial Commentary

In 2008 Malone began commenting on the financial pages of The Guardian's website about the credit crunch and the ensuing financial crisis under the pseudonym Golem XIV, the name of a military supercomputer in a novel of the same name by the Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem. Malone became a fierce critic of the bank bailouts arguing that they would lead to massive cuts in public spending. In November 2010 his book about the crisis, The Debt Generation, was published in the UK by Level Press. It had been edited by Mark Tanner from the different writings he had done in The Guardian's comments section, which had totaled 600 pages of material.^[4] Malone was interviewed about his book by Max Keiser during Episode 114 the Keiser Report, a program that features on Russia Today.^[5]

The Green Party

In the 2011 Scarborough Borough Council election, David stood as the Green Party candidate in the Falsgrave ward, where he came fourth and won 11% of the vote.^[6] Malone also stood as the Green Party's candidate in the Falsgrave and Stepney ward of the North Yorkshire County Council. In the 2009 Council election, he came third and won 21% of the vote, and in the 2013 Council election he came fourth with 17% of the vote.^[7] He is the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Scarborough and Whitby in the 2015 General Election, and will also be standing in the 2015 Scarborough Borough Council Elections for the Green Party in Stepney Ward.^[8]

References