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Go on, upset your masters.
The new Chief Scientist must not shy away
from speaking unwelcome truths
Magnus Linklater
Editor: Scottish Edition of THE TIMES
Filed 13 Dec 07
©Magnus Linklater
This article was
originally published in THE TIMES, 12th December 07.
It is reproduced here by kind permission of
its author and of the Newspaper
A little daunted by the new job you are about
to take on? Not quite sure you can get your head around the challenges
confronting you? Worried about whether you can work with your new
boss? Well, just to make you feel a little better, put yourself
in the shoes of the Government's newly appointed Chief Scientist,
John Beddington, who takes over in three weeks time from the present
incumbent, Sir David King.
A swift riffle through his intray reveals the
headaches in store: climate change is accelerating at such a rate
that the Government's targets for controlling carbon emissions will
almost certainly be missed, and only draconian — and deeply
unpopular — measures to stem them will have any effect. Nuclear
power is the only way of filling the energy gap, but almost half
of our ageing stations are now regularly out of action, and new
ones may not come on stream early enough to prevent the lights going
out. The risk of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth, BSE and
bird flu is mounting rapidly, but the department dealing with them
has lost most of its best experts, and is having to cut back further
on its budget. Research on genetically modified plants must go ahead,
despite widespread opposition, because they are an essential part
of sustainable agriculture and for fighting disease. Oh yes, and
Professor King was right about badgers; those delightful furry creatures
will have to be culled, because they are guilty of spreading bovine
TB.
I am not aware of Professor Beddington's track
record in any of these areas; his expertise lies mainly in marine
science. But if he is to have any impact on the Government's thinking,
he will need to start bending the Prime Minister's ear on all of
them. More than that, he must be capable of standing up to Gordon
Brown if he tries to browbeat him into opting for safer, more politically
acceptable advice. He must not hesitate to pass on to the public
key messages about saving the environment or improving health. He
should be able to translate complex scientific ideas into comprehensible
language — both for the benefit of politicians and the public,
which is, in general, scientifically illiterate. He will be required
to “place science at the heart of government,” as Tony
Blair once promised, while at the same time telling government things
that it will simply not want to hear.
The days when scientists and prime ministers could
converse on even terms have gone. It would be impossible to imagine
today the kind of relationship that Winston Churchill enjoyed with
his beloved Professor Lindemann, whom he described as “the
scientific lobe of my brain”. Lindemann was a polymath, and
also a risk-taker. He could, and did, hold forth on everything from
carpet-bombing cities to improving egg production. He once tested
the theory of aircraft spin recovery by flying planes himself to
the point of crashing them. He was opinionated, arrogant, and elitist,
but then so was Churchill; the two enjoyed a combative but intimate
relationship. In the postwar years, Professor Solly Zuckerman, who
advised successive governments on defence, was equally wide-ranging.
He was an anatomist, a zoologist, an expert on bomb blast, an advocate
of nuclear disarmament and an adviser on everything scientific.
He rarely hesitated to pass on his views.
Since then, however, science has grown increasingly
specialised, more introverted, and far less accessible to the public
or to politicians. In the latest issue of Prospect magazine, the
veteran environmental scientist, Professor James Lovelock, bemoans
the way that scientists have lost touch with the practical world
around them.
“A few good scientists bring us what Nasa
calls ‘ground truth' — the solid facts we can rely on,”
he writes.
“Men and women like them grow rare, as
those who manage science believe that research money is better
spent on modelling and brainstorming sessions, than on messy and
dangerous experiments and observations in some distant field.
We are as tribally hierarchical as ever, but seem to have lost
the checks and balances that were part of our earlier class-based
society, one that scorned egalitarianism but welcomed merit.”
If Professor Beddington is to loosen the stranglehold
of that tribal hierarchy, he must be prepared to widen his circle
of advisers, to welcome and listen to those with practical experience
of dealing with a vast range of subjects. He needs to bridge the
gap between a Civil Service that has been drained of scientific
expertise, but which has no ongoing dialogue with the private sector,
where much of that expertise now resides. He must have impeccable
scientific credentials himself, in order to win the respect of his
peers, but he must also be able to translate their ideas into language
that will be readily grasped by ministers. At the same time, if
the outcome of some scientific experiment is doubtful or uncertain,
he must be prepared to say so — even if it means having to
admit that previous advice must now be changed. As Einstein once
said:
“Everything should be made as as simple
as possible — but not simpler.”
Finally, working under a Prime Minister who is
averse to risk, the Professor needs to be as bold and independent
as his master is cautious. He should not be afraid to challenge
head on the safe and the expedient. He should distrust the advice
of those who draw their salaries from well-funded research projects,
and be prepared to question received wisdom. The great innovations
in science have usually stemmed from daring and radical experiments
rather than the tried and the trusted.
In the end, of course, both he and the Government
he serves will share the same objective — to further the public
good; it's just that they may have to tread very different routes
in getting there. As that great scientist Sir Peter Medawar once
said: “If politics is the art of the possible, research is
surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded
affairs.” |
