Why did you become a scientist?
I ask because at the tail end of last year the Government published the much anticipated science and innovation strategy outlining how much money it will spend on science over the next decade. All in the name of building and sustaining a knowledge economy.
It has been largely met with muted applause, despite several commentators suggesting it falls short on a number of specific commitments. But on the whole I initially felt relatively pleased with the announcement. And yet…something stuck, irritatingly, in my craw.
I think it was the direct collision of the pragmatic and the idealistic in me. Whilst it came as no surprise that the document basically laid out how best the tax payer can get a decent return of investment – I can’t escape the feeling that this misses something deeply important.
Government say they want a knowledge economy, but what they really mean is they want a very advanced and technical resource economy. They still want business to make and sell ‘units’ – be they products or services – just as once we dug the ground and sold the coal. It’s just now they acknowledge that development of the ‘units’ will more than likely involve some exceptionally brilliant science and technology.
I get the sense politicians think that if they pour money into the ‘science machine’ it will, eventually, pay out. And while it’s true that the strategy document acknowledges “uncertainty and a long lag between investment and payoff” it still sees the final goal of science to be an economic one.
The thing is, science is not simply an industrial activity. Yes, it can be – indeed it is incredibly successful at being so. And yes, much of the hype surrounding the ability of science and technology to rescue the economy is justified, but to marry scientific endeavour quite so formally to profit is rather desperate short-termism in my view.
I’d like to ask the politicians to just for a moment consider the act of scientific endeavour an integral part of being a civilised people. To best serve us, perhaps science shouldn’t live or die by the profit and loss sheet. It’s not dissimilar I would argue to an effective judicial system. Legal aid alone in England and Wales, for example, is now estimated by The Ministry of Justice to cost the taxpayer around £2bn a year. It’s expensive, and there are critics of the system, but I have never heard of a government initiative which attempts to maximise the financial return of this investment. And rightly so, the rule of law is a central tenant of our society – it’s the cost of civility; a bill that has to be paid. But so, surely, is science?
I am not suggesting free reign here – of course there should be checks and balances. What I am suggesting though is that government should be funding the science that business won’t – namely basic research. Science that benefits the greater good of the people – in all of its forms, not just economic – should be considered just as strongly as the science that will fill the coffers. To end up with a thriving knowledge economy, we must remember why people want – and work very hard to gain – scientific knowledge in the first place.
So…why did you become a scientist? Was it out of a deep fascination with the natural world, or a general intention to improve the economic lot of the country?
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