If Science is to Save Us
Review by Steve Miller
It is worth noting that although Rees has an international reputation and deals with matters literally of universal importance, If Science is to Save Us is very much based on his experiences as a British (even, English) scientist and his engagement with the UK’s science policy systems.
Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees is, in the UK at least, a high-profile scientist with a bent for popularising matters astronomical and cosmological. He deals with fundamental and weighty matters of the physics that shapes the Universe in which we live. Over the past two decades, he has also used his growing authority — as well as Plumian Professor, he was President of the Royal Society and is still Astronomer Royal — as a nationally important spokesperson for the (physical) sciences to raise equally fundamental questions about the role of humanity in the cosmos.
Our final century (2004) questioned whether humans have much longer to run on Planet Earth, given the changes we have caused and are continuing to cause on the one planet where we know for sure that life exists. From here to Infinity (2011) offered a more upbeat assessment of scientists and citizens working hand-in-hand to deal with the issues he outlined seven years earlier. On the Future (2018) warns that there is “no Plan B” if we do not take care of our planet, but we need “to think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term”.
In If Science is to Save Us (2022), Lord Rees of Ludlow, as he now is, tries to tease out just what has to happen if the presumption in the title of his latest offering is to be realised. We should applaud Rees for speaking up in the wake of ex-President Trump’s trashing of science during the COVID pandemic and on climate change, and against the indifference towards science shown by current UK Prime Minister Sunak. Voices like that of Sir Martin certainly need to be heard. But not uncritically.
It is worth noting that although Rees has an international reputation and deals with matters literally of universal importance, If Science is to Save Us is very much based on his experiences as a British (even, English) scientist and his engagement with the UK’s science policy systems. This UK-centricity is particularly evident when it comes to the last chapter presenting Sir Martin’s ideas on how science is going to live up to its billing as the saviour of humanity.
Let me start, then, with this last chapter, Getting the Best from Science, to illustrate why I found this an eventually disappointing book. Although Rees writes about an international perspective on educating scientists, he seems more focussed on whether or not the UK will continue to attract “mobile academic talent”, particularly in the wake of Brexit and His Majesty’s Government’s failure to sign up to the latest EU scientific research programmes.
He writes concernedly about the increasing “audit culture”, describing the periodic Research Assessment Exercises in the UK as “hugely burdensome”. True, but not really a revelation as to how we are to be saved by science and a bit too parochial, perhaps, for a book that ought to have universal relevance and appeal.
The UK’s university system needs to be restructured so that it “allows excellence to sprout and bloom anywhere in the system” and to “enable everyone to refresh or upgrade their expertise”, offering “online material freely”. Agreed, but still not really paradigm-shifting.
Should we get rid of prizes for scientific achievement, given the largely collaborative and cumulative — and perhaps, inevitable — progress in scientific knowledge? Maybe, but this is surely tinkering at the edges, given the urgency of the problems Rees has outlined in the earlier chapters of the book.
Walking on through this chapter with hope in my heart, I got the feeling that Rees himself was so overwhelmed by the problems he identified in his earlier chapters that he simply ran out of steam.
Rees states earlier in the book: “Today we’ve moved away from the ‘two cultures’ of the arts and sciences. There’s at least a ‘third culture’, embracing the social sciences …”. But reading the earlier chapters, particularly Chapter 2, which has sections on Science and Culture, Communication and Debate, and Science and the Media, and Chapter 3, with sections on Lessons from COVID-19 and Advisors and Campaigners, those familiar with the literature concerning the relationships between science (broadly understood), society (broadly understood) and citizens (broadly understood) would be hard-pressed to find any reference to such work. It just is not there.
Sir Martin clearly recognises that the issues facing humanity have huge social, political and economic dimensions. In one sense, he acknowledges the role of citizens in their solution; he mentions Chris Lintott’s Galaxy Zoo team as an example of “citizen science”. But the social sciences and humanities envisage far greater social involvement with science to release its potential as a “saviour”.
Some years ago, I was part of a Europe-wide team developing tools that would enable researchers and citizen groups to collaborate in forging research directions aimed at dealing with the kinds of challenges we now face. This approach — then called Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) — put citizens’ needs and priorities at the heart of the research agenda, without in any way curtailing the intellectual freedom to explore our universe that Rees rightly champions.
We proposed that the Royal Society devote one of its well-resourced, agenda-setting scientific discussion meetings to the topic of RRI and related subjects. Unfortunately, the Society were not able to fit us into their programme and — in my view — a great opportunity to bring together the natural and social scientific communities was lost. Maybe it is time to try something like that again.
Steve Miller is Emeritus Professor of Science Communication and Planetary Science at University College London, and a member of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was the Director of the European Network of Science Communication Teachers (ESConet) and a founder member of Europlanet, the European network of planetary scientists.
