Part 1. Introduction
SUE LAWLEY: Hello and welcome to the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House for the first in this year’s series of Reith Lectures. They’re being given by a man who’s been called “a scientific magician; a man who leaves you wondering where he got his ideas from.” Magic, however, is not his business. He’s rooted in the pursuit of rigorous scientific inquiry, and his work has taken him to the pinnacle of his profession as President of the Royal Society, Astronomer Royal, and Master of Trinity College Cambridge.
He has called his four lectures ‘Scientific Horizons’. His subject is the challenges and threats man faces as he starts his journey through the rest of the 21st century. He believes we’re in danger, as he puts it, of “destroying the book of life before we’ve read it.” Man may be at the top of the evolutionary tree, but there are still many things he doesn’t understand - and possibly never will. Indeed, the form of life of which he’s a part may not be the only one in the universe.
So in ‘Scientific Horizons’ our lecturer will look at the threats to the whole existence of man and explore some of their solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the BBC’s Reith Lecturer 2010: Martin Rees.
(APPLAUSE)
Part 2
MARTIN REES: I'll start with a flashback to the 1660s - to the earliest days of the Royal Society. Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Samuel Pepys, and other 'ingenious and curious gentlemen' (as they described themselves) they met regularly. Their motto was to accept nothing on authority. They did experiments; they peered through newly-invented telescopes and microscopes; they dissected weird animals. But, as well as indulging their curiosity, they were immersed in the practical agenda of their era - improving navigation, exploring the New World, and rebuilding London after the Great Fire.
Today, science has transformed our lives. Our horizons have hugely expanded; no new continents remain to be discovered. Our Earth no longer offers an open frontier, but seems constricted and crowded - a 'pale blue dot' in the immense cosmos.
My theme in these lectures is that the Royal Society's old values should endure. Today's scientists, like their forbears, probe nature and nature's laws by observation and experiment. But they should also engage broadly with society and with public affairs.
Indeed, their engagement is needed now more than ever. Science isn't just for scientists. All should have a voice in ensuring that it's applied optimally - and to the benefit of both the developing and developed world. We must confront widely-held anxieties that genetics, brain science and artificial intelligence may 'run away’ too fast. As citizens, we all need a feel for how much confidence can be placed in science's claims. And these are themes I'll explore in all four lectures.
Part 3
Science is indeed a global culture, and its universality is specially compelling* in my own subject of astronomy. The dark night sky is an inheritance we've shared with all humanity, throughout history. All have gazed up in wonder at the same 'vault of heaven', but interpreted it in diverse ways.
Today, I'm not going to speak further about the findings of science, nor will I extol* it as the greatest collective achievement of humanity - though it surely is. I'll instead focus on how it impinges* on our lives - and how it will in future.
Some changes happen with staggering speed. Everyday life has been transformed in less than two decades by mobile phones and the internet. Computers double their power every two years. Spin-offs from genetics could soon be as pervasive as those from the microchip have already been. Ten years ago, the first draft of the human genome was decoded. Now, genome sequencing - the 'read out' of our genetic inheritance - is a million times cheaper than 10 years ago.
These rapid advances - and others across the whole of science - raise profound questions.
For instance:
Who should access the 'readout' of our personal genetic code?
How will our lengthening life-spans affect society?
Should we build nuclear power stations - or windmills - if we want to keep the lights on?
Should we use more insecticides or plant GM crops?
How much should computers invade our privacy?
The dominant issues today, in contrast, span all the sciences. They are far more open, and often global. There’s less demarcation between experts and laypersons. Campaigners and bloggers enrich the debate. But professionals have special obligations to engage - the atomic scientists were fine exemplars. Scientists shouldn't be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should try to foster benign spin-offs - commercial or otherwise. And they should resist, as far as they can, dubious or threatening applications.
Unprecedented pressures confront the world, but there are unprecedented prospects too. The benefits of globalization must be fairly shared. There's a widening gap between what science allows us to do and what it's prudent or ethical actually to do - there are doors that science could open but which are best left closed. Everyone should engage with these choices but their efforts must be leveraged by ‘scientific citizens’ - scientists from all fields of expertise - engaging, from all political perspectives, with the media, and with a public attuned to the scope and limit of science. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
