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Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleLaunch of the Darwin Centre |
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I want to say first of all how delighted I am to be present at the launch of this imaginative and inspiring centre. I came here a year ago and even then it seemed such an exciting project – opening up the labs and showing the public these specimens of such enormous scientific value and interest. The Natural History Museum's collections containing over 70 million plant, animal, fossil, rock and mineral specimens, gathered over 400 years and including specimens collected by many famous expeditions from all over the world, are a treasure house, which up until now has been inaccessible to the public. I am delighted that they will now be opened up, as I believe that they will inspire awe, excitement and curiosity in those who come to see them. Systematic biologists provide that expertise, as recognized by The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in their report; 'What on Earth?', which rightly highlighted the work of the Darwin InitiativeNational History Museum and other collections, in safeguarding promoting the world's biodiversitythrough assisting countries which are rich in diversity but poor in financial resources and providing a means for researchers to share information. I think also that Darwin would have greatly approved, and if he was alive today, would be delighted to see some of the specimens collected on his epic voyage on HMS Beagle on display in the 'Spirit' collection. I think he would also be pleased that young people will be able to come here and have their curiosity stimulated by the diversity of life which they will be able to see. Darwin will always be remembered as the great theoretician of the Origin of the Species, but when he was a student at Cambridge his great passion was collecting and classifying beetles, so actually this kind of museum would have greatly fascinated him. Not many people know that he spent eight years from 1846 to 1854 studying the different species of living and fossil barnacles, for the purpose of classifying them. I want also this evening to say how much I applaud the aims of the Darwin Centre. These are to:
If we are to realise fully the benefits which science can bring to our society then we need to have a more confident relationship between scientists and the public. The Prime Minister in his recent speech on science to the Royal Society said: "We need better, stronger, clearer ways of science and people communicating. The dangers are in ignorance of each other's point of view; the solution is understanding them." The agenda in the UK has moved decisively beyond the 'public understanding of science' towards a dialogue between scientists and the public about science. This must involve scientists understanding the public as well as the public understanding science, and must involve a debate about the benefits, risks and values of science and its impact on our lives as well as the science itself. Having said that, the British public has a positive view about science. In a survey that the Office of Science and Technology published with the Wellcome Trust two years ago, three-quarters of the British population claimed to be amazed by science. I think we might increase this figure significantly if they were able to visit this superb new facility. People can also see the benefits that science and technology bring to the country and to themselves – eight out of ten agree that Britain needs to develop science and technology in order to enhance its international competitiveness, and two-thirds agree that science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier and more comfortable. But the survey also shows that there needs to be better communication between scientists and other members of the public, for while two-thirds of people think that scientists want to make life better for the average person, a similar proportion agree that scientists should listen more to what ordinary people think. The Darwin Centre will provide a marvellous opportunity to bring scientists and the public together and strengthen their mutual understanding. There was some good news from a complementary survey by the Wellcome Trust of the role of scientists in public debate. Eighty-four per cent of the scientists questioned believe that they have a duty to communicate the results and implications of their work to the public, and more than half of them had done so in the past year. Almost six in ten scientists said that they would like to spend more time on public dialogue activities, and those working at the Natural History Museum now have a marvellous opportunity to do so. Public trust is vital to progress and innovation. That trust is easily lost and hard to win back. We can't afford to dismiss people's concerns, nor to exaggerate them. The Government attaches great importance to re-building a confident relationship between the public and scientists, and we are seeking to increase public confidence in science by providing an independent and transparent system of regulation and by encouraging debate on the ethical and social issues. As the Prime Minister said "The response of the government must be to encourage openness, transparency and honesty. The Foods Standards Agency, which operates in an area of particular public concern and sensitivity, holds meetings in public and publishes minutes on the Web. The Human Genetics Commission and the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission are other examples where we are spearheading this approach and the Chief Scientific Advisor has established an independent voice in Government as an important part of this process". I have also asked the British Association to conduct a study to advise OST what processes government needs to put into place to ensure that the science and society agenda is being properly addressed by the activities of science communicators across the UK. The outputs of the study will include advice on how government can obtain an overview of the coverage and effectiveness of science communication activities and how the science communication community can better co-ordinate their activities, and governance of government's own science and society programmes. The BA will be consulting a wide cross section of those involved in science communication, and will report back to me at the end of October. I don't think that we should be surprised by the controversy that surrounds science today. Scientific advances have always aroused debate. And this controversy is never greater than when scientists seem to challenge the established view of man's place in nature, as can be seen in the violent debates which surrounded the support of Galileo, for the Copernicus Theory and the publication of the Origin of the Species, or today which surround the sequencing of the human genome. The famous Oxford debate in 1860 about the Origin of the Species makes the Today programme and Jeremy Paxman look like innocents. In that debate, as I'm sure you remember, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (Soapy Sam) turned to Thomas Huxley and asked whether it was on his Grandfather's side or his Grandmother's side that he was descended from an ape, and Huxley replied that between a miserable ape for a Grandfather and a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence who employed those faculties and influence for introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, he would prefer the ape. Today's issues are different but no less important, the one constant of British life being the controversy surrounding animal experimentation and indeed fox-hunting which Darwin was discussing in 1875. I greatly welcome the launching of the Darwin Centre. If it can inspire the same degree of excitement that the Victorians felt for scientific explorations and thinking and if it can fully engage the public in a debate about the major advances taking place today, it will have done a great service to science and our society. |
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Other speeches by Lord Sainsbury of Turville
(the following are available from the archive) |
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