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October 14, 2013

Where Science Is Going

By JIM AL-KHALILI

PORTSMOUTH, England By the final decade of the 19th century, many of the worlds
leading physicists were brimming with self-congratulatory confidence, convinced that
scientific knowledge was truly nearing completion, that the workings of nature had been
revealed in all their glory. The laws of mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism
could explain all phenomena in the physical world, and it was just a matter of dotting the is
and crossing the ts. But within the space of a decade, between 1895 and 1905, along came
the discovery of X-rays, radioactivity, quantum theory and Einsteinian relativity, and
physics was turned on its head.
A century later we are at it again. Stephen Hawking has gone on record saying that we are
approaching a theory of everything a set of mathematical equations that explain the
underlying structure of the entire universe. How bleakly depressing.
Thankfully because I would be out of a job if it were true, but also because it would be
profoundly uninteresting we are very far from having all the answers to all the questions.
Cosmic mysteries still abound, global problems like climate change still elude solution and
technology continues its inexorable advance, resolving old problems but often creating new
ones.
So what does 21st-century science have in store for us? And more important, are we seven
billion (and rising) humans jostling for position on the surface of this planet prepared for
whats to come?
A major development is likely to be the continuing rise of international scientific
collaborations. They are already bigger and more international than ever. From the work of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the mapping of the human genome,
from the International Space Station to the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large
Hadron Collider, it seems nothing can stand in the way of such glittering scientific
juggernauts. Indeed, many of these projects have become so grand and costly that no one
nation can shoulder the entire burden of running them.

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Where Science Is Going - NYTimes.com

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Are such scientific research projects destined to get ever bigger and more costly? And are
they likely to become ever more remote and beyond the control of the average taxpayer and
voter?
In a sense, given that such science can at times seem like a vast, mysterious, unaccountable
operation, you cannot be too surprised that those who feel disengaged or threatened by
science are drawn to conspiracy theories, becoming skeptical of the increasingly dire
warnings of climatologists, suspicious of the motives of multinational pharmaceuticals
(O.K., that one I sympathize with) or attracted to alternative, pseudoscientific health
remedies. This is why it is vital that the scientific community work more closely with the
politicians and policy makers who can provide oversight and publicly clarify and promote
the rationale behind each endeavor.
It is unlikely that large pharmaceuticals, biotech companies, energy providers and defense
contractors are going to feel a moral obligation to come clean and become open about the
research they conduct. But I am a glass half full kind of person, and I would argue that the
vision of science as a conspiratorial or self-interested enterprise is not only unnecessarily
gloomy, but also not representative of the views of most people in the world. As a humanist,
I tend to have faith in humankinds capacity to make the right choices, and in my fellow
scientists ability to eventually solve the worlds problems with a deeper understanding of
the universe and our place in it and with the technological applications of this knowledge.
Of course, my optimism and confidence may have much to do with being based in Britain,
where science is riding high on a wave of popularity at the moment, including in
undergraduate science programs. Britain is now a world leader in science communication
thanks, in part, even to imports like the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Science
documentaries regularly draw millions of viewers, popular science writing in print and
online is thriving, and science festivals are popping up in seemingly every city and town,
attracting tens of thousands of visitors.
But this is not true everywhere. Attitudes toward science and scientific research vary widely
around the world, often depending on the specific issue in question.
For example, while in the United States laws and regulations concerning human embryonic
stem-cell research differ from state to state, often amid strong opposition from the religious
right, there are no such misgivings in Iran, where the prevailing belief is that ensoulment
of the fetus does not occur until the end of the fourth month of pregnancy. Another example
is the contrasting public opinion on nuclear power between France (pro) and Germany

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(against).
Many challenges lie ahead. While popularizers and communicators of science like myself
seek to capture the imagination of the public with exciting discoveries of new subatomic
particles or distant planets, we must not lose sight of the real problems facing the world
today that science can help address from religious extremism and population growth to
the security nexus of energy, food and water supplies. And despite the misgivings of the
skeptics who remain unconvinced of the fact of anthropogenic climate change, there is no
longer any denying the worrying transformation of our planet that is taking place, for which
ambitious global geo-engineering solutions may need to be found.
Whatever lies in store, we can be sure that the future will look very different from anything
we can imagine today.
The Internet will continue to evolve, and new smart materials based on graphene or
nanotechnology or synthetic biology will transform our daily lives. Whether or not we will
have eradicated diseases like cancer within my lifetime I cannot say. For all its success, one
thing science cannot do is allow us to see the future.
Jim Al-Khalili, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Surrey, is a
frequent host of science programs on BBC television and radio.

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