In an interview during the UKs EU referendum campaign in 2016, a cabinet minister gained some notoriety for dismissing economists gloomy Brexit predictions with the assertion that people have had enough of experts. How times have changed. Whatever became of that minister, they must be feeling pretty sheepish now, because it seems the UKs new government cant get enough of them. And scientists in particular.
In the run up to last years general election, there was very little talk of science priorities from any of the competing parties. Yet science policy watchers were beginning to speculate about what Prime Minister Boris Johnsons special adviser Dominic Cummings might have planned, as hints of a pro-science agenda began to emerge from his Downing Street meetings with researchers. As our story explains, early indications are that the scientific community does have reason to be cheerful, with promises of more funding and less bureaucracy, although there are murmurs of concern. For example, many researchers lament that while one arm of government is cutting red tape and giving out cash, another is taking away ERC grants and Erasmus scheme membership as it gets Brexit done.
In the run up to last years general election, there was very little talk of science priorities from any of the competing parties. Yet science policy watchers were beginning to speculate about what Prime Minister Boris Johnsons special adviser Dominic Cummings might have planned, as hints of a pro-science agenda began to emerge from his Downing Street meetings with researchers. As our story on pXX explains, early indications are that the scientific community does have reason to be cheerful, with promises of more funding and less bureaucracy, although there are murmurs of concern. For example, many researchers lament that while one arm of government is cutting red tape and giving out cash, another is taking away ERC grants and Erasmus scheme membership as it gets Brexit done.
Still there seems to be a genuine effort to put science at the heart of government. And not just as a source of evidence and advice. A review published late in 2019 that looked at research commissioned by government departments included among its recommendations a need for greater scientific expertise in those departments. The governments chief science adviser, former president of R&D at GSK, Patrick Vallance, followed this up by stating that the civil service intake should comprise many more science graduates. And in January, Cummings posted a job advert on his blog that called for mathematicians, economists, data scientists and super-talented weirdos to serve as special advisers to the government.
Vallances proposal seems eminently sensible. Stacking Whitehall with scientists who can apply their expertise and skills directly in the machinery of government is a fine idea. Yet Cummings advert caused the murmured misgivings to grow louder principally because his approach to applying science to public policy doesnt seem to pay much heed to good science policy. An uncritical faith in science to supply the answers to societal problems and deliver public good could be just as problematic as ignoring experts and evidence. Turning research and evidence into policies that bring about change in messy real-world problems is fraught with difficulty. As the British Academys new chief executive Hetan Shah wrote in Nature, boosting sciences role should be welcomed, but not at the expense of the social science and humanities expertise that are also essential to effective policy.
Cummings recruitment call drew particular concern for its recommended reading: a list of research papers focused on crunching data to make predictions about physical systems, with the implicit suggestion that their predictive powers could be translated into policy decisions. The authors of these papers have expressed delight but warn that these ideas will often fail if directly applied to social engineering projects because of the complexity of human cognition.
Chemistry doesnt feature in that reading list, but there is no shortage of papers that might be of interest. My own suggestion would be Site-selective enzymatic CH amidation for synthesis of diverse lactams. Not for its relevance to policy, but for what it teaches us about science itself. The papers PI, Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, retracted the paper in January because the results could not be reproduced. Her humble apology and admission on Twitter was widely shared and even drew a few column inches from the mainstream press. The details of the retraction arent known, but it offers a salutary lesson about sciences qualified certainties, its duty to accuracy and truth, and its gradual progress through patient increments. As Philip Ball discusses, it shows how science works best as a considered, slow process.
Chemistry doesnt feature in that reading list, but there is no shortage of papers that might be of interest. My own suggestion would be Site-selective enzymatic CH amidation for synthesis of diverse lactams. Not for its relevance to policy, but for what it teaches us about science itself. The papers PI, Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, retracted the paper in January because the results could not be reproduced. Herhumble apology and admissionon Twitter was widely shared and even drew a few column inches from the mainstream press. The details of the retraction arent known, but it offers a salutary lesson about sciences qualified certainties, its duty to accuracy and truth, and its gradual progress through patient increments. As Philip Ball discusses on pXX, it shows how science works best as a considered, slow process.
Yet such pleas for temperance seem unlikely to get much traction in the five-year push for political gains. And should Cummings experiments fail, there is a risk that science could suffer collateral damage in the fallout. The causes championed by one administration can quickly become a revanchist hit-list for the next. And what a wasted opportunity that would be.
Read this article:
Science can't fix Whitehall on its own - Chemistry World
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
