9. 3. 201714:06

Speech by DPM Pavel Bělobrádek - Prague Forum on the Perspectives of European Non-University Research beyond 2020

Three questions on the future of science and of the world
 
Ladies and gentlemen, today you are addressing the outlook for research outside the universities beyond the year 2020. Allow me however to make use of this forum and its assembly of exceptional minds to put a question, or rather questions, somewhat more broadly and generally. For without the correct questions we will not get the right answers.
 
So let us ask ourselves: What will be the role of science in a world which is constantly and rapidly  changing before our very eyes? What weapons is science to use in the struggle with pseudo-science, or if you like, with “alternative facts”? How to resolve the eternal Faustian question of the conflict between knowledge and ethics?
 
These questions affect all areas of science without exception. They affect the social sciences, as well as the natural sciences and technical disciplines. They affect both fundamental and applied research. They affect both university research and research outside academia.
I will take them one at a time and expand on them somewhat.
 

An ever faster world

Science has always been a force shortening distances and accelerating progress. The exponential growth in technology has meant that it has become the primary motive force behind globalisation. And we all know that its effects are not only positive.
 
In the past also, technology brought with it short-lived minuses to go with its pluses. Except that earlier, there was more time to adapt and look for solutions. Nowadays our reaction time is curtailed. Global technology and new manufacturing approaches, together with increasingly expert – and thereby more isolated – company management are bringing about such rapid and such massive changes that society and politics are unable to adapt to them.
 
We know the consequences of this from Europe and the USA. There is a growth in the power and influence of populist politicians responding to the demand for new certainties from possibly frightened, possibly angry people. Protectionism and mercantilism are on the return, together with isolationism and xenophobia. And this, among other things, threatens the free scope of research and the movement of top experts.
 
It is mainly up to politicians to find a way out of this situation. But I would also like to call on scientists to put to themselves the questions of how to react to globalisation. Answers can be provided both by the social sciences, to find methods to resolve social conflicts in an increasingly dynamic world. And by the natural sciences, which might permit more delicate, “smarter” development of technology, which will not demand such massive global movements of raw materials, workers and products.
 
As a member of the government, I am well aware that science is the best possible investment. According to a Prague University of Economics study, each crown spent on research increases output by 2 crowns and 10 hallers. And every billion into science brings about 882 new jobs.
 
But let us expect even more of science. Let us expect not only greater output, but also improved quality of life. And as much as improved comfort and an improved environment, then the possibility of finding better, and better paid, work. New scientific solutions must be not only amazing, but smart also. And possibly more smart than amazing.
 

The battle between science and pseudo-science

In the 19th and 20th centuries it seemed that science was finally victorious over pseudo-science. That rational scientific thinking had increasingly won out over mysticism and irrationality. The golden age of science and the industrial revolutions associated with it brought about not only an astonishing growth in our capabilities and possibilities. But above all else a belief that there was no problem to which science could not find a cure, no question to which science could not find an answer.

Now it does look as if a pseudo-scientific counter-revolution is following the scientific revolution. Charlatans, conspirators, alternative thinkers and gatherers of “rolling stones” of all kinds are on the rise. And a related phenomenon is the rise in the popularity of “fake news”. Is the age of science coming to an end? Is pseudo-science striking back and threatening to cast the world back into a new dark age of ignorance?
 
I firmly believe that this is not the case. That this is only a temporary swing of the pendulum. That science will demonstrate its power to inspire. I hope that our efforts to secure better institutional financing for the Czech Academy of Sciences, increased funding for science and a new evaluation system for research institutions – prioritising quality over quantity - will all contribute to this.
 
The battle between science and pseudo-science never ends. Today we may have smartphones and big brother Google, but this does not mean that we are not subject to atavistic, irrational impulses and myths. Indeed one might say that thanks to modern technology, pseudo-scientific nonsense can propagate much more widely today that at any time in the past. Here I see great scope for the social engagement of scientists. Let scientific truth and love of reason be victorious over the “alternative” lie and hatred based on ignorance.
 

Faust and Mephistopheles

As science makes the world turn ever faster, and as it clashes with pseudo-scientific mysticism, it perforce also bumps up ever more frequently and forcefully against the boundary between free investigation and ethics.
 
I must with some satisfaction state  that the ethical and self-regulatory mechanisms within science are very strong. At least in the western world. The catastrophic visions of mad scientists working day and night on innumerable inventions of doom have never come to pass.
 
But the battle has not been won for all time. Progress, particularly in the biomedical sciences, is quite unbelievable and the temptation “to play God” is enormous. The motivation is easy to understand. Extending and improving human life. Getting rid of disease and pain. Eliminate the “unfair” chance that endows each of us with a different range of abilities.
 
But each intervention, however well-meaning, has its consequences. Today’s scientists are confronted with much more burning questions than were their predecessors. Physics and chemistry may serve to develop weapons of mass destruction. But here of course it is enough not to do intentional evil. But the biological scientists may in the end wreak great evil on man himself, even where the interest is to do good. And by that I do not have in mind the fact that a biologist is taking over from a physical chemist as head of the Academy of Sciences…..
 
The fact is that today we no longer “only” change and control nature around us. We are on the threshold of discoveries which offer the possibility of changing and controlling human life itself. I admit that that sounds scary. On the other hand, I understand the enormous amount of suffering that progress in biomedicine and genetics can prevent. I am most assuredly against across-the-board prohibitions.
 
I do believe that scientists themselves, in open debate with the public and with politicians, will show how sensitively to find that narrow line between that which can and cannot be allowed. Who like Faust would not yearn for eternal youth? But in the end even he understood that he was misled by Mephistopheles and offered only a delusion. The human spirit is not worth such a delusion…
 
Globalisation, pseudo-science, ethics. Three questions which science will have to deal with not only beyond the year 2020. Of course, together with an enormous number of specific questions and problems. I am sure that under Eva Zažímalová the Czech Academy of Sciences will be as successful in resolving these as it was under Jiří Drahoš.
 
Work in the field of science is never-ending. Without science man would not genuinely be man. This has been true since homo sapiens sapiens first raised his eyes from the ground, looked at the stars in the sky and began to ask questions. Because in reality more depends on these than on the answers…