Free Radicals - Michael Brooks [6]
Scientists have a habit of airbrushing science’s greatest moments to smooth out the human wrinkles and flaws in the process of discovery. Ultimately, though, scientists did themselves a disservice when they dehumanised their field. No wonder we have had such trouble keeping schoolchildren interested in science.
Education is just the tip of the iceberg. It is also no wonder that governments ignore the advice of scientists with impunity: they have been reliably informed that scientists are meek and unlikely to kick up a fuss. And the scientists, keen to perpetuate the myth of the scientist as public servant, play right along. No wonder the media don’t give these scientists much space or airtime: who wants to be presented with dry facts by people who are just not like the rest of us? No wonder science has never been a part of popular culture: for generations, people have been persuaded that science is not like anything else humans get up to. No wonder scientific progress is slow: most scientists have spent their entire careers convinced they shouldn’t do anything dangerous or too different from whatever is going on in the laboratory next door. They also know full well that they would fail to get funding or ethical approval if they dared to break out of the straitjacket.
It is time to embrace the reality about science, and discard the fantasy – before it is too late. We are building a civilisation on the foundations of science, placing our faith in its ability to support our hopes and deliver our needs. So far, scientists have been lucky: their cover-up has not resulted in the disastrous lack of trust it could have engendered if exposed in a malicious sting. That luck won’t last for ever, though. Perhaps Daniel Sarewitz has put it best. ‘The leap of faith that spans the chasm between laboratory and reality must be replaced with a bridge,’ he says, ‘lest … we look down and realise that there is nothing underneath our feet.’
The work of science is too precious, and – in this age of approaching environmental crisis – too urgent, to allow that to happen. But safe in the knowledge that the public can cope with truly human scientists, and empowered by the realisation that people no longer fear science, we can set scientists free to work in the way that gives them their best chance of making progress. As the first step towards this, we are now going to peek behind the curtain and take an honest look at the lengths to which scientists have to go in order to make a breakthrough. Be warned: like Stephen Hawking’s tea-time routine, it’s quite a spectacle.
HOW IT BEGINS
Dreams, drugs and visions from God
I
t was humankind’s first trip away from home. On 21 December 1968 a Saturn V rocket blasted off, its crew headed for the Moon. While in lunar orbit, however, the view through the craft’s window distracted the Apollo 8 crew from their scheduled tasks. ‘Though Apollo crews were trained to observe and photograph lunar features,’ recalled astronaut William Anders, ‘our main “discovery” was the Earth.’
On Christmas Eve the astronauts saw the entirety of their planet for the first time. Grabbing cameras and jostling for position, they took three photographs, two in black and white and one in colour. These are the celebrated ‘Earthrise’ pictures, astoundingly beautiful and moving images of our home that have been credited with kick-starting the environmental movement.
Stewart Brand, then a young Californian radical, felt rather proud of this achievement. One chilly afternoon three years earlier, Brand had been sitting on a gravel-covered roof in San Francisco’s North Beach district. He was high on 100 micrograms of lysergic diethylamide: LSD. The buildings beneath him curved with the Earth’s surface, and Brand’s mind wandered back to a statement he had heard a month or so before. The architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller was giving a lecture, and Brand