From Ulrich Loening, Phil Gates, Douglas Kell, Chris Revie and Deri Tomos, Centre for Human Ecology, Edinburgh; University of Durham; University of Wales, Aberystwyth; Friends of The Earth Scotland, Edinburgh; University of Wales, Bangor
Two misapprehensions confound your editorial criticising David Bellamy (Comment, 10 June). The first is to contrast “elitist ivory towers” with universities that “forge links with industry”. Both have their dangers and neither is wholesome. The former may isolate from the real world but the latter supports a narrowing world system that is causing ecological and social unsustainability, and therefore is also removed from the real world.
What is needed is active support for a creativity that is imaginative, academically sound, and that questions the conventional. That is what is curbed by current science policies. Universities may be more exposed “to the outside world”, but at the cost of following the dogmas and beliefs behind the sources of funding.
The other misapprehension concerns one of those beliefs, which your editorial fortunately precedes with an “if”: “If genetic engineering can bring stable supplies of inexpensive food …”. The change of name of the Agriculture and Food Research Council to Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, with a remit to create wealth from biotechnology, is an example of the science policy that Bellamy criticised. At a time when it is at last becoming respectable to correct, “man’s inability to fit his doings into [nature’s] patterns” (Brundtland Report) and to adapt technologies to fit in with natural processes, biotechnologies are continuing the old path of overcoming and short-circuiting nature.
In the process, intellectual efforts in other directions are stifled. For example, there is little if any research into crop plants’ own systems of “integrated pest management” or the biochemistry of the negative effects of many modern agricultural practices. Nor is much work being done on alternatives to hybrid seed, whose main rationale is not genetic but commercial, to the detriment of farmers worldwide.
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It is therefore not the individual scientists in their laboratories who “pervert their work to serve the market”, but the whole system which funds them in that direction.
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One cause of public loss of confidence in science is that scientists are suspected of becoming advocates for the products of the industries or the policies of governments that fund their applied research. Few people doubt the objectivity of scientific method, but many are suspicious of the motives of many of sciences’ academic practitioners whose salaries are directly or indirectly paid by their research funders, who may also demand secrecy agreements. In this respect scientists share a common cause of low esteem with Members of Parliament, namely, vested interests that may colour their judgement.
Many of the 20th century’s scientific achievements have contributed to the environmental and social problems that future generations of scientists will need to tackle. The past effects of the Green Revolution in the developing world, including demographic upheaval, increased foreign debt and the genetic erosion of crop plants, can tell us much about the potential ramifications of plant genetic engineering in the future.
Surely scientists, above all other members of society, should be able to learn from such experiences and pass on a balanced but suitably sceptical analysis of the potential impact of their current and future inventions on people’s lives. That is not the action of elitists in ivory towers, but the behaviour that society is entitled to expect from responsible scientists whom it can trust.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with universities forging links with industry but David Bellamy is quite right to sound the alarm about the dangers of academia being perceived as a servant of industry and government, rather than society.
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According to your editorial, “Scientists who see themselves as moral philosophers are all too likely to disappear into a Celtic twilight zone clutching a copy of Walden”. Perhaps your editorial writer could next tell us what scientists who do not see themselves as moral philosophers do. Presumably, they indulge in the selective reporting of factual data that allows many lobbyists with vested interests to continue to claim that fluoride is good for us, nuclear power is safe, smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer and that student numbers can be increased without lowering standards.
Especially in this era of sleaze, perhaps it is indeed time for scientists to spend a little more time on moral philosophy and a little less on mission statements.
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I was there when David Bellamy gave the speech, and the impression that I received was that he was pleading not for universities to be ivory towers, but rather that they should seek to apply themselves to the needs of the wider society, and not just to those of industry.
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I appreciated the thrust of the editorial. But please don’t associate academic isolationism with any “Celtic Twilight Zone”. We in the celtic countries are trying as hard as anyone. Anyway, I thought the Twilight Zone was an American TV series.
