Science to what purpose?
Federico Mayor
Federico Mayor
Are the welfare and interests of the public being
served by the priorities of researchers, the thrust of their work, the ways in which
they are organized, the funding they receive, and the circulation of their findings?
Science reigns triumphant.
Never has it been so powerful and influential. It has conquered diseases which have
decimated whole populations. It has abolished exhausting physical labour and wearisome
repetitive tasks. It has vanquished distance and pushed back the frontiers of our
knowledge of the infinitely large and the infinitely small, in both the inanimate
and the living world.
In short, it has acquired the ability to shape our lives, to change life itself.
But it has also increased its capacity to destroy life. The strength of an army can
rest on the number and determination of its combatants but it is also, and chiefly,
based on the technological sophistication of their weaponry. The bombing of Iraq,
and now of Serbia, are the latest examples.
Yet science is wavering. For the first time since the Enlightenment, the way science
can be used is being challenged. The link between scientific progress and social
progress is weakening and signs of obscurantism are appearing. Hiroshima sounded
the alarm. Then the crisis of the environment, triggered by the dominant mode of
development, turned questioning of science into a worldwide issue. This form of development
is inseparable from a frantic and indiscriminate quest for technological innovation.
Finally, advances in biotechnology, which harbour many grave dangers for human dignity,
are often too closely bound up with the selfish interests of their promoters.
No one blames science for not knowing everything. No one criticizes it because it
has not yet found a vaccine against AIDS or reached a conclusion about the theory
of the Big Bang. It has never been claimed of science, as it has of history, that
it has come to an end. It must keep on tirelessly probing the enduring mysteries
of life.
But science can no longer avoid–and nor can we–the basic question of what and who
it is for. In other words, are the welfare and interests of the public being served
by the priorities of researchers, the thrust of their work, the ways in which they
are organized, the funding they receive, and the circulation of their findings? Or
are scientists looking mainly in the direction of high-spending consumers at the
expense of long-term basic research? Because of the growing “privatization” of research,
are we not tending to overlook essential and universal human needs which cannot immediately
be met?
Those who are excluded from this new “scientific power” must make their voices heard.
For example, the inhabitants of the 600,000 villages which have no electricity or
the world’s two billion people without access to drinking water have the right to
ask science to find solutions adapted to their very meagre resources. Humanity also
has the right to ask science to give priority to research into processes of global
disruption and ways of coping with them. What’s more, all citizens have the right
to ask science to further our understanding of the mechanisms of inequality and exclusion
which are gradually undermining peace and democracy.
To move towards such a new contract between science and society, UNESCO
and the International Council for Science (ICSU) are inviting scientists, private firms,
governments and other stakeholders to attend a conference which will be held in Budapest
at the end of June. One major purpose of this meeting will be to see that the benefits
of science go primarily to all those who have hitherto been unreached. Their conditions
will only improve if they have access to the mighty power of science.
