A positive view of science and technology

The phenomenal rate of change which has characterised our material civilisation during this century has been wholly due to the application of scientific discoveries to practical problems - in a word, to science-based technology. Yet I wonder whether more than a very small fraction of the population ever pauses to think of the degree to which many of the accepted everyday features of our lives - automobiles, television, antibiotics and all the rest - have depended on science. Although none of us would want to be without these marvels - for that is what they are - some of us, it would seem, are so disheartened by all the social and economic problems we now face as to suggest that science is a hindrance rather than a help, and that in the interest of mankind it should be controlled and regulated before it destroys us all ... Of course, no-one would claim that science has been a wholly unmixed blessing or deny that it has been on occasion misapplied. But on closer inspection its misuse usually turns out to be the fault of man and not of science - and often results from application by those too ignorant of science to realise the implications of its discoveries. At the same time, one must admit that, sometimes, environmental problems like pollution have stemmed from short-sighted indifference to adverse effects on others which has all too often been manifest in the behaviour of governments as well as entrepreneurs...

What I wish to argue is that, just as we owe our present civilisation and standard of living largely to science, it is only through the further promotion of science and technology that we will find solutions to many seemingly intractable problems ..... (If) we continue to improve our natural knowledge all experience suggests that we will see changes which will radically alter the whole pattern of our lives - or if not of our lives then those of our children and grandchildren: and we shall survive.

by Alexander Todd, November 1978, member of the Academia Europaea, 1989-97

read at his memorial service, July 1997.

[From Academia Europaea: http://academia.darmstadt.gmd.de/newsletter/nl10/todd.htm]