MORE than 300 years ago, philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle compiled a that he hoped future scientists would make. The list is a fascinating glimpse into 17th-century society: its desires, the limits of its technology and the boundlessness of imagination.
Some items on Boyle’s list remain largely outside the bounds of science: “The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions”, or “The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables”. But many now exist in some form or another: “The Prolongation of Life”, “The Art of Flying”, “The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation” or “Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination”. The list shows the power of blue-sky thinking and the importance of scientific research in making ideas reality.
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This summer, the UK national academies to develop a new “people’s list” of things we would like to be able to do, or better understand, through research and innovation. The results are as varied as you would expect, from tackling climate change and cancer to the colonisation of planets outside our solar system and communicating with pets.
Similar items would probably feature on such a list anywhere in the world. But the list carries particular lessons for the UK as it grapples with its future global role.
Boyle’s list shows how seemingly pie-in-the-sky dreams can become the future norm. For that to happen today requires investment from government and industry in creative research. The UK government is committed to 2.4 per cent of GDP being invested in research from public and private sources by 2027. But it is some way off this target, and the country lags behind international competitors. The likes of Germany, Israel, South Korea and Japan already invest more than 3 per cent of GDP.
The UK has a great deal to build on. The country is at the forefront of climate science, as the second largest contributor of expertise to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, behind the US; it has discovered and developed a quarter of the world’s top prescription medicines; and it leads the world in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Scientific advances don’t exist in a vacuum, and the UK can play to the well-developed cooperation between the sciences and the humanities. Humanities researchers are busy developing ethical and regulatory frameworks for new technologies: the University of Oxford recently received a to tackle the ethical questions of AI.
UK anthropologists use their expertise to engage sensitively to strengthen medical interventions around the world, for example in vaccination campaigns and in the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014.
With a general election in the UK potentially around the corner, backing research is also a vote-winner. According to the UK Public Attitudes to Science Survey, 79 per cent of those surveyed agree that even if it brings no immediate benefits, research that advances knowledge should be publicly funded.
Boyle’s list and the people’s list prove that in our capacity to dream of a better, safer and more exciting world, we are just like our predecessors and, indeed, our successors. The UK government has an opportunity now to set an example by committing fully to research for a common global future.
