Tony Blair's 'light of science' vision

Listen to the 41 minute speech by Tony Blair on Science at The Royal Society or a 2 minute taster.

In 1963, a previous Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, called for a new Britain to be "forged in the white heat of this [technological] revolution".

Nearly half a century on, Tony Blair is to call for more of the same. He told me that now, more than ever, our economic future is through "the brilliant light of science".

Unfinished business

This is a prime minister with a mission.

I want to enthuse our young people particularly with the prospect of working in science Tony Blair PM's call for young scientists

"It's not just about being a boffin in a laboratory - it's actually about practical application and transforming lives, tackling the world's problems and doing so in a very practical way."

Specialist colleges

Mr Blair has also presided over a time where the numbers of young people studying physics and chemistry have dwindled by a fifth. And a quarter of schools have no qualified physics teachers.

We've got to invest in science far more as a country Tony Blair

This is a deficiency he acknowledges but says he's trying to put it right.

"We've got to invest in science far more as a country.

"The government is tripling investment in science - to recruit better science teachers - which is why we're offering all sorts of incentives for that to happen.

"We've got specialist science and technology colleges which we are creating."

However, investment is well short of the target set by the European Union's aim of being the "most competitive, dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world".

That's a statement from the EU's Lisbon Strategy which aims to match the US's research funding of about 3% of GDP by 2010.

Currently, Britain's is just over 1% but it is set to increase to 2.5% by 2015. Other EU member nations are moving even more slowly.

We should not get into the position of being anti-science as a country because how science is applied and how it's used is down to human beings to make decisions about Tony Blair

The man who helped re-brand the Labour party believes that it's partly an image problem. It's a problem, he says, that's partly caused by the "antis" - the anti-GM groups, anti-vivisectionists and the anti-nuclear lobby that create a negative image of science.

"We should not get into the position of being anti-science as a country because how science is applied and how it's used is down to human beings to make decisions about.

"But for us as a country, where the future is as a knowledge economy, science will, in my judgement, today and for future generations, be as important as economic stability was when we were handling the problems in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s."

But that's what prime ministers have been saying for decades. Most researchers are delighted at what the government has done for them.

However, with huge research investment by India and China, senior researchers say that now is not the time to rest on laurels.

Exhortation and evangelism by the prime minister is welcomed - but on its own it, they say, it won't be enough.

'Irrational' science debated

Tony Blair has outlined what he believes is the damage that "irrational public debate" can have on our understanding of science.

Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London and Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace's chief scientific adviser debate the issues.

Enemies of science

Spin doctors and government agencies are undermining the quest for knowledge

Alok Jha
Monday November 13, 2006
The Guardian

So Tony Blair wants to be a science evangelist? In a recent speech in Oxford, he outlined his plan to stand up for science and face down those who distort and undermine it. He singled out animal rights extremists and people who cause confusion over MMR and GM technology.

But encouraging scientific progress is not just about giving good PR to new gadgets or cures. Most important is protecting the principle of free inquiry, something on which he and his government are way behind. His call for politicians to stand up for science belies the fact that his own administration systematically attacks this basic principle.

The biggest threat to science doesn't come from a mother scared of what the MMR jab might do to her child, or the extremist who burns down farms in solidarity with research animals. It comes from those who claim to respect the way science creates knowledge, but then misinterpret, distort or ignore that knowledge.

On the surface, scientists might seem to have little to worry about. Starved of prestige and money by successive Tory governments, they have seen labs rebuilt and reputations renewed under Labour. Blair talked of having trouble with science in his early years until a Damascene conversion left him "fascinated by scientific process, its reasoning, deduction and evidence-based analysis; inspired by scientific progress; and excited by scientific possibility".

But last week the conclusions of the Commons science committee inquiry into the government's use of scientific advice showed that his good intentions were not being mirrored by his own advisers. The report said that the government hid behind a fig leaf of scientific respectability when spinning controversial policies in a bid to make them more acceptable to voters, and it called for a "radical re-engineering" of its use of science.

Furthermore, scientists are becoming concerned at the rise of creationism in the British education system. The geneticist Steve Jones, who has lectured on evolution at schools for 20 years, says that he now regularly meets pupils who claim to believe in creationism. The creationist interpretation of fossil evidence is even encouraged in the new GCSE Gateway to Science curriculum. In August, a survey of British university students found that a third believed in either creationism or intelligent design.

At the end of the last parliamentary session, the government agency charged with licensing drugs took the remarkable decision that it would license homeopathic remedies. These glorified bottles of water can now carry details of the ailments they supposedly treat on their labels. The remedies do not need clinical trial data and peer-reviewed research to make their claims (as every modern pharmaceutical does). Scientists say the new rules are an affront to the principle of basing healthcare advice on scientific evidence.

Science is a tough master. Use this method of uncovering truth and you are not allowed to be selective about your evidence. But innovation, the technological answers to climate change, and all Blair's "glittering prizes" will come, at some point in the chain, from the basic rules of free inquiry grounded in scientific method: think of an idea, test it with experiments, draw conclusions, refine your experiments, and so on.

A forward-thinking nation loses respect for that free inquiry at its peril. Children taught to disregard evidence when trying to work out where the earth came from; a scientific agency deciding to abandon basic principles; and a government twisting research to fit its ideological message - none of that respects free inquiry. And if you don't stand up for that, you don't stand up for science.

· Alok Jha is the Guardian's science correspondent

alok.jha@guardian.co.uk