PERCEPTIONS count for an awful lot, and by this measure it鈥檚 hard to pretend
2001 has been a vintage year for science. There were no stunning eureka moments
at the bench or paradigm shifts in the basement. No Dollys or controversial
Martian fossils or afterglows of the big bang making front-page headlines and
fuelling after-dinner conversation. In fact, seen through the eyes of the media,
science has been dominated by news more likely to puzzle or alienate than to
impress or inspire.
The PR nightmare began in January with ANDi, the first genetically modified
monkey. Playing in a cage, oblivious to the jellyfish gene inside his cells,
ANDi made cute TV鈥攗ntil his creators started speaking about colonies of GM
monkeys tailor-made to succumb to human diseases. Where Dolly inspired awe and
trepidation, ANDi just gave us the trepidation.
The publication of the much-vaunted first drafts of the human genome in
February was of a more positive milestone. Yet any sense that biology was better
equipped to meet practical challenges evaporated in the heat of Britain鈥檚
foot-and-mouth epidemic. Then as now, the arguments for and against vaccinating
animals were complicated, and the need for some slaughter clear. But no amount
of computer modelling was going to make the mass burning of sheep and cattle on
huge pyres look sophisticated. Result: another PR disaster for the boffins
advising the government, even if it wasn鈥檛 of their making. And if the handling
of foot and mouth echoed BSE, October鈥檚 news that British BSE researchers had
spent four years painstakingly injecting mice with the wrong kind of brains was
a farcical flashback.
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There was no solace from space. Hailed as the brightest new object in the
night sky, the International Space Station is now looking every inch the white
elephant its critics always said it was. Unlike Mir, the ISS was supposed to
have room to house teams of scientists carrying out complicated experiments.
Alas, the latest budget cuts mean there will be nowhere for them to live.
True, there have been some splashy breakthroughs. One team said they鈥檇 learnt
how to take light waves鈥攖he fastest-moving entities in the
Universe鈥攁nd hold them at a standstill. On the face of it, an awesome
achievement: if only physicists could agree on what the experiment really meant.
Even more confusing was the true status of the minuscule bunches of cells that
popped up in November under the banner 鈥渇irst human clones鈥�. Milestone on the
road to new therapies or premature glory seeking? Take your pick. But let鈥檚 not
judge science solely on what makes the headlines. Unsung incremental advances
pour into the journals all the time, and it鈥檚 from these that most scientific
progress will ultimately be made. And even if 2001 has been an annus horribilis
for science鈥檚 public image, it would be quite wrong to see this as evidence of
an anti-science culture.
To be sure, society at large no longer sees science as the deliverer of
simple facts and truths, and no longer unthinkingly accepts scientists鈥� visions
of the future. But if blind faith has given way to intelligent scepticism, that
can only be a good thing.
