What is this thing called stress? It is an unpleasant subjective feeling,
or it is the thing which causes that feeling. It is the effect of fear,
pain, surgery, burns and lust. It is the worried business executive, the
single mother, the athlete waiting on the blocks, the professor writing
an important article, the bus driver in a traffic jam. Stress is . . . well,
stress is whatever you like – or rather whatever you don’t like.

All the examples are, at first glance anyway, radically dissimilar the
one from the other. You would imagine that the differences between the unconscious
and inert body on an operating table and the hyper-alert body of the rapidly
moving sprinter would be more striking than their similarities. So how could
such a collection of problems have come to be regarded as merely examples
of a single concept?

The answer comes back that stress is a unifying concept, the nonspecific
response to a huge variety of specific stimuli: all the many possible ‘stresses’,
however diverse, are unified in an objective way by the body’s response
to them. The discussion proceeds on this distinction between stimulus and
response, with three possible outcomes. Stress is either a type of stimulus,
or a type of response, or a combination of the two.

Is stress then a special type of stimulus? In the first place the ‘stressful’
stimuli are just too numerous and various to bring together in a convincing
synthesis. Definitions of a stressful stimulus which hinge on it being ‘aversive’
or ‘dysthymic’ or in some way disruptive to homeostasis are not really defining
the stimulus: they are actually talking about the response.

The idea of stress being a unified response to a wide range of miscellaneous
stimuli seems to be more convincing. But, again, just how unified is this
proposed unified response? Originally the stress response was defined in
terms of postmortem findings (in the rat): specifically of adrenal cortex
enlargement, gastro-duodenal ulceration and changes in the thymus gland.
Yet this pattern is not what most people mean by stress, even in a strictly
scientific context.

ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s talk about elevated secretion of certain hormones (such as
cortisol from the adrenal cortex, or adrenaline from the adrenal medulla);
they talk about increased activity of the autonomic nervous system; and
about sweating, skin resistance, blood-flow changes, pulse rate, diarrhoea,
amenorrhea, reduced (or increased) appetite . . . Far from being a unified
response, the so-called stress response is enormously diverse in its manifestations;
and it’s growing all the time.

Wherever you look in the vast literature on stress you find circularity
of definition. A stressful stimulus is something which produces a stress
response; but also the stress response is what is produced by a stressful
stimulus. So that once something is defined as giving rise to a stress response,
it becomes a stress stimulus. Then anything else the stimulus gives rise
to becomes yet another component of the ever-enlarging definition. In the
end, ‘stress’ threatens to swallow up everything.

The things that we call stressful are actually significant. But the
‘stresses’ of life are not affected by what we call them. Perhaps the only
valid use of the word is as the name for a kind of subjectively unpleasant
emotion: a near-synonym for worry, anxiety, nervous tension or strain. But
there is no scientific reason to call all of life’s essentially dissimilar
problems by a single name, any more than to classify life events as happy,
perplexing or ticklish. Such subjective emotions are not firmly attached
to stimuli: that is part of what makes them subjective.

If we want stress to be a coherent (never mind scientific) concept,
we are going to have to accept that there is no one thing called stress,
only different kinds of stress. And if we acknowledge that there are different
kinds of stress, then we do not need the word. It is less confusing simply
to get rid of it, and to learn to describe, as precisely as we can or need
to, the nature of a specific stimulus and the response it evokes. And to
describe these mechanisms one at a time, without mixing them up. Circularity
is not allowed.

When the stress concept is allowed validity it is a guarantee that one
of two things will happen. Either that investigation will cease altogether,
or that the discussion will proceed at such a level of generality that nothing
specific can be said, no science can be done, no conclusions can be drawn.
The circularity of its definition will inevitably confuse rather than clarify.

‘Stress’ is a euphemism for ignorance, a fountainhead of confusion,
and a black hole for speculative thought. It is a concept without value.
Even worse, stress is a pseudo-explanation which provides a blind alley
for rational thought. There is no reason for us to use the word, and many
reasons why we should not. Essentially dissimilar things need essentially
dissimilar names.

Bruce Charlton is a lecturer in anatomy at the University of Glasgow.

In a way not possible today, the structure and function of the human
body could be seen as a branch of natural theology: a kind of microcosm
of the larger world, an example of the principles of benign and intricate
organisation.

We cannot convincingly copy such an approach in science today. But the
great popularisers of science have shown that it is still possible to teach
science as a humanity, as part of an overarching and enlightened world view.
I am thinking of the likes of Jacob Bronowski, David Attenborough, Richard
Feynman, the best of Horizon, and even of some articles which have appeared
in this magazine.

Yet the normal way of teaching science is to teach it as a science to
be practised. This is the most straightforward way, the training of one
scientist by another: a kind of apprenticeship: science as a skill. Methods
involve the likes of reading original papers, doing experiments, analysing
results and presenting the findings in written form. The goal is the production
of a scientist of a specific type: biologist, geologist, physical chemist
or whatever.

It is more specialised even than that, because a scientist does not
practise as ‘a biologist’, or even as ‘a physiologist’. The activities of
a scientist, the area in which they can actually contribute to the research
goals of the community of science, are limited to a highly restricted bit
of a sub-sub-specialism such as electrophysiology; and it is only in this
tiny bit where even a good scientist can be truly ‘in the swim’.

Teaching science as a science only goes on at a level where it can be
assumed that the student wishes to become (for at least a while) an active
scientist of a specific type. It is the kind of teaching which will be the
culmination of a good honours BSc course, and of course this kind of teaching
is the primary purpose of the PhD.

Yet teaching science as science is hardly teaching at all. To be good
at it is mostly a matter of being a good scientist. Students get the benefit
of the experience less by remembering stuff and more by a process of ‘modelling’
their behaviour on that of the good scientist. This kind of learning is,
potentially, of great subtlety and flexibility; the crowning glory of education.
It is also so expensive in resources, time and energy that it can never
be provided for more than a small fraction of the population. Luckily, perhaps,
only a minority of people seem to want it.

The second method of teaching science is much more widespread. Science
as a foundation is science as a basis for something else: science as knowledge.
Even the highest-flying, most abstract and specialised research scientist
needs a much broader background knowledge in which context is placed their
narrower scholarship. This is the justification for school-age and junior
BSc courses for potential career scientists – a period of general study
before getting to grips with a definite research problem.

But the main function of science as a foundation is in vocational courses,
such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy and many others. The defining feature
of science as foundation is that the content is determined by another goal.
For example, in teaching science to dental students, what you teach and
how you teach it should be determined primarily by the requirements of the
job of being a dentist. In other words the science is secondary to the vocation.

The further implication is that, ideally, this kind of teaching should
be a ‘top-down’ process: arranged in consultation with experts in the requirements
of the job. This is not entirely a subjective matter. There are now a number
of techniques for analysing the tasks, the skills and the needs of ‘expert’
practitioners in a wide range of occupations. Although the process requires
some research and some hard work, a much more valuable foundation can be
provided than by just sitting in an armchair and thinking hard (although
there will always be a place for hard thinking).

But the strangest, and most controversial, method of teaching science
is as a humanity. This is science as a liberal study, a subject worthy of
consideration for its own sake. Science as a humanity is what goes on when
some aspect of science is taught to people who are never going to be scientists
and nor do work for which this aspect of science is foundational. This is
how all of science is for most people, and how most of science is even for
scientists.

Science as a humanity is the indispensable prelude to all other forms
of science. It is the spark which ignites interest and enthusiasm; emotions
which may subsequently be channelled into scientific practice, but which
are anyway valuable in themselves.

Like the other humanities – literature, fine art, music and so on –
science is a branch of culture. It can give us just that exalted sense of
human capability, and the mind-stretching exhilaration of following a fresh,
challenging and unfamiliar pattern of thought, which we find in any of the
more familiar liberal studies.

But science can do this only if it is taught as a humanity, with this
aim in mind. Science as a humanity does not happen as a mere by-product
from science as science, and especially not from science as foundation.
Science as humanity is not concerned primarily with the results of research,
nor with the facts relevant to a career. It is much more to do with the
pleasure derived from novel shapes and interconnections of meaning and metaphor:
it is a conceptual subject. And I suspect that the scientists of the past
were much better at teaching science as a humanity, although admittedly
it was easier for them.

Teaching science as a humanity should, it strikes me, be the major method
and purpose of those involved in promoting scientific literacy or the public
understanding of science. Such activities are neither a matter of turning
out scientists, nor a matter of pumping people full of scientific knowledge.
They are much more a matter of producing an effect akin to the aesthetic
appreciation of beauty.

This is not how scientists see themselves. It is not how science is
done on a day to day basis. Science as science or as a foundation are both
easier to justify in terms of results than science as an ‘art’. But science
as humanity is the vital substrate of all other types – no matter what their
brilliant achievements – because without it, science as a human activity
will be cut from its roots in general culture, will become starved, gradually
wither, and eventually die.

Bruce Charlton lectures in anatomy at the University of Glasgow.

At first it was the peptide cult. Every week a new sequence, a novel
location,a gimmicky function. For the punk generation of biological scientists,
a chain of freshly synthesised amino acids was the perfect complement to
a Mohican haircut and bondage jeans. However, by the time I had spiked my
dreadlocks, ripped my Wranglers and bought a provisional licence to drive
the chromatography column – the peptide era was passe.

Somehow our endless rows of little test tubes and our macho-phallic
pipetters began to look shabby. A wind of change was blowing through the
laboratories as teams of short-haired smoothies with red braces and designer
white coats parked their turbo-charged, leather-covered ring binders beside
streamline autoanalysers.

The conversation was full of concepts we didn’t understand: eastern
cuisine, southern holidays and northern blots. Grant incomes came to resemble
telephone numbers and so did research papers with their screeds of base-pairs.
US peptide chemists continued hanging around seedy bars and publishing in
seedy journals, but we knew our time was past – we were living fossils.

Still, the 1990s have arrived and the media tell us of a new mood. The
days of the mol bols are numbered; they may even have been superseded. It
seems that the hippies are back, and ecology is taking over. Eventually,
the mol bols will be kicked out of Nature, ignored by Horizon and left to
rot in the mouldering back issues of Current Contents.

Who cares! Fashion is where it’s at. It’s what keeps science young,
trim and nubile. Who cares about the burnt out teddy boys, the run-to-seed
rockers and the pensioned off patch clampers? Not me. I may still think
endorphins are sexy, but I look to the new generation to set the trend.
I wonder, though, whether we really do enough to encourage them.

Just as fashion has its Paris and Milan where the likes of Yves St Laurent
and Chanel can unveil the designs of the future, sceince should have an
equivalent. We need the glamour, the catwalk, the photosessions; a place
were the trendsetters can give us a glimpse of what we will be doing, and
wearing, for the next season. Nobel laureates could preside over multimedia
presentations, wildly speculative and extravagant projections of the shape
of things to come demonstrated by very tall, very slim, bespectacled young
postdoctoral models.

These idealised visions could be adapted by the ‘chain stores’ of science
for ‘high street’ consumption, and mass-produced for everyday use in colleges
and institutes around the country. New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s could publish lists of
what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’ as a guide for grant applications. And the
magazine could, like the trend-spotters at The Face and iD, profile the
uncoming wild child PhDs, cool dude lecturers and retrorapping professors.

These measures would simply recognise a state which already exists in
a latent form, if we would only admit the fact. As the old song almost says:
‘It’s just what you do, not the way you do it – that’s what gets results’
of, if not results, at least grants.

But don’t take my word for it, I am only a superannuated peptide punk.
Ask a mol bol or, better still, an eco-freak.

Bruce Charlong is a lecturer in the anatomy department at the University
of Glasgow.

This is hardly surprising. It is very difficult to judge true ability.
It requires intimate knowledge over a sustained period to know what the
personal contribution of an individual has been to any achievements with
which that person is associated. It is even more difficult to measure potential,
to attempt to guess how someone will perform in an unfamiliar situation.

So the easiest strategy is to have some kind of hierarchy of institutions,
ranked in order of excellence, and apply the same rank ordering to the people
who make up these institutions. So that an Etonrow schoolboy is better than
one from Slagsville State; a student from St Cambrod College, Oxbridge,
is better than one from Out-in-the-Sticks poly; and a PhD supervised by
Sir John St John FRS is better than one under the auspices of Dr Shyly Retiring.

All of which is much easier than attempting a judgement of the individual.
But there is a price to be paid: the system is inevitably going to work
to preserve the status quo, at the expense of trying to give the greatest
opportunity to the individual with the greatest ability. It will tend to
perpetuate whatever unfairnesses existed when the system was established
– in favour of the wealthy, upper(ish)-class, white males; and against the
rest.

Pupils from high status schools go to the prestigious universities which
have the lion’s share of resources, study with famous supervisors whose
well-equipped labs and big teams result in ‘loadsa’ publications and an
impressive PhD, the next grant application is thereby enhanced, and so on.
The self-made woman or man from an underprivileged background is not only
denied the credit of surmounting the obstacles provided by low-status institutions;
these obstacles actually count against them.

The same argument applies whenever, for the sake of convenience, we
sidestep the difficulties of appraising the individual, and take the easier
option of judging the group.

Just at present scientists are engaged in various exercises to sort
out the sheep from the goats in terms of research excellence, teaching ability
and a host of other axes of performance. In the context of static or diminishing
funding such discrimination seems vital, or at least inevitable. And it
is at just such times, rather than during the optimistic ages of expansion,
that we begin to see the problems of The British Disease. When resources
are in short supply, it means that those who lose out don’t just get less
– they get nothing.

The question we need to ask is what is the best unit for evaluation?
Is it the individual, the research group, the department, the faculty or
the institution itself? This is of great importance because the kind of
university we will get depends crucially upon the answer we choose. Should
the primary goal be an institution composed of good departments? Of good
faculties? Maybe some other division based on research interest? Or should
we, perhaps, be concerned to employ the best individuals we can, and give
them the maximum scope? I can’t help but feel that, ideally, universities
should be places where exceptional individuals are given the chance to pursue
their studies and encouraged to transmit their skills to others. I tend
to regard all the supraindividual levels of organisation (curriculum, department,
faculty, university) as being necessary evils whose sole justification is
the achievement of this individual goal.

There is a danger that the institutions favour safe plodders to outstanding
individuals. The preliminary requirements for university academics are so
prolonged and rigid (upper-second degree, PhD, n publications, big grants)
that appointments tend to go to the people who have lumbered through the
correct sequence of hoops rather than to the exceptional individuals who
have not satisfied the usual ‘professional’ requirements. The process tends
to be self-reinforcing, and eventually the appointments panels become so
dominated by pedestrian committee-animals, that they would not recognise
an inspirational lecturer if one jumped up and bit them on the nose.

The trouble with The British Disease is that, most of the time, the
best places attract enough applications from the best people, and (despite
the inefficiencies and snobberies of their selection procedures) they manage
to pick out enough of these appli cants to justify their pre-existing reputations.
Taken on average, the system works – which is why it survives.

But at each stage there is a loss. Institutions overlap, the best child
in the worst school is better than the worst child in the best. If we judge
always by the previous institution attended we will end up selecting at
birth! If individual endeavour is always averaged with that of a group of
colleagues, then we will get ‘good’ departments without any outstanding
individuals.

In medieval times, a famous teacher like Pierre Abelard would attract
students to Paris from all the civilised world to sit at his feet. Or, closer
to (my) home, the University of Glasgow was revitalised by the personal
reputations of two of its principals – Andrew Melville and John Mair. In
contrast, today’s students will clamour for places in departments of ‘reputation’,
but no distinction.

Admittedly, they can educate each other to a large extent, and there
is always the library. But can we really have ‘higher’ education (however
well organised) without a few highly gifted scientists around the place?
The pendulum has swung too far. Institutional reputations are fictions,
only an individual can have ability.

Bruce Charlton is a lecturer in the department of anatomy at the University
of Glasgow.

We take it for granted that all the staff are abysmal – after all, that
is what everybody tells us. But the staff are not all abysmal in the same
way. There are different types, reproduced in each department in the land.

The Wicked Professor is always a bully, always scheming and always brilliant
(although past his best . . . ), even if he is really none of these.

Then there is the Departmental Lecher – a wolf in sheepskin clothing
– who always seems to have attractive female research students, and can
be seen (mysteriously wifeless) at departmental parties, spiking their punch
with vodka; and during exams, a favourite shoulder-pad to cry on for the
histrionic female undergraduate.

He should not be confused with the Students’ Friend, who creeps around
the place in hipster jeans, white slip-on shoes and a shirt unbuttoned just
that bit too far . . . Despite spending most evenings getting drunk with
undergraduates, he is actually a harmless creature, more to be pitied than
feared.

As is the Nice Chap. He is . . . well, a nice chap. And he does . .
. well, to be perfectly honest, he doesn’t do anything so far as anyone
knows – but he is nice.

So is the Token Woman. Some departments don’t, in fact, have one of
these, but they are highly recommended in the light of recent legislation.

All departments must, however, have a Boy Wonder (even if it is a girl).
The great hope, the steely-eyed, sharp-suited, panther-footed whizz-kid;
the one who will save us from faculty appraisal; electronic genius, grant-holder,
publisher of loadsapapers . . . The fact that nobody outside of a 10 yard
radius has ever heard of him is regarded as no disadvantage.

And, of course, the Departmental Cynic. He breezes into the staffroom
like a breath of stale air, only happy when miserable. To him, every silver
lining has its cloud and nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

There is insufficient space to decribe all the other types, but they
are well known: the sports fanatic, the hardman of science, the pitiful
soak, everybody’s daddy, the solitary recluse, the overgrown choirboy .
. . People we have come to know and love.

Sadly, all this could become a thing of the past. Britain’s great scientific
traditions are under threat, and it’s all a result of the cuts.

How can a department even hope to maintain a full complement of scientific
types when there just aren’t enough places to go around? As departments
shrink, the dangers become obvious. People will have to double-up. What
will happen to the carefully inbuilt sexism of academic life when the departmental
lecher is also the token woman? Or, even worse, if the lech is also the
sports fanatic? If the boy wonder is forced to take time out as the pitiful
soak? If even the wicked professor must be simultaneously the recluse and
the overgrown choirboy? What will he be doing in his office? Such confusion
is impossible to contemplate without horror. Perhaps, after all, the initiatives
to stamp out lots of small departments and establish a few megabuck ‘centres
of excellence’ are a blessing in disguise. The ‘critical mass’ theory assumes
a new importance. The very sanity of British science is at stake.

Bruce Charlton is a lecturer in the department of anatomy at the University
of Glasgow.

While not wishing to side with ‘the forces of darkness’ on this issue,
I suspect that a lot of this is the fault of the scientific community, and
that part of the answer lies in our own hands. The problem is that old enemy
of prosperity: inflation. However, in this case it is not inflation in prices
that is causing the problem, but inflation in academic qualifications. And
we have become so used to inflation that we think it is a good thing.

To understand this, it is necessary to look back to the appointment
policies earlier this century, and to compare them with those of today.
We have forgotten, perhaps, that the PhD was brought to Britain only after
the First World War had temporarily destroyed the German university system.
Until then, scientists were trained (if at all) up to BSc level. Then, at
a considerably later date they might, or might not, submit a DSc, after
they had completed a fairly substantial body of work. In other words, lecturers
in science (or the research equivalent) were usually appointed after their
first degree, in their early twenties.

This pattern was common until quite recently. Promising graduates were
often appointed to lectureships before they had submitted their PhD theses,
which they then completed as members of staff. One problem with this system
was that perfor mance as an undergraduate does not always correlate well
with performance in research. The next step was to require PhD submission
before appointment, allowing some assess ment to be made of a candidate’s
research potential – and incidentally bringing the age of a new lecturer
up into the middle or late twenties. But this was not enough.

As competition for permanent positions increased, academic inflation
began to set in. Departments were able to insist not only on a completed
PhD, but also upon a substantial period of post-doctoral research. This
brings our story up to the present day: most lecturers are being appointed
in their early to middle thirties! It is time we started to question the
wisdom of setting up all these hurdles in the paths of our scientists, and
to ask whether this system really does result in the survival of the fittest
– rather than just the luckiest. It is worth recalling that a PhD is not
essential; even today there are a number of highly distinguished scientists
who do not have one, and the great scientists of the past seemed to have
coped happily without any equivalent.

It is time to go back to basics, and think again about why we require
so many years of postgraduate study on short-term contracts before offering
a proper job. We are talking here about ensuring quality rather than quantity.
After all, most lectureships still attract a ridiculous number of lavishly
qualified candidates – lavishly qualified in experience that is; real excellence
is never in such abundant supply. The situation, except in a few specific
subjects, does not look like what we usually understand by the word ‘shortage’.
In so far as there is difficulty in filling research jobs, this is usually
a result of arrogantly unrealistic expectations and an unwillingness to
compromise – both a product of the glut of qualified personnel.

Surely it is possible to pick out at least some of the brightest and
best scientists at a much earlier stage in their careers, and offer them
a secure position from which to pursue their research. Why not offer them
a salaried job as soon as they graduate? At the very least they could be
offered a permanent lectureship conditional on their gaining the PhD within
a specified time. This is an attractive alternative to ‘the fleshpots’ of
industry.

If it is proving impossible to keep the outstanding young science graduates,
then we must tempt them using the only incentive we can afford in a declining
system: security. Why should brilliant students throw themselves into a
decade or more of postgraduate study with no guarantee whatsoever of any
job at the end? If we really want them to stay, we should take a chance
on them.

This need not cost the universities more money. At least in the short
term, there would be some saving as a result of appointing lecturers further
down the salary scale. However, there would be one significant problem,
which gives an insight into why the present situation has been allowed to
continue. What would happen to all the post-docs? What would happen to all
those highly experienced scientists who are being strung along from year
to year on vague promises and pious hopes, when the fact is that they are
never going to get a permanent job? It is an unfortunate, and largely unintended,
result of our current extended training policy that a broad-based pyramid
of post-docs is holding up a narrow pinnacle of permanent scientists. The
post-docs are, in a sense, being exploited for their high productivity (the
product of desperation) which benefits both their supervisors and their
departments. If these contract researchers were to see inexperienced bright
young things getting permanent jobs instead of the reliable workhorses,
they would almost certainly give up in disgust. This would be undeniably
tragic, both for the individuals and for science. But, if we are honest
about their future employment prospects, we know that there are never going
to be enough jobs for them all anyway – it is probably a case of better
sooner than later.

We are no longer in an expanding system. British science has either
reached a steady state, or is in decline. Clearly, the government does not
care, and we must look after the future of science using what resources
we have.

Until we are prepared to reform our laughably inadequate ‘career structure’,
I cannot see what serious grounds we have for complaints about a general
shortage of scientists. If, as often happens, the head of a department was
appointed as a lecturer at the age of 24, how can he or she insist that
new lecturers must be 34? It is time we admitted that extensive post-doctoral
study on temporary contracts is an optional extra, a luxury; and that, if
necessary, we can manage perfectly well without it.

Bruce Charlton lectures in the department of anatomy at the University
of Glasgow.

The philosophers are no help. Ever since Aristotle they have been trying
to define what constitutes ‘scientific method’ and the answer still seems
hopelessly confused and contradictory. Botany, petrochemical engineering,
cognitive neuropsychology, cosmology . . . what can all these disciplines
possibly have in common? Is there any way we can look at someone and say
whether or not they deserve the coveted title of ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´? Well, yes there
is. I myself have discovered the answer, and the answer is Clarks shoes.
Clarks shoes are the invisible thread linking together the multicoloured
beads of the scientific community.

This insight came upon me in a blinding flash during a coffee break.
It was a humid day, and I was finding that my Natureveldts, despite their
all-leather lining, were perhaps excessively insulating for the time of
year. I wondered idly what the other members of staff were wearing. There
were about a dozen of us around the table and, by dropping a teaspoon and
stooping to retrieve it, I contrived a sneak look at the assembled feet.
My eyes travelled incredulously around the banks of ergonomic, cushion-soled
leather: they were Clarks to a man (there were no women present). But wait!
There was one rather dapper pair of black brogues in traditional design,
surely they couldn’t be. . . But as the soles came into view I saw the familiar
logo: they were Clarks disguised as normal shoes.

Later, I moved to a new department, a new subject, a new country. Everything
was different – except the shoes. The main shopping street outside the university
is pretty well devoid of shoe shops, but for one: the Clarks shop – presumably
kept going entirely on the patronage of Glasgow’s scientific community.

How can we explain this correlation? First of all, is it a cause or
an effect? Does the wearing of soft, comfortable shoes somehow predispose
to the development of scientific ability? One possibility is that the elimination
of pain from the feet allows stress-induced cortisol secretion to diminish,
releasing the hypothalamus from damaging feedback. This is the hypothesis
I would favour.

But it is only fair to mention that there is some controversy on the
point. There is a rival faction (mostly composed of Kicker-boot-wearing
sociologists) which asserts that only a scientist would be stupid enough
to encase his feet in such bland and boring containers. They say it only
goes to show that scientists are so wrapped up in their petty experiments
that they don’t notice how they look. In support of this hypothesis the
sociologists cite cagoules, tweed jackets with leather elbows and cuffs,
and baggy corduroys worn two inches above the ankle. Myself, I think they’re
just jealous.

There is a more serious argument, however. Historians have suggested
that there was a time, many years ago, when Clarks shoes did not exist.
What did scientists wear then? Difficult though this is to believe, I am
prepared to accept that Clarks as such are a relatively recent invention,
but I am willing to bet that, when sufficient research has been done, it
will emerge that there was always an equivalent. There are records of mysterious
things called Hush Puppies, and some archaeological remains of what look
rather like modern Oxfords, but are made of a special highly flexible kind
of cracked and stained leather. What is clear is that scientists’ footwear
has always been soft and capacious: those medieval slippers with incredibly
long curled-up points are probably the very first example, designed for
those of us who ask for plenty of ‘growing room’.

Of course, shoes are not the only answer. They are what Plato would
call necessary but not sufficient conditions of being a scientist. There
have been occasional sightings of non-scientists wearing Polyveldts or Bermudan
sandals, usually surrounded by several other train spotters. But I would
venture to suggest that the Clarks shoe is one thing we all have in common,
a symbol that can unite our tragically fractured profession, a rallying
point to Save British Science . . .

It’s just a thought, but surely if all the scientists in Britain were
to march on Downing Street (very quietly, on air-cushioned soles) and all
together, in a gesture of solidarity, remove their Nature Trekkers, then
no government on earth would be able to resist their demands.

Bruce Charlton lectures in the Department of Anatomy at the University
of Glasgow.

The coffee break is what keeps me sane and if, heaven forbid, I ever
found myself in a department which did not feature such a thing, I would
be brain dead within the week. This may sound like hyperbole, but I am being
as accurate as possible. In a very real sense the coffee breaks are the
main reason I am a scientist.

Why should this be? Well, it stems principally from the deficiencies
of academic life as it is, compared with how it should be. How it should
be is clear enough. The meeting of finely honed minds, the cut and thrust
of debate, the thorough consideration of challenging new ideas . . . you
know the sort of thing. But what is the reality? A bunch of introverts experimenting
in labs and writing the most stupendously dull prose imaginable while engaging
in those petty squabbles known as ‘scholarly controversy’.

Scholarly controversy is all very well, but it doesn’t exactly require
lightning reflexes and nerves of steel. It’s more like a pair of sloths
having a boxing match in a bowl of treacle. Doctor X writes a paper which
after several rounds of spitefully anonymous refereeing is accepted. There
follows a delay of about a year before the paper is printed. Then what happens?
Nothing. Or maybe a light snowfall of reprint requests. Hardly personal,
though. I got a card recently from an eminent North American scientist which
read: ‘Dear distinguished colleague. Please send a copy of your recent article
entitled ‘(blank)’ published in (blank) and any other papers you may have
written on the subject.’ I did exactly as requested, and sent nothing.

Even if your paper does cause ‘controversy’ then don’t hold your breath.
Even if your rivals have already gathered some contradictory evidence, it
will probably be another two years before they can get anything into print.
The whole process is about as exciting as watching mountains erode, as unpredictable
as the comedy cross-talk of Terry and June, and as satisfying as a low-fat
yoghurt.

So where does the coffee break come in? It is the bread and butter (or
rather the ginger biscuits) of laboratory life. On a timescale of months
or years for obtaining grants, running experiments and publishing the results,
it is the one thing that provides feedback on a day-to-day basis.

And virtually the whole of a modern university’s intellectual life goes
on at this time. I must admit that I have heard of the existence of elite
dining clubs, secret political societies, and meditatively donnish post-prandial
perambulations, but somehow or other I never seem to get invited.

So there it is. In our highly developed, post-industrial, multi-media
world ofadvanced science and technology in thelate 20th century, the major
form of highlevel interaction is discussing the previousevening’s TV over
a lukewarm mug ofinstant coffee. It’s a hole-in-the- corner kind of existence,
I admit; we could do better, that’s true; but it’s cheap and cheerful and,
so far, it’s one of the few pleasures of science to have escaped ‘the cuts’.

Bruce Charlton lectures in the anatomy department at the University
of Glasgow.

But what are the implications of this change for scientists? The situation
is far from clear. On the one hand scientists, particularly biologists,
have been at the forefront of the green movement: one thinks of people like
David Bellamy or David Attenborough in encouraging conservation. It is clear
that scientists are needed to assess the impact of man on the environment;
and their expertise is a valuable asset in persuading the public and the
government that action must be taken.

On the other hand, there is considerable hostility towards science from
many people within the green movement, for fairly obvious reasons. Science
has, after all, been responsible for most of the technological advances
which have led to the various forms of environmental damage: nuclear fallout,
accumulation of toxins such as lead and DDT, destruction of the ozone layer,
acid rain, and so on. There is also a philosophical or religious point.
Some green thinkers contend that the ‘objective’ and manipulative methods
associated with ‘big science’ are at the root of our exploitative attitude
towards the planet. To replace this, they advocate a variety of mystical,
animistic and reverential attitudes towards Earth and the life forms on
it; attitudes profoundly at variance with the prevailing consumerism and
the ‘can do – will do’ imperative, and instead having much in common with
those of small tribal communities.

But not all green philosophers would go along with this. They would
emphasise that science is not something which can be detached from its context
in society, and that most of the inhuman aspects of the subject are a consequence
of the high economic growth rate of the large-scale industrialised states
which dominate the world economy. In other words, that the political dimension
is primary, and the nature of science merely a consequence. On this analysis
science and the environment need not be incompatible; on the contrary, we
will need the best science we can muster to dig ourselves out of the current
mess.

So, what is the best way for a scientist to integrate a green perspective
into research? Integrate is the key word. Because at present, because of
its newness, the environmental aspect is something which is tagged on at
the end. Greenness, if it is considered at all, is only a matter of tinkering
with the project at a late stage, and by this time the financial constraints
usually dictate that nothing much can be done. Science is planned on the
basis of what is interesting and what is affordable – always bearing in
mind that science is also (as Peter Medawar said) ‘the art of the soluble’
and there is no sense in biting off more than can be chewed.

However, this is not the whole story. Integrated into the planning of
science, and operating at a fundamental and mostly unconscious level, are
ethical constraints. The whole enterprise of science must operate within
the ethical and moral framework of society. We are not usually aware of
this code of practice except where it is flagrantly violated, most shockingly
by the doctors in the Nazi concentration camps. We are now aware that some
research may be interesting and affordable and do-able; but at the same
time completely evil.

Medical research is constantly under review from both expert and lay
committees to harmonise, as much as possible, the ethical constraints of
society with those of that sub-group of people engaged in research on humans.
Likewise for experiments involving animals. And science of all kinds is
subject to the same standards of ‘public behaviour’ as the rest of industry:
conforming to laws on pollution, safety of workers, design of buildings
and so on. These codes and laws have been absorbed insensibly, as part of
our socialisation, while growing up and being educated.

It seems to me that this is how we will eventually come to regard the
green perspective. As we become more aware of, and concerned about, green
issues they will take their place as a part of the ethical framework within
which we plan our science. When this has happened we will no more think
of doing experiments which cause serious environmental damage than we would
at present think of doing LD50 toxicity testing on groups of estate agents.
Our science is highly constrained by the moral values of our society; and
it is quite right that this should be so. As our values change, as we become
green, so will our science change.

There is a danger that the green movement is regarded simply as being
‘against’ everything, whether that be food additives, seal culling, nuclear
power stations or whatever. This would be a mistake. The prohibitions stem
not from a negative and puritanical impulse towards self-denial, but from
a positive vision of the wholeness and interdependency of the Earth; a wholeness
that it is a delight to be part of. While I do not subscribe to the quasi-religious
versions of this philosophy, I feel strongly the appeal of such a perspective.
It is a perspective which does not simply put constraints on science, but
which can give science a new direction, a new justification and a new spirit
of energy and optimism.

Bruce Charlton lectures in anatomy at the University of Glasgow.