Summary of Lectures

Professor Dame Julia Higgins: The Responsibilities of being a Scientist in 2007

Professor Higgins divided those who had had a scientific training into four different groups – the professionals, the advisers, the influencers and the invisible. The last are those who trained as scientists but do not use their science in their day to day work. However they are important in lubricating the dialogue between science and the public. There is a considerable educational task in training scientists to listen to the public and enter dialogue constructively. Only by entering a real dialogue, admitting the risks as well as the potential benefits of new knowledge, will we retain the trust of society. And only be engaging our young people in the dialogue will we secure the future of science by recruiting the brightest and best as both visible and invisible scientists.

Professor John Holman: Topical Science can be Rigorous Science

In his lecture, Professor Holman argued that rigour and topicality can live together. Science education has two main goals; scientific literacy for all pupils and a curriculum which prepares scientists and engineers of tomorrow. The UK needs to increase the number of students leaving school with A level Science qualifications. Future job prospects for the well-qualified are excellent, particularly in Biological Sciences. The media presents Topical Science as controversial. However, the public understanding of ‘how science works’ is a key issue which schools must address. However, it can only be addressed successfully if students have a rigorous grounding in ‘settled science’, built on an understanding of science concepts.

 

Professor Parker began his presentation by asking his audience to imagine a world 550 million years ago when no living thing could see. His research on seed-shrimps – obscure marine animals which bore some sophisticated optical reflectors – prompted him to search through the fossil record to find the oldest eyes. His search came to an abrupt end 543 million years ago, when vision was introduced on Earth and quickly became the most powerful of all the senses. Then followed a period of evolutionary overdrive known as the Cambrian Explosion. Precambrian creatures were unable to see and distinguish friend from foe. With vision, hunters and prey could now see each other and developed hard external parts for armament and defence.