Focus 580; The Unpredictability Of Science And Its Consequences

In this hour of the show we have with us a rather distinguished British scientist who is visiting the campus of the University of Illinois. Its name is John Merrick Thomas he is honorary professor of solid state chemistry at University of Cambridge. He's also Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He was formerly master of Peterhouse the oldest College and University of Cambridge. He is here visiting to give a talk in the Miller series about the unpredictability of science and its consequences. This afternoon four o'clock at the Levis center on the U of I campus sponsored by a long list of departments including the school of chemical sciences. And we're glad to have him here and appreciate the fact that he's giving us some of his time and for people who are listening by the way there if you have questions comments you can certainly pick up the telephone and give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Well thank you very much for being here. Art supplies or as I understand the premise of the talk is goes something like this as you probably would expect

that if you're going to engage people in the conversation about the future direction of science research and technology you would think that scientists. Would be well positioned or better positioned than your average person to answer the question that is where is your research going or what what do you think will be its practical applications. What will be happening in the next few years. And I guess as it turns out that scientists really are no better than your average person at answering questions. That is precisely my point. And it's a bit surprising when you contemplate this fact that even the top scientists in the end don't do XLI get it right when they look beyond three or four ten years as even in their own subjects. And I'm going to give many illustrations of that. It's an astonishing fact because after all

science rules many facets of our lives and it's very important for to know what's likely to be ahead of us in the future. I mean governments want to know this business people want to know it the man in the street wants to know it. One of the examples I give in my talk as I've known is we want a president who's voted in 1937. He set up a commission to collecting the good and the best as it were in the nation and ask them to come to a consensus opinion as to what the likely developments there was to be expected in the next 20 years and so on and the remarkable thing is how wrong they were. You know they said certain things which ultimately came to be true but they missed so many many things. Now some things you can blame them for missing for example totally new discoveries. I mean nuclear

fission could hardly have been predicted in 1980 and discovery was made in 1938 39. So you can't hold it against a body of experts that they missed that. But quite apart from that there were things already latent in society in science in technology that weren't actually thought of as being highly important. I mean I'll just give one example and I was well I don't wish to do in this broadcast just to give you license give the thought no let's say that's what it is if you want example of the fuel cell. What fuel cell was invented conceived demonstrated in 1842 by a fellow countryman of mine. So William Grove comes from Wales. He was a lawyer incidentally but he had a great interest in science and he was very excited when he wrote to Michael Faraday and said look this is a remarkable achievement. I can put

hydrogen and oxygen together and they don't explode in the presence of a catalyst the way I'm putting them to work. I generate electricity from it. And this is really rather interesting. Now that was no none of the VEBA in Washington or in the United States or anywhere else in the world thought of that might be important. You can go anywhere these days in the civilized world without hearing they have in times half its being spent here on this campus I mean the fact that yesterday in the department of chemistry and chemical engineering I saw a very beautiful account of how. A fuel cell has been developed. Yeah and about I have an army which will enable you to drive your future mobile phone. Now you know and that's the way it's going to go. Now it's just fascinating and of course everybody knows that there's an element of chance you know discoveries by chance. Now that is of course a

factor that you have to outline and illustrate and I still do that this evening. But there are many other aspects of this whole unpredictability that I was pondering and groups of experts come out and say you know this is what's going to happen. All this is impossible. And yet you find that we're both wrong. It's not simply an intellectual exercise fascinating as it is it also of course depends greatly I mean it influences greatly rather. The way in which public expenditure of funds or private expenditure of funds gone. I signed on a government committee and the Cabinet Office. Twenty four years from 1982 to 86 and one of the jobs we had was to identify promising areas of science. We listed in our report of 1985 about 20 such promising areas only two of which are now really

valid magnetic resonance imaging and unconventional methods of microscopy. So that's really what I'm going to be talking about this evening and I I try to draw examples from medicine from astronomy from physics from all aspects of science under PRI. Well I appreciate your not wanting to give give the talk here and then give it again this afternoon but I certainly am curious and I'm sure that a lot of people listening would be curious to hear a little bit about why it is that you know as it is I mean when you get it you get a bunch of learned people together even people in their own fields you got a bunch of people and you get a bunch of chemists together and you're a chemist and say well you know you tell me tell me what you think are the going to be the big developments in chemistry that even they can. It's not just a case of asking them about what's going to happen in biology. And you ask what I was going to have any chemistry and the same the same thing happens I mean that.

You know it's very odd it's a very fair question and I'm glad you're persisting on that in the college to which I belonged in Cambridge still do. As a matter of fact Peterhouse there were two Nobel Prize winners. They won the Nobel Prize in 62. So John Kendrew and Max Perutz they were the man that really showed how to determine the structure of complicated proteins and hemoglobin myoglobin. And they were found as really of molecular biology in Britain to a large extent. Now they could never have foreseen I mean I was very friendly with both of them that A chance discovery in the University of Leicester by a man named Alec Jeffreys unraveled completely all exposed completely the reality of genetic fingerprinting. You see this was a chance discovery but you had to know something about DNA you had to know about the gene sequence and so forth. The way in which molecular biology gradually unfolded suddenly you realize but this me we can identify every human

being or every living thing on earth from its genetic fingerprint. Devastating fact isn't it's not just fingerprinting you know you can. You can take a fingerprint of a bacteria for free but you can by looking at its DNA tell exactly what it is. It's really unpredictable. And in fact it was John Kendrew in the book he wrote the thread of life after he won the Nobel Prize which set me thinking on this theme of even scientists who are expert in the fields find it very difficult to look beyond three or four years. I shall stop my lecture this evening my recalling. I want to laud rather sad in New York City in 1933 he effectively said that you know anybody who believes that you can get energy out of the nucleus of an atom. Is talking nonsense. Well

you know the rest is history as they say. I think that if you ask start asking people who thought about the question of what is the what's the essence of creativity I think that they will say something like when you look at people who have been groundbreaking individuals and whatever they feel you will see that they are able to look at the world and see it differently than other people and to take take ideas and put them together in novel ways that lead to new kinds of understanding that other people simply don't do. Absolutely right and I'm the classic example that as Isaac Newton because you know Isaac Newton just imagine has this man he's a son of an illiterate your woman from Lincolnshire in England. He's a very smart young man extremely clever and he wants to try and understand quantitatively how he can

describe the process of change in the physical world. Dropping of an eye for the throwing of a projectile or whatever ultimately he formulates the laws of motion an EE invents calculus he invents it. Now a towering genius from that day onwards mankind scientifically lived differently. I mean I live minutes came along and he independently discovered calculus but now you could predict the Abyan flow of the time he'd ultimately through Newton's laws you could predict solar and lunar eclipses. You could predict the path of a project on a satellite and so on. But over and above that you you raise a very interesting question about these individuals who are blessed with that ability to perceive and calm CVS things that others don't usually have. There's another factor which I think is extremely

important and this comes down to the question of technique and tools. Take Galileo. He's me. I mean by building and a telescope. He changed forever. Not just our knowledge of the accident. And to see things to see new wounds and to see things on the moon and spots on the Simons oval. But in addition it caused a revolution in the thinking about man's place in the cosmos and the universe. So technique as well as great individuals. These are two points that we've now mentioned which I should also be developing this evening and illustrating fun. We have a caller to bring into the conversation. I should introduce Again our guest So John Murray Thomas is a professor of solid state chemistry and former master of Peterhouse at University of Cambridge is also emeritus professor at the Royal Institution and he is here to talk on this very subject the unpredictability of science and its consequences.

So afternoon four o'clock at the Leveson faculty Center this is a lecture that's being held in conjunction with the drip Kaymer symposium honoring Kerry George Drake a Marine pioneer in high pressure studies of condensed matter. Professor of chemical engineering chemistry and physics at University of Illinois for 56 years and questions here welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 have a color and champagne to talk with here. Line 1. I just did an education in societal thinking in that direction. Say for example American society is going in so I want to ask you about science and quote knowledge knowledge and quotations and point to two movements for example postmodernism which seems to question narratives and metaphors used by science and then maybe another movement that I'm characterizing are caricaturing which would reject

science or maybe it's a kind of obscurantism of return to rejection or a return to Revelation as literal. And I'm wondering how you see the need for scientific education in the US and the west in our capacity to question it and question our ways of thinking. Or you know look at science look at philosophy look at linguistics on the one hand you know there is mystery and chance and on the other hand. Well personally I don't think that we should believe her. Anti-scientific approaches. Well I certainly agree with you that I think it would be taking a step backward and a major step backward if you rejected it in time. The idea that you would need science I mean science is not just the language of a modern society. Science enables us to build modern society. Science

enables us to make people healthy to live longer and to do all sorts of things to communicate better than the mere fact that you and I are talking in this way is attributable to scientific progress. So I mean why must I accept. Reality of the tendency that there is these days in some cases as you put it in your question to reject science I think is a profound being mistaken view. I mean you can't read Jack science more than I would reject religion or would reject many other aspects of life because they're an essential part of life but only knowledge if you accept that mankind men and women in general are thinking beings. It's inevitable that knowledge will acuminate and knowledge is. It manifests itself in a multiplicity of different

ways. Sometimes it can be deeply psychological and sometimes it can be in the form entirely of metaphor which can be expressed through literature very effectively as we've seen through music. It's also part of the entirety of the human existence that it comes through a scientific inquiry. Now there may be limitations to scientific inquiry but I mean that is a valid study in itself. But I don't think that one should question the very idea that science is capable of Revelation. I think it's. Demonstrably true that revelation has come in leaps and bounds through scientific inquiry. Knowledge is power as Francis Bacon the said in the 17th century. And you know no one needs to have an understanding of the entire world in which we live

and not effectively is what the adventure of science is about. And you think there are any limits to be put on science or are any ways or structures or systems to go about limiting scientific endeavor. Well I respond to your question in two ways. I mean I can certainly concede that the scientific method may not be universally applicable to every conceivable aspect of the human and adventure of the human endeavor. I mean it. It's. There are instances where as a scientist you feel that even the profundity of scientific technique and concept is not quite enough to account for the unity and holiness of human life. I mean you know that our debates as to whether. There is a limit to scientific description of the world in which we live.

I personally think that you know that even then given the power of science I don't think you can explain every aspect of human existence solely in times of science. And then the other aspect of your question is should you impose some limits on it I mean should you stop people from inquiring into say genetic manipulation for example. This is a thorny question and it's one that has to be handled with extreme care and certainly one has to be extremely careful and mustn't allow rhymed and irresponsible experimentation which has not governed as if by groups of experts imperfect as they may be. And what I said because the experts don't know everything. I do think that one needs to be exercising some caution and allowing certain types of experiments to be

carried out. And I think that most people in society would accept. Thank you. No thank you other questions are certainly welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 1. Let me ask you about another criticism that is sometimes levelled at science within individual fields on the key questions. There is often a consensus and consensus may in fact be the wrong world the wrong word because they're there. The weight of opinion backed by research is on one particular conclusion. The criticism that's often made though is that someone comes along with a radically different take on the same question and the some people point out Well you know all the scientific enterprises is always supposed to be questioning you. You were always supposed to be able to question. What it is you think that

you know that's the that's the whole point. But that in fact one particular idea can become so subtly entrenched and a lot of people they have interest it and their careers and their funding are based on that particular way of approaching it. So that if somebody else comes along and says well you know I think maybe we've been completely wrong about this. And the explanation lies somewhere else that that person is not going to be terribly popular in the field. And some people would say in fact that they have a hard time getting a fair hearing for their ideas ad that it may be if we're you know going back to this question of why it is that often scientists aren't very good at predicting the future. It is because they're too wedded to the ideas of the present. Well I think you have all of what you said is perfectly valid and indeed I have a very nice example which I was wrong expatiated forum this afternoon

of a very interesting instance in Australia where Dr. Doctor at the hospital was absolutely convinced that the end time the medical profession were wrong and the causes of gastro Doo would be no outside self. You know I mean this was 1982 and he was absolutely convinced he'd convinced himself that the prevailing dogma was just mistaken. Nobody believed him. But he persisted and he ultimately proved himself to be right. The way in which we now treat duodenal ulcer us is influenced fall by his work than what it was by the experts of 40 years ago. So you know I strew some individuals got a very hard time. I mean there's a great story of a British Nobel Prize winner and chemistry. He died about 10 years ago Peter Mitchell. He was of the opinion that the

nature of the way in which Janet is sort of transmitted so out living things not so much electrical but based on protons on hydrogen plus signs. He had a devil of a job to convince them. It took him about 25 years to be sort of getting into the position where his views ultimately received respectability and was finally applauded with the highest accolade. I'm assuming that your prefer it with a man in the ALSO story you were referring to the what now it's become our understanding that these kinds of ulcers are primarily caused by a bacteria the H Pylori and that we're actually now starting to treat people who have also once it has been established that the bacterium is present and that's really what's going on. We're giving them antibiotics and that's completely different from the kind of hot treatment that we used to do. Yeah so that serves as one example where one man came along and challenge the

conventional wisdom and turned out to be right. I guess though. How often really does it happen that the conventional wisdom is wrong. I mean we have to say yes there are cases in which it is. But I would imagine that there are other cases and I don't know maybe more cases where someone has come along and challenge the conventional wisdom and it turns out well they were wrong that the conventional wisdom of it was was right was right. Yeah. Do I think it would be a mistake to assume you say that because there is a conventional wisdom that there's a conspiracy to allow doubt anyone else who wants to challenge that. I mean that's unlikely. You did however mention that and some people are wedded to certain conventional views because their careers and all sorts of other things are dependent upon it. And that is a subtle and subterranean cost is it supporting that view. But I mean in an open society. Thank goodness one lives in an open society. I mean one's got to give complete freedom of thought and freedom of

contemplation and challenging the very nature of science is based on challenge. You know it grows out way it is not a dogma. You know truth wins out in science it always is the question of well what does the what all the experimental facts. I mean one of my heroes and one of my distant predecessors was Michael Faraday. There was a time when Michael Faraday in 1849 convinced himself. I think that there was a relationship between magnetism and light Magni top picks became a reality and we use it now. I mean shown there was a link between that atrocity and magnetism electromagnetism is a reality. He grew convinced that there was a direct link between gravity and that atrocity. And one day writing in his notebook he never published this. He realized that it might be true that when you drop a heavy mouse through an electrical gravitational field you might be able to generate

an atrocity you know we know that that is not the case. He began to almost romanticize what he wrote down. All of this is a dream. Nothing is to wonder food to be true. If it be consistent with the laws of nature and in such things as these experiment is the best test of such consistency. So I mean that's the very way in which science grows. Challenge is absolutely central to the scientific experience and the scientific adventure. So you're quite right. Let's talk with someone else. Urbana line 1. Did you say light on. Yes you knew you were statically right when he said the number. I have a question which you may not want to answer but I would like to ask it anyway it has to do with public policy. Many

people would argue that while our space program provides masses of invaluable information about the planets the stars of physics. Cosmology et cetera. Given our current situation in terms of let's say health care that it's an unwise expenditure of money because we have so many other scientific questions that are more pressing. The argument comes back but if we didn't have these kinds of investments in the space program we wouldn't have. And then a whole list of advances comes out and an anticipated unexpected advances that came out of the space foot program for example in material science. My question to you is irrespective of your own feelings about space programs. Would a certain amount of money that is devoted to say space or anything else if it were devoted

solely let's say to biological research or medical research would it not provide even more benefits them. There might not be the same on expect. It benefits that sort of comment Serendipitously I was space program. But would you not in the long run get more benefit to society by by devoting that directly to applicable research. Well that's a very fair question and it is one that's asked very frequently and I have every sympathy with Lizzie you for putting it actually. Now I can tell you because if one were to sort of switch the funding from the salaries they astronomy and the space program into biology whether or not outcome in a certain period of time would be far better to mankind. You can tell this but public policy decisions in an open society. In a civilized

society I've got to always resort to the question of balance. You know there's got to be some sum of money as you have a sum of money set aside to look at fundamental things to look at the cosmos to look at the outside world. It's almost you know scientific heresy not to question the nature of the world in which we find ourselves and it's really does make sense I believe to put a certain amount of funds into efforts to explore the cosmos. It's all a question of balance. And you know when money's on war and when money is in a state of crisis and when we lived through periods of crises most of the people who are alive now. That has to be a constant reassessment of how you distribute your funding so as to support fundamental research shows

support research that's more likely to be mission oriented to give you immediate rewards. I mean in the first world war in Britain during that period and shortly thereafter it became so apparent the deaths from tuberculosis from all sorts of other diseases was oh very very large in number. That something fundamental had to be done and the Medical Research Council was set up in order to give a scientific basis for clinical medicine. And that was you know if you like an example of using biological research and putting money from the government into that area to support such endeavors that's continued. There's always a debate in Britain and there is an America I know but there's you know the supercollider human and so forth. We should not have gone on all. Should US for example be spending

huge sums of money as there is being done in Europe at present on high temperature fusion when the prospects Ah that it's not going to yield anything for another 10 years and consumes huge sums of money. And there is a very understandable and vociferous fraction of the public who say well look put money into more immediate things that we can do in health care and so forth. So I do want to try to answer your questions a difficult one to oncet. But in short I would say that it's constant reassessment and that's why it's good that there occasionally change of government change of individuals change of people who are in committees that make these decisions and their voices have to be heard and it's all a question of balance of opportunity. OK thank you very much. All right thanks again other questions. Welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 our guest. So

John you're a Thomas he is honorary professor of solid state chemistry at University of Cambridge and an emeritus professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London formerly he was the master of Peterhouse the oldest College and University of Cambridge and he is here visiting the campus to talk about some of these issues. I would be giving a talk in the Miller com series about the unpredictability of science and its consequences That's this afternoon at 4 o'clock at the level center. Of course anyone is welcome to attend and questions here welcome to 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. There is it to me at least I guess a basic a basic way of thinking in science or at least this is my understanding that that within science. One should always question what one knows or what one thinks one knows. Could you do experiment a hundred times. But the hundred first. It may not turn out the same way which causes you to

question your very basic ideas and I mean that perhaps maybe gets difficult after a while if you do it but experiment a thousand times maybe you think well one thousand and one it's it's going to turn out the same but I guess the idea is that I have is that it's that they're always always you have to reserve in the back of your bide a spot for the idea that you could be what you think today based on everything you know. All the experiments you've done all the hard thinking of you done what you know today might in fact be wrong. And I think actually that for people who are not scientists they see this as a weakness or a flaw in science. Well I have the sentiments that lie behind your question but I mean fundamentally. Science progresses on the premise that proof by repetition is the essence of a method of progress. I mean you're never going to proclaim a discovery

just by one experiment. You repeated it and you repeated numerous times and all sorts of conditions until you are convinced that this really does what you mean. I get I get I go back to Michael Faraday. He had been preoccupied with the idea for about 20 years that there might be a link somehow somewhere between magnetism and electricity. And finally on one day in 1831 he realized that if you plunge a magnet into a cargo of metal and had a meter touch to that call you can pull that out again every time you plunge the magnet and there was a kick on the galvanometer every time you pulled it out it was a kick in the opposite direction. Now you've repeated that numerous times. And that was the discovery of

electromagnetic induction and you could repeat that a thousand million times and it was so you know it's reached the state of an established truth as it were. Every person who tries that anywhere on earth independent of the ratio of the individual doing the experiment all the geographical location lot is next stablished scientific fact and indeed the majority of scientific truths are not of that kind. I mean that where there is uncertainty. You can't honestly claim that it is as yet an established chemical by definition. So. Well maybe there what I am doing is I am confusing or blurring those things that that can be tested by an experiment and have been done and then those things that at least as yet we have not devised experimental instructions.

Let's take a look. There was a wonderful Italian gentleman named Avogadro I suppose everybody the man with the number the man with a number but do you know what he said and you know that. Just imagine yourself meeting. I met Dale. I have a God draw and he would say to you take this situation that you have equal volumes of all gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure. They contain the same number of molecules. Now if somebody told you that even now you'd say this man is a man you know but he was right now it is a hypothesis. Nobody believed him of it I'm John Dalton didn't believe in Michael Faraday didn't believe him. It was 1860 before people began to think that that might be true and now it is a universal truth and we as you say call it of a god. But I thought. That's an example of

the situation that you prompted me to recall. Let's talk with another caller and someone in Indiana I believe your line number four. Oh yes. The unpredictability just a bit. Mainly just to get your experience on these kind of things I'm sure you've seen before and I'm talking about the Bush administration pulling the rug whatever out from underneath the telescope to put the two hundred million dollars worth of new equipment up in it so we can see further into space. I just wonder if you come across as things before that or outside private organizations are more basic Maybe public governments all sudden shifts shift policy and what that does in terms of advancement or whatever science. I'm not quite sure if I understand your question. Really I mean I know the reality of the situation that the Bush administration has said that

it's wanting to divert sums of money to make manned space flights and so on. And for that the future of the Hubble Space Telescope is very much under a huge question. I personally think that not. My own opinion because the Hubble Space Telescope has been probably one of the most conspicuous experimental successes ever. I mean moderates taught us about the nature of the cosmos. Again I will be mentioning something about this in my talk I mean we know compared with just 10 years ago. They know Di mentions of the universe as have increased by a factor of a thousand compared with what we knew or thought we knew ten years ago. That's astonishing fact when you think about it. And it's attributable entirely to the Hubble Space Telescope and some of the instruments and the techniques

which I was mentioning earlier you know answer the question put to me by my interviewer and that were on board that telescope. I mean I don't really know. I want my position as down to the question that you posed. I certainly feel that it's regretful that this conspicuous success which looks as if it can yield even greater success. You know already we have understood that there is a mysterious puzzling and he'd matic dark energy as it's called in the universe. You know there's almost an empty gravity at work when the universe is expanding it's expanding faster than it should be expanding based on our earlier promise pre-suppositions. That is in itself intriguing and fundamentally important and could well lead to a new understanding of the nature of natural forces.

I think that you know of a lot of people have looked at the presidents. Proposal to go back to the moon and then to Mars and say they're not really quite sure why it is that he proposed them. The continued commitment to build the International Space Station there that seems to be a little bit more clear at least that scientist will say that it's part of our learning about what happens to humans when they spend a long time in space and that there may also be some commercial considerations there as well and I guess perhaps the question in the caller's asking is has to do with either political motivations driving scientific research or commercial ones. And I guess though I wonder whether in fact there's anything new about that or the funding in the direction of scientific research has always been driven in some respect by political and commercial concern on science.

That's true. I mean political decisions I mentioned earlier the setting up of the Medical Research Council in Britain that was a political decision and it was the chancellor of the Exchequer first and then the prime minister in Britain who said look we've got to do this and it was very how to escape I mean but it was a political decision and money had to be sent to set up a funding a public body namely the Medical Research Council to cater for all the illnesses to conquer the illnesses to mouse to disease and so forth and to improve the well-being and the expectation of life that both of the nation and on political decisions really. I mean they have to be made and they have a scientific interconnection and no doubt about it. Another color in our banner line one. Well yeah joining. Yeah talk about a year ago my wife and I got to London for the first time and we responded to find that the Royal Institution isn't as stuffy as I would have

imagined they would act. She let us sit in on one of the lectures even though we got up in the nosebleed section of the auditorium. But it was pretty impressive a lot of people are walking around in formal dress and we were just tourists. I thought that was really it was really nice that they did that. Reason I called the Elf is. About I don't know if you're aware but the Wall Street Journal pretty much agrees with you as well. There was an op piece in The Wall Street Journal entitled uncertainty is an essential ingredient of progress where they mention that the Futurists for example quote the quote a couple lines from it and they go futurist. Imagine the electric lighting but no electric guitars.

Supersonic jets. But no hang gliders laser weapon. But no laser surgery or contact desk. Government surveillance cameras but no baby monitors. And they they. The quote is that one of the sources of the understanding that of this uncertainty is a political scientist called Aaron Wildavsky who taught at the University of California Berkeley and they quote him as saying in essence search by many minds produces more and more valuable knowledge than the attempt to program the path to discovery by a single one. Unquote. And you know they're there arguing for the kind of freedom that they embody unlike ideas of logic there and such.

So I thought you might enjoy hearing about that. And I do if they're interested. But I do have a kind of a question you know just you know that and it's close to what everybody else has been asking you. But I was just curious as you kind of survey the scene do you think planning is too close. Can you could can you identify an area where you think planning is too close and where there isn't enough. You know allowed freedom in you know any of the areas that you're familiar with. You raise a very interesting question. Look I wouldn't wish to give the impression that I'm against planning of all kinds I mean I'm activists largely oriented signed is my plan my experiments and I try to plan my program of activities for the next year or two not much beyond that because of what I've said earlier and you've got to have that I

mean you know research companies the IBM is in the battle zone that's all about government bodies. They have to have a program of asides it mustn't be too rigid if I know about what mom has to do in my opinion is to be sure that you have a chroot outstandingly able people give them intellectual freedom and remind them periodically what your main goals are. Main goal was to let them get on with it let them use the facilities. Let them devise new facilities new techniques. I mean the story of magnetic resonance is a fantastically interesting story of course and then I can be very proud of what it has done to be universally recognized as one of the great centers where minds have reached the very highest level but you know originally a group of physicists began to one and I want to know is happening you know that signal from a

proton is now different from what it was in this substance that I looked at yesterday. What's going on here. And then the chemist realized that the physicist had tumbled on a technique which was of a man's value to them and I mean the whole of the method of our analytical chemistry what. Now what no one nowadays uses is extra could be bound up with the necessity of having magnetic resonance and kinetic resonance imaging as we know as transform medicine. Almost all the major hospitals of the world have got to operate with such a thing and doctors come because of individuals who are given total freedom of intellectual and we have just a couple of minutes left I want to try to include one more caller in Champaign in line too. Yeah I just. I wanted to ask you what what you think. I mean it's it's my opinion I guess I'm going to state my opinion

that. That there is often a very long lag time between discovery. And a paradigm shift. That that science is bounded by politics social. Relationships religion upbringing the sex of the investigator the so that sometimes you have discoveries that don't result in a major paradigm shift. Because of these factors for a very long time and that the scientific community itself is extremely conservative and that because. Of that skepticism I guess and because of inertia. But that paradigm shifts do occur substantially after the fact in most cases.

Well in most cases I think there's some truth in what you say that is not universally true. I mean indeed I totally agree that there's been instances where there's been a tremendously long induction time so to speak. That's elapsed before you make the initial discovery of something and then apply it. But then there are other examples monoclonal antibodies for example. They was sort of understood properly and handled in a sensible way by a group at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge and it took very little time indeed to introduce those into medical practice. I mean there are examples where indeed the length of time is disproportionate and I'm conscionable but there are other instances mercifully to not. Do you think that modern communications have shortened those legs. I think it is. I have yes inevitably because one of the really long ones that I can think of was genetic.

Modern genetics was discovered independently Darwinism. Well Foster was born and the two weren't really brought together. Well this is an Indian one of the revolutions of the consequences of the molecular biological revolution of cause. You were able to bring in essentially molecular genetics into the understanding of evolution and so forth is a beautiful illustration of it I agree. I thank you. All right thanks for the call we I think we'll have to leave it at that with one last mention that our guests are John York Thomas will be speaking on the subject the unpredictability of science and its consequences as talking Lee Miller come serious That's this afternoon at four o'clock at the lever center on the U of I campus and these talks are always free and open to the public. Anyone listening should feel welcome to stop by. We want thank you very much. Thank you sir. We appreciate it.