Sciences and Humanities

Thank your Martin Rees. In On the Future: Prospects for Humanity, published by Princeton University, Princeton and Oxford, 2018, you take us, the general reader, so clearly to the far future. As Astronomer Royal, that is to be expected. In Chapter 5, ‘Conclusions’, however, you bring us back to the here and now with ‘Science in Society.’ We need, you say, to make wise choices about major challenges to society. In a democracy, that means we require knowledge about issues that matter: they include food, health, energy, robotics and space. To make these wise choices citizens, voters, need an understanding of each other across the sciences and humanities. That applies to so many of us previously denied those connections. The use of the word ‘feel’ is of major importance. It is the felt connection that helps us to make the wiser decision. Martin Rees says we need ‘enough feel for the key ideas of science.’ [p. 213]. Critics say that his short accessible book helps us face with hope major situations that could be catastrophic. Given what he calls our ‘collective intelligence’ voters, from across diverse areas of study, can vote for the choices that will help us deal wisely with these issues. Living in the Southern Hemisphere, I thank Martin Rees. We made a mistake in Australia’s national curriculum.  Since 2015, we have been basing pre-tertiary schooling on separate sets of acronyms. There is HASS – Humanities, Arts, Social, Sciences, separated from STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. As a teacher who values interdisciplinary engagement, I thank all secondary schools where teachers refuse to be confined by this divide.  I thank all who encourage students to recognise connections. Preference for STEAM, bringing the Arts into the story, creates opportunities to develop this ‘collective intelligence’. With it voters can choose a wiser pathway.

Nobel Laureate Professor Roald Hoffmann, quantum chemist, poet and playwright, writes of the need for informed citizens.

My reason for setting up this blog is my concern for the quality of democracy.. We need an educated democracy if we are to consider the future for children in a more thoughtful way. To that end, I invite anyone who joins me on this journey to consider, as a point of beginning, these words by Nobel Laureate Professor Roald Hoffmann, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, quantum chemist, poet and playwright.

In a collection of essays for students in USA he takes on issues in chemistry related to ‘Value, Harm and Democracy’ in The Same and Not The Same, published by Columbia University Press, New York, 1995. In the light of the behaviour of the kind of politicians we are putting in power, he reminds us, in this final paragraph of Essay 45, ‘Chemistry, Education and Democracy’, of what he expects of chemistry courses in the secondary level. “They must be aimed primarily at the non-science student, as the informed citizen, not towards the professional.” He does not see this approach being a disadvantage to the potential ‘brilliant transformers of matter’.  He needs us to understand what chemists do. And we need to engage with it at a secondary level. Moreover, it might encourage more girls, than it has in the past, to consider further study in this discipline.

In the penultimate paragraph he explains why he is concerned by our ignorance of chemistry. Speaking of democracy, he writes: “But experts do not have the mandate: the people and their representatives do. The people have also a responsibility – they need to learn enough chemistry to be able to resist the seductive words of, yes, chemical experts who can be assembled to support any nefarious activity you please.” [p 228]

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton