CENTREPIECE
Research under attack: promise aborted by the misplacing of funds
COLIN WELCH
With his usual self-lacerating regret, Sir Keith Joseph in a recent interview deplored his own background as 'dis- gracefully narrow. I feel ill-equipped and impoverished intellectually by not having a basic scientific background . . . I am not totally stunted, just ignorant, because I have no science'.
What is meant by these lamentations? If he means only that he didn't waste much school time on smells and explosions or in defining, as I did, calcium as a mineral (`Calcium a mineral, Welch? What arduous research has led you to this startling conclusion? Have you communicated your findings to the Royal Society?'), then his regret is disproportionate. If however he means (which I doubt, true though it may be) that he lacks understanding of how science proceeds, then the omission is much graver and less forgivable, since such an understanding is readily accessible to those who in the technical sense 'have no science'.
At the time of the ridiculous Leavis- Snow wrangle, a scientist confided to me that most people have no idea of how much scientists bore each other. He was unjust to, among others, Professor Michael .P0IallYi, who made science comprehensi- ble and exciting. The professor pointed out (I quote from memory, I hope fairly) that science advanced not for the most part by steady attritional warfare towards some known objective, but rather by bold leaps into the dark, by parachute drops beyond the frontiers of knowledge, deep into the territory of nescience. These indeed are subsequently joined up with the main body of knowledge by the humble activities of plodding scientific infantry, creating a se- cure salient. But the leap itself is executed by men of imagination, flair, intuition, of genius in fact, whose speculations cannot be immediately comprehensible to laymen, or even to peers in other fields, still less foreseen or directed by them. To presume to do so is like geographers at home trying to direct the steps of Mungo Park in distant Africa.
If Sir Keith shares these insights, he gives no sign of doing so. In research, he says there must be 'greater selectivity and planning', more power in effect to the UGC and research councils. Universities must meet 'needs', producing more mathe- maticians, scientists and 'qualified man- Power'. They must be more responsive to changing industrial circumstances and form closer links with business. Commerce, in- dustry and the public services must for their part take more advantage of what higher education has to offer (it must offer more in future) in research, 'technology transfer, business start-up facilities' (sic: `Professor Jowett, I am starting up a business') and consultancy services. Here indeed is a recipe for disaster.
How is research to be selected? Presum- ably that will be chosen which is thought likely to be of economic benefit. But who can tell? Rutherford was continually persecuted by philistines who complained that what he was doing was of no practical value, though nuclear energy sprang from it. Denis Noble, professor of physiology at Oxford, stated recently in the Listener that, of 12 techniques used now in the treatment of heart disease, about 40 per cent of the work that produced them was done by people who saw no practical application for it. His present work would not have been authorised by Josephian criteria 20 years ago.
Selection will be arbitrary, guesswork, a lottery, but a malign one. Applied science will be preferred to pure, on which it is normally parasitic. When the parasite is favoured at the expense of the host, both may die. And how can anything be planned which cannot be understood or foreseen by the planner? Attempts to do so will result (have resulted) in absurd distortions, mis- placed funds, dark promise aborted and criminal waste of precious scholarly time.
One of the 'sensible' aims of planning is, of course, to eliminate 'waste'. But re- search is largely waste, or so it looks to the layman. For every hypothesis found true, countless others have to be tested, found wanting and eliminated. Socialists are ex- asperated by the 'waste' involved in the capitalist system, the prodigal hit-or-miss process by which a hundred innovations may be tried out in vain for every one that hits the jackpot. The same uncomprehend- ing exasperation applied to research would, by striving to eliminate the chance of failure, eliminate the chance of success, with results disastrous.
The more 'responsive' universities be- come to the changing circumstances of industry, moreover, the less likely they are to meet the 'needs' of industry or anyone else. The needs or supposed needs of industry are in constant flux. Only the most stagnant industries (which may be the least likely to survive) can confidently predict what technical skills they will be needing in 20 years' time. What industry will not need is recruits who have specialised too early and narrow- ly in yesterday's high technology. When asked, industrialists complain not so much about recruits' lack of technical skills as about their lack of literacy and numeracy, of that broad education and ability to learn on which technical and other train- ing and retraining depend. Seeking well- educated recruits, they do not even scorn the classics. A heartening letter in the Times pointed out that almost no Durham classicists who graduated in the decade ending in 1984 are unemployed. They have found work in such seemingly remote fields, inter alia, as accountancy, banking, customs and excise, computing (yes!), gold dealing and insurance (actuarial). An em- ployer in computers found 'distinctly unim- pressive' most applicants with 'relevant' degrees, but could always find room for a good classics graduate.
One enemy of the good broad education actually needed by industry is the comput- ing and information technology which in- dustry is supposed to need. As Lady Warnock has warned, technology takes time and money away from other studies; what is taught now will be out of date in a few years.
Salford is often cited by barbarians as a success story, Britain's first industrial univeristy. Yet according to its vice- chancellor in the Listener, it has survived a 44 per cent cut in funds only by cutting the undergraduate population by a third, and by switching resources from education and teaching to 'technology transfer'. It is thus becoming less a university than an outside R and D department for industry. Is this what we want?
Are all the cuts in research funding Sir Keith's fault? No. There has long been no reason in medical science why the whole national income should not be devoted to health care and research. The same is perhaps true now of scientific research in general. Someone, somewhere, somehow, has to draw the line. What is Sir Keith's fault is that he retains and gathers in his own hands the power to make decisions instead of wisely dispersing it into as many hands as possible. Thus a few huge mis- takes (characteristic of the clever man) are more likely than the benign mixture of mistakes and strokes of luck otherwise possible. How to disperse that power? Well, perhaps Sir Keith in his next period of repentance could apply his powerful mind to the problem . . .
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