(OT) Interesting comment from Melvyn Bragg about British science

[Guest guest]

This is from his newsletter about today's In Our Time programme:

<<<One of our contributors said that they'd been with an extremely eminent academic (name withheld, although you will all know him) and he said that the 'solo flier' - ie: the person who has their own idea and who is allowed to pursue it on their own - which has been of such importance in the history of British science is now in the position of being not only marginalised but shunted out. Research councils and committees, set up by Thatcher but continued under New Labour and even intensified, dole out grants after years of consideration, usually when the subject has lost the interest of those who applied and has been taken up in other countries by other interests. This seemed to be what Steve was getting at when he talked about the sovietisation of science and all three were adamant that there was one thing to be learned from the command economy of Stalin. He worked some of the time, but only some of the time, and, unless space is left for individual initiatives, then the allure and fizz and success of the enterprise of pure research, which leads to more practical advances and more intellectual pleasure than anything else, is looking bleak.How is it that every scientist I meet, or have met, over the last few years, even those who have been exhilarating and enthusiastic on In Our Time, speak of a serious pessimism and distress at the teaching, funding and organisation of science in this country, which for two or three centuries has contributed so astonishingly to the success of pure science and to the invention of the modern world?>>>

Sadly, we know that the research that is needed into autism isn't happening. Melvyn's comments support the view of a lot of us that the research money is going into pointless (safe, carrer-wise) areas eg quantify measure and describe rather than look at the biology.

Margaret