Photo: Armin Kübelbeck
There’s a Catch 22 here. Judging from history, anyone who really wants to rule the world should be fiercely prevented from doing so. But as I’m a scientist, I’m prepared to do a thought experiment.
It’s obvious what I’d do, isn’t it? If I were to rule the world, surely I’d gather the globe’s most able scientists and delegate the job to them. If there are going to be any human beings left to rule the world by the end of this century, they’ll have huge problems to solve: climate change, global warming, water and food shortages, population growth, emerging new infectious diseases, the exploding demand for energy, threats to ecosystems and biodiversity, to name a few.
These horrors have three features in common. First, they all demand better understanding. Second, the timescale for coming up with potential solutions is years or decades: certainly beyond the attention span of your regular vote-seeking politician. Third, they are not parochial national issues, but international in scale. Solving them will need rulers with global vision, whose inspiration comes from evidence and understanding rather than from religion, political philosophy, personal ambition or greed. Scientists, of course.
It’s very easy to make the case for science. Imagine what it must have been like to face the scourge of the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed as many as 100m people in 1918, when it wasn’t even known that flu is caused by a virus, and there were no antiviral drugs or flu vaccines. Without science, we wouldn’t be aware of most of the threats we now face, let alone know how to deal with them. How could we have known that there was a hole in the ozone layer, and how to respond, if we didn’t know what ozone is, what it does, and how it was being gobbled up by our spray deodorants? So, I would simply establish a scientocracy.
Or would I?
Since the actions of ordinary people lie at the heart of most of our greatest challenges, whoever rules the world must be charismatic enough to persuade them to change their collective behaviour. To be successful without being a ruthless dictator, a ruler needs not only access to knowledge but also the ability to communicate and inspire. Unfortunately, the attributes that make a good scientist don’t necessarily correlate with those that make an effective politician.
Of course, the evidence and advice of experts should lie at the heart of good policy. But, as much as politicians need scientists for their expertise, scientists need politicians to translate their advice into popular commitment. Most scientists I know, including myself, would have a tough time selling their findings to the electorate all on their own.
Much as I’m loath to admit it, there’d also be a large obstacle in any quest to put science at the heart of politics: democracy. Inconveniently, Aristotle was right: “Democracy is the least bad of the perversions.” And most scientists would be hopelessly bad at getting themselves elected.
This is a great shame, because conventional electoral systems, in which candidates are usually selected on the basis of their ambition rather than their particular expertise, are not a reliable way of establishing governments equipped to respond to the imperatives of scientific advice. Indeed, there’s a worrying shortage of scientifically-qualified MPs—and this is by no means a problem unique to Britain. Of particular concern in this country is the recent proposal that advice to government on drugs policy might not come from scientists. If enacted, this would greatly increase the risk that laws will be determined on the basis of popular pressure and media scaremongering, rather than on medical and scientific evidence.
Curiously, that arcane institution, the House of Lords, is strikingly superior to the Commons in its representation of science, medicine and technology, not to mention economics, law, the arts and foreign policy. New legislation on specialist issues often depends crucially on the quality of debate in the Lords. During a seminar in May 2009, Helene Hayman, Speaker in the Lords, was challenged on the possible loss of this expertise when the House of Lords is reformed. Her response was enigmatic: “It’s important not to start from the premise that an institution can only be democratic through direct elections,” she said. Whatever she has in mind, retaining a second chamber with wide expertise will surely depend on how the candidates are selected. And coming up with a suitable system, while still reflecting the “voice of the people,” is a headache far above my pay grade.
So, I’m copping out. World domination isn’t for me. All I can say is, if we want a world worth ruling in future, we need rulers and parliamentary systems that set rationality, evidence and concern about our future above party political self-interest. Even if, just sometimes, it’s a little undemocratic.
There’s a Catch 22 here. Judging from history, anyone who really wants to rule the world should be fiercely prevented from doing so. But as I’m a scientist, I’m prepared to do a thought experiment.
It’s obvious what I’d do, isn’t it? If I were to rule the world, surely I’d gather the globe’s most able scientists and delegate the job to them. If there are going to be any human beings left to rule the world by the end of this century, they’ll have huge problems to solve: climate change, global warming, water and food shortages, population growth, emerging new infectious diseases, the exploding demand for energy, threats to ecosystems and biodiversity, to name a few.
These horrors have three features in common. First, they all demand better understanding. Second, the timescale for coming up with potential solutions is years or decades: certainly beyond the attention span of your regular vote-seeking politician. Third, they are not parochial national issues, but international in scale. Solving them will need rulers with global vision, whose inspiration comes from evidence and understanding rather than from religion, political philosophy, personal ambition or greed. Scientists, of course.
It’s very easy to make the case for science. Imagine what it must have been like to face the scourge of the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed as many as 100m people in 1918, when it wasn’t even known that flu is caused by a virus, and there were no antiviral drugs or flu vaccines. Without science, we wouldn’t be aware of most of the threats we now face, let alone know how to deal with them. How could we have known that there was a hole in the ozone layer, and how to respond, if we didn’t know what ozone is, what it does, and how it was being gobbled up by our spray deodorants? So, I would simply establish a scientocracy.
Or would I?
Since the actions of ordinary people lie at the heart of most of our greatest challenges, whoever rules the world must be charismatic enough to persuade them to change their collective behaviour. To be successful without being a ruthless dictator, a ruler needs not only access to knowledge but also the ability to communicate and inspire. Unfortunately, the attributes that make a good scientist don’t necessarily correlate with those that make an effective politician.
Of course, the evidence and advice of experts should lie at the heart of good policy. But, as much as politicians need scientists for their expertise, scientists need politicians to translate their advice into popular commitment. Most scientists I know, including myself, would have a tough time selling their findings to the electorate all on their own.
Much as I’m loath to admit it, there’d also be a large obstacle in any quest to put science at the heart of politics: democracy. Inconveniently, Aristotle was right: “Democracy is the least bad of the perversions.” And most scientists would be hopelessly bad at getting themselves elected.
This is a great shame, because conventional electoral systems, in which candidates are usually selected on the basis of their ambition rather than their particular expertise, are not a reliable way of establishing governments equipped to respond to the imperatives of scientific advice. Indeed, there’s a worrying shortage of scientifically-qualified MPs—and this is by no means a problem unique to Britain. Of particular concern in this country is the recent proposal that advice to government on drugs policy might not come from scientists. If enacted, this would greatly increase the risk that laws will be determined on the basis of popular pressure and media scaremongering, rather than on medical and scientific evidence.
Curiously, that arcane institution, the House of Lords, is strikingly superior to the Commons in its representation of science, medicine and technology, not to mention economics, law, the arts and foreign policy. New legislation on specialist issues often depends crucially on the quality of debate in the Lords. During a seminar in May 2009, Helene Hayman, Speaker in the Lords, was challenged on the possible loss of this expertise when the House of Lords is reformed. Her response was enigmatic: “It’s important not to start from the premise that an institution can only be democratic through direct elections,” she said. Whatever she has in mind, retaining a second chamber with wide expertise will surely depend on how the candidates are selected. And coming up with a suitable system, while still reflecting the “voice of the people,” is a headache far above my pay grade.
So, I’m copping out. World domination isn’t for me. All I can say is, if we want a world worth ruling in future, we need rulers and parliamentary systems that set rationality, evidence and concern about our future above party political self-interest. Even if, just sometimes, it’s a little undemocratic.
