Published: 25 February 2010
by DAN CARRIER

WHEN a scientist makes a new discovery, you can bet it will be accompanied by some exaggerated claims about how important it is, states Professor Robert Winston, perhaps the best-known “boffin” in Britain, thanks to TV-presenting, best-selling science books and his genius for explaining complicated issues. 

The Hampstead-based professor’s latest book considers how human ingenuity has helped make the world a more comfortable place –  and, paradoxically, an inherently more dangerous one. 

As well as stating 12 facts about scientists – such as his belief that “breakthroughs” are never quite as life-changing as they are originally portrayed, and that on the flip side “nearly all technological advances have threatening or negative aspects which usually are not fully recognised or predicted at the time of their invention” – he has laid out a 14-point manifesto to ensure scientific progress means exactly that. 

“As humans have developed more complex ideas, more sophisticated mechanisms, we have improved our lives in a multitude of ways and have increased our influence over our environment,” he writes.

“But nearly all tech­nologies are increasingly threatening.”

Thus the need for the programme for his fellow researchers to follow to limit unseen damage that, as his book illustrates, often comes with scientific research. 

The points range from reaffirming how important it is that scientists talk about their ideas as clearly as possible to being more aware of the limits of individual expertise: for example, you may be a world leader in getting better calorific yields from crops grown per acre of land, but are you also an expert in what this produce will do to the animals consuming it? 

“The benefits of human inventiveness have never been greater and few of us would rather live in the 18th, 19th or 20th centuries,” he says. “We have many reasons for being optimistic for the future, but at the same time we must accept that the threats now facing humanity as a result of our cleverness have probably never been more serious. We all need to take greater care over how we handle our knowledge.”

This is an area Professor Winston has spent much of his professional career considering – as a geneticist and fertility expert, his day job at Imperial College London includes some fundamental moral issues about knowledge. The professor has to consider the brilliant advances in areas such as stem cell research, how it can save and improve lives, and    then balance up these scientific breakthroughs with the ethical dilemmas that can   come from them. 

In the chapters of his new book, he considers language, farming, writing, medicine and even early human’s mastery of fire. 

Professor Winston cites global research and historical events to make a lucid and telling point. This is littered with asides, ladled with wit and wisdom, and full of surprises. 

“I had the idea for this book while reluctantly dead-heading some rhododendrons in my garden,” he says.

“Bending awkwardly to my task I found myself thinking how much easier it might be if I walked on all fours. That observation led to my realising that the task I was doing and my discomfort while I was doing it, were intimately linked. It was because I am a bipedal animal that the task caused me pain – but also that I was doing it in the first place. To be human is to be something of a gardener: to see one’s environment as something to be shaped and altered, beautified or put to use. The entire history of human invention rests upon that premise.”

The professor states that from time immemorial humans have been creative and inventive. From the moment we carved a flint stone into an arrow head, we have been making things to help us rub along nicely. 

And while this progression may have led to the modern world and all its advantages, the geneticist asks a pertinent question: has this progress always served us well? Have the results always been desirable? 

He points out that scientific research is often hijacked as a means to make money instead of being used for the common good. 

His manifesto at the end underlines the importance of making sure science is harnessed for all – that genetically modified seed companies do not use their products to keep farmers in economic slavery and instead is a means of providing impoverished people in harsh environments with the chance to feed themselves, for example. 

This is the trick of a scientist – to show why research matters, why it is important to all of us, and what cause and effect research has. 

It is a vast topic, but Professor Winston’s passion and knowledge make it a breeze. The book is littered with quirky and brilliant asides (historical anecdotes illustrate points throughout) and they keep you going when the scientific jargon about flu strains and genetic modification threatens to overwhelm you. 

It will make you consider carefully exactly what is meant by the term “progress”. 

• Professor Winston  will speak on the issues raised in his book Bad Ideas? How Our Finest Inventions May Finish Us Off (Bantam Press £20) at Jewish Book Week on March 3 at  7pm. £10.

• Jewish Book Week runs from February 27 to March 7 at the Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way, WC1.
Full details at www.jewishbookweek. com Tickets online or call 0844 847 2274 or at box office at the hotel