Memorandum submitted by Dr Paul Craze,
Acting Editor, Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE) (FC 79)
I am the editor of Trends in Ecology and Evolution
(TREE), nationally and internationally the highest cited journal
in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. The Trends
journals cover the whole range of biological sciences and specialise
in producing reviews of important emerging ideas in research written
by the current and future leaders in their respective fields.
These reviews cover both theoretical and applied aspects of the
subject. I therefore feel I am in a good position to comment on
the effect of funding philosophy on world-leading science and
technology.
1. It is quite clear from the material submitted
to TREE that almost all of the leading innovative ideas in applied
science result from previously unexpected applications of fundamental
science to practical questions. Let me give you two examples from
the current journal pipeline (in confidence since the articles
are as yet unpublished):
(a) New ways of understanding the emergence of
novel disease organisms are being developed by applying ideas
from fundamental research on the factors influencing the origin
of species (speciation). This has only been possible due to the
large body of basic, theoretical knowledge that has been developed
on speciation; it is almost impossible to imagine how a specific
application to disease organisms could have been used to drive
research in this area. The ideas being applied could not have
been developed had they had the aim of understanding disease.
They could only have been developed with the aim of better understanding
speciation in general. Evaluating the future impact of speciation
research in terms of its economic and social outcome would, therefore,
be impossible. However, without this field of enquiry the current
applications to emerging diseases of crop plants and humans would
not be happening.
(b) Biologists are currently experimenting with
applications of ideas from fundamental physics to questions of
population biology. Novel insights into areas such as fisheries,
disease epidemics, population fluctuations due to climate change
etc. are expected to result from this. The ideas being borrowed
from physics are basic, theoretical ideas and mathematical methods
derived from areas such as cosmology, quantum physics and thermodynamics.
These are topics which have few direct applications in physics
let alone biology and yet they are finding an application in highly
applied areas of environmental science. Again, this has only become
possible now that a large body of basic, theoretical science exists
in these areas of physics and so the likely similarities to questions
of population biology have become apparent. Trying to forecast
this a priori and using it to evaluate research into fundamental
physics would have been impossible. Important insights into applied
biology would once again have been lost.
2. The examples given above are just two
from very many that I could have chosen but they all point to
exactly the same conclusion: attempting to evaluate and restrict
scientific research based on imagined economic and social outcomes
would without any doubt be a serious impairment. It is simply
not possible to effectively evaluate scientific research based
on expected or immediate economic and social outcome. Attempting
to do so would significantly restrict the base from which new,
unforeseen applications can be drawn with inevitable consequences
for the UK's technological position and knowledge-based economy.
3. I challenge anyone to show that the founders
of quantum mechanics imagined an eventual application of their
ideas to fisheries management. It is difficult to imagine that
such a link would have motivated them to come up with quantum
theory and even if it had, it is unlikely that the utility of
quantum physics across a wide range of technology would have been
recognised. There is simply no need to tie scientific research
to tangible outcomes at the funding stage; the applications inevitably
come as a result of the scientific process, exactly as I see daily
in the articles submitted to TREE.
Dr Paul Craze
Acting Editor
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
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