»The End of Science«

There is something very curious about the current state of science. Its research institutions have never been so impressive, its funding never more lavish — with the financing of its mega projects now routinely measured in tens or hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars. But pose the question, 'What does it all add up to?' and the answer, on reflection, seems surprisingly modest — certainly compared to a century ago, when research funding was an infinitesimal fraction of what it has become. Thus in the first decade of the 20th century, Max Planck's quantum and Einstein's special theory of relativity would together rewrite the laws of physics; Ernest Rutherford described the structure of the atom; William Bateson rediscovered Mendel's laws of genetic inheritance; and neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington described the „integrative action“ of the brain and nervous system. The revolutionary significance of these and other discoveries were recognised at the time, but they also opened the door to many scientific advances over succeeding decades.

By comparison, for example, the practical applications of the massive commitment to genetic research is scarcely detectable. The biotechnology business promised to transform both medicine and agriculture — but in the words of Arthur Levinson, chief executive of the pioneering biotechnology company Genentech, it has turned out to be „one of the biggest money-losing industries in the history of mankind.“ There are promises that given 30, 40 or even 100 years all will become clear, that stem cell therapy will permit the blind to see and the lame to walk and we will have a theory of everything — or, as Stephen Hawking puts it, „know the mind of God.“ But they remain promises.

In „Das Ende der Wissenschaft“ I will explore the seemingly apparent inverse relationship between the current scale of research funding and scientific progress. The two main factors are first that we have moved into an era of diminishing returns where the very success of science in permitting us to hold the entire sweep of the history of the universe 'in our minds eye' radically constrains its prospects for the future. And second, the most recent findings in genetics and neuroscience have demonstrated the absolute limits of scientific inquiry where it is simply not possible to get from the electrochemistry the brain to the richness of the human mind, from the DNA molecules strung out along the Double Helix to the near infinite diversity of form and attributes of the living world.

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James Le Fanu is an international award-winning author for the past twenty years. He has combined working as a family physician with contributing a twice weekly column on medicine science and social policy to The Sunday and Daily Telegraph. His articles and reviews have also appeared in the New Statesman, The Spectator, GQ, the British Medical Journal, and the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. He has made original contributions to current controversies over the value of experiments on human embryos, environmentalism, dietary causes of diseases, and the misdiagnosis of non-accidental injury in children. He lives in England.

Influential Books:

• The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine (Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2001)
• Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves published jointly in the UK and US in 2009

Contact:

Web: www.jameslefanu.com
e-Mail: james.lefanu@telegraph.co.uk
Phone: +44 207 627 5148