Another huge boost for world's most successful union

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The UK’s world-leading science sector is very fortunate indeed to be blessed with scientists of the quality of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that so many scientific advances were made in the past without his input. His revelation this week that Tory MPs don’t need to wear face masks because they all know each other will unquestionably have a huge impact on the UK’s reputation in the hitherto unknown field of viral intelligence. The implications are very far-reaching indeed. He has demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least (although the detailed analysis has yet to be peer-reviewed or published as far as I have been able to establish), that the virus is sentient (well, more so than Jake, anyway) and that it can only pass from one human host to another if those two humans are strangers to each other. Uniquely in the UK, the virus has also been encouraged to mutate to the point where it has developed a remarkable ability to tap into human brain cells in order to ascertain whether its next potential host is known to its current host or not before deciding whether to attempt a new infection. How it will behave in the case of human hosts with an obvious deficiency in the brain cell department (Jake, we might just be talking about you again) is the subject of an ongoing experiment amongst MPs, in which the Tories have decided to be the guinea pigs whilst the opposition benches constitute the control group.

These astounding discoveries have undoubtedly come as a profound shock to virologists the world over, all of whom have been working to date on the rather naïve assumption that a virus consisting of a mere few strands of RNA could not possibly be sentient enough to determine the pattern of its own spread. At this very moment, top teams of experts in epidemiology around the globe are preparing to descend on the UK to examine this strange new variant, and study the processes which the UK followed in order to channel viral mutations in the direction of sentience. Brexit, of course, has been absolutely key to the success of the government’s management of the viral mutation programme. Freed of the demands of unelected Eurocrats that scientific conclusions should be based on evidence or data, the UK is the only state which was in a position to make this particular discovery, and freed of a requirement that scientists should possess any particular qualifications or experience, Rees-Mogg was uniquely placed to lead the work.

Anyone who chooses not to believe the word of the great Jake is clearly being unpatriotic, and foreigners caught sniggering are just trying to hide their jealousy and embarrassment at being left so far behind. So, crack open the bubbly, raise the bunting, and celebrate another huge success for the most successful union the world has even known. But only with people you know, obviously.

Elusive proof

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Science and politics don’t always sit easily together.  It’s tempting to suggest that that is because science seeks truth, whereas political ‘truth’ is always changing.  That isn’t entirely fair though; scientific truth can change as well, albeit not as easily or conveniently as political truth.  The timescale question is probably a more relevant one.  Politicians’ horizons are often limited to the date of the next election, whereas science tends to the longer term view.

Climate change – or more specifically, the anthropogenic element thereof – is an example of the way in which scientists and politicians are driven by different considerations, and on very different timescales.  Seen through the eyes of a politician interested in short term economic benefit, these comments by the MP for Monmouth make some sort of sense.

His core argument seems to be that if one country alone tries to take radical action to reduce carbon emissions, whilst others do little or nothing, then that one country will be seriously disadvantaged economically in the short term.  He’s right; the problem is not with that part of his argument.  (Although the conclusion drawn – that we should not do anything either – is far from being the only possible conclusion from that line of thinking.)

Such reasoning leads to a situation where no-one does anything until everyone else agrees to act as well.  If the science is right on climate change, such a conclusion is a recipe for disaster.  But as long as it doesn't happen in the timescales of any elections which current-day politicians are likely to be fighting...

Underlying his argument is another strand, which goes well beyond the question of unilateral action.  It is clear that he is not convinced about the existence of anthropogenic climate change in the first place, because it hasn’t been ‘proven’ to his satisfaction.  And he highlights a number of issues and statistics which underline that lack of conclusive proof.

In taking that viewpoint, of course, he’s far from being alone, although it’s a view which seems to be more widely held by politicians and economists than by the experts in the field.  And, up to a point at least, he’s right on that as well. 

‘Proof’ of a scientific proposition is an elusive beast, and greater understanding over a period can, and frequently does, lead to refinement or even fundamental change of the basic proposition.  But lack of complete proof is not at all the same thing as complete lack of proof; however, a jump from one to the other is all too readily made.

I’d accept the basic point that the impact of what we’re doing to the earth is not currently fully understood, and that many of the predictions are based on models which make a number of assumptions.  They may be the best possible assumptions, and they may be made by people who’ve spent a lifetime working in the field, but they’re still assumptions.

What we know for certain however is that human activity is adding CO2 and other greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, and that the concentration of those gasses in the atmosphere is increasing.  The danger behind the thinking of people like David Davies is that we wait until the impact of that is entirely proven before acting – at which point it will be too late.

I don’t unquestioningly believe every prediction being made by the climate scientists; but given a choice of following their advice or that of a layman who happens to be an MP, I wouldn’t choose the MP.

It's our decision, not theirs

Tweet Some of the coverage this week about the cloned cattle, or rather offspring of cloned cattle, which have got into the food chain seems to have shown a degree of confusion between cloning animals and genetically modifying them. And some of it has been somewhat alarmist as well.

There are, in my view, good grounds for continuing to reject the application of both technologies at this stage; but that isn't the same as saying that all laboratory research should be stopped.

In the case of cloning, the evidence is clear. At current levels of knowledge and expertise, many if not most cloned animals suffer developmental problems and lead short and painful lives. Not all the reasons for this are properly understood as of yet, and for me that's adequate reason for keeping cloning in the laboratory for the time being.

In the case of GM products, whilst the techniques for adding single genes which act as 'on-off' switches for single characteristics are well tried and tested, the understanding and control of genes which act in concert is far less well understood. And the long term impact of releasing exotic gene combinations into the natural environment is another huge area of uncertainty. Again, that's adequate reason for me to want to keep the technology in the laboratory at this stage.

There is a danger, though, that fear of the unknown, or just the highly complex, leads to a form of 'anti-science'; and we need to be careful that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater as it were. I don't oppose continued research in both cases; it's more a question of deciding how much research is enough to give us the degree of certainty which we need.

And that's another point. One of the things that struck me about the coverage this week was that some people were seeking an absolute degree of certainty about the safety of eating cloned cattle. Science just cannot give us those absolute guarantees which we instinctively seek. All it can give us is probabilities based on a mixture of facts, estimates, and assumptions.

Science can do the research, and give us the probabilities. But it is for all of us to decide, through political processes, when that science is to be applied, and what degree of certainty we want to see first. That in turn requires a more informed debate than we often seem to get on subjects which are highly complex.

It also means that we should not allow ourselves to be driven into a too-early application of new technologies by the agri-businesses which are, ultimately, mostly concerned with recovering their investment in the research and delivering value to shareholders.

The real issue is a long way removed from the entry of two cows into the food chain; but that event, apparently based on someone flouting the law for their own gain, will have been of some accidental benefit if it encourages us to deal with the underlying questions.