Revive passion of a Newton or Faraday

Three out of ten Republican candidates for the presidency of the US don't believe in evolution. Just over half of Europeans consider astrology "rather scientific". The President of South Africa for long denied any connection between HIV infection and Aids - more than a million Africans died as a result. Lord Adonis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners, has authorised schools to teach Intelligent Design, despite rejection of the idea by the Roman Catholic Church. While the editor of the Daily Mail considers genetically-modified crops to constitute a threat of Frankenstein' dimensions, and the manufacturers of health products persuade millions of people to spend their last penny on pills and capsules that are without benefit of any sort. Is this just part of the rich fabric of life, or should we do something about it?

Science education is in decline. Remember Education, education, education' ten years ago? Fewer students are studying science now than then.

During my years as an undergraduate and later as a don, more than half a dozen Nobel Laureates could be found wandering along the corridors of the science departments at Oxford. Today there are none - they are all at Cambridge, I hear you mutter.

There is some truth in that. But it remains a fact that between 1950 and 1960, ten British scientists won the prize. Between 1990 and 2000 that number had dropped to precisely half. I appreciate that statistics about geniuses do no more than indicate a trend. On the other hand, the examples above refer to a large number of pretty average people.

The writer and former physicist C.P.Snow referred to a lack of understanding between the two cultures representing British life: arts versus science. He was wrong. Many brought up in the humanities indeed display a proud ignorance of science, and consider scientists as nerds, but the reverse is not true.

Snow was not the only scientist who became a novelist. I can count, without pausing for breath, many who exemplify an ability to engage simultaneously in science, literature and history. And I recall that the favourite bed-time reading of the Whitley Professor of Biochemistry 30 years ago was Proust.

How, then, to encourage more youngsters to go into science?

Enter Dr Kendall Williams, head of science at St Edward's School, Oxford. He has used the medium of a Café des Sciences', essentially a couple of hours in the evening during which students of the school carry out novel experiments, like solving Midsummer Town Murders', in order to engage their attention in a fun way.

I am not suggesting that his is a unique experiment. What is special about it is that the charitable organisation which I direct - the Oxford International Biomedical Centre (OIBC) - is sponsoring Dr Williams to roll out such programmes for state schools.

In order to produce well-rounded citizens and preserve into the next century a culture in Britain that is balanced, scientifically savvy, and that can compete with the best, we need to enthuse the youth of this country to study science, at least to GCSE level, and preferably beyond - to engender them with the passion of a Newton or a Faraday.

Who knows, by the turn of this century we may yet recapture the intellectual rigour of the 18th.

As a writer pointed out in 1960: "Every great age has been shaped by intellectuals of the stamp of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Leibnitz, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Jefferson and Franklin - all of whom would have been horrified by the proposition that cultivated men and women could dispense with a good grasp of the scientific aspect of the contemporary world picture."

With that spirit in mind why not come to the launch of OIBC's educational programme project next week at St Edward's School and see what just one approach can achieve.

On Saturday, November 24, at 2pm the school in Woodstock Road will devote the afternoon to the issue of climate change. The event is supported by Science Oxford and Oxfordshire ClimateXchange.