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Education: Science and Technology

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, for raising the issue of science once again in this House. Last time I said that I was not really qualified to speak because I was not a scientist; indeed, I left school in disgrace at the age of 16 with only five O-levels—one of them in woodwork—and I thought myself dim. Since then I have found a useful trait in my character. In school it was vilified, I was criticised for it throughout the first half of my life, and I only recently realised its benefits. That trait is to enjoy and embrace risk and, in doing so, to be creative. Being creative does not make me special: it is normal. In a 1999 report the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education—on which the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, and myself served, together with a great team that included Jude Kelly, Dawn French and the artist Helen Storey—said:"““In our view, creativity is possible in all areas of human activity and all . . . people . . . have creative capacities. Developing these capacities involves a balance between teaching skills and understanding, and promoting the freedom to innovate, and take risks””." Risk is what I want to talk about within this debate. Rarely given a good review and always seen as bad, risk is not just negative. It is a balancing of potential outcomes, both positive and negative. Last September, Sir Paul Judge, in a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, of which he is chair, said:"““Life is safer than it ever has been, but we seem less prepared to accept risk in anything we do. We need to make sensible decisions about what really is dangerous, formed on the basis of weighing up the facts, rather than on public hysteria. By making everything appear life-threatening, we are in danger of crying wolf once too often””." Sir Paul is so right. When people who profit from panic and chaos play on people’s fears and insecurities it is damaging to our society. Much of the media is culpable. There are legitimate ways of creating enterprise, building businesses and managing risk, but the current trend for interested parties to exaggerate risk and fan hysteria is having a long-term detrimental effect on our society. Misunderstanding risk can affect all fields: business, politics, medicine, the arts, media, sport, and of course technology and science. Science, in particular, is dependent on exploring the unknown and seeking to go beyond the boundaries of existing knowledge. Curiosity and risk go hand in hand. Developing science and technology curricula therefore needs to protect people’s ability to seek answers using their creative instincts, unfettered by the confines of excessively risk-averse teaching methods. In their future lives all students in any field of activity will find that risk-taking increases the probability that one will find something of value, despite the research costs. It creates the possibility of large gains in experience, capacity and knowledge. Those who do not take risks cannot expect these benefits. It is the same in artistic endeavour. Historically, thousands of artists have taken risks in exploring their medium. The architect, the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Thames Bank, said in Where Art and Science Come Together:"““Creativity and arts are troubled by aversion to uncertainty””." This is not true of only science and art. In my experience, risk-taking is an element in all people’s happiness. People who initially tried to eliminate risk from their businesses, careers or pursuits—and were, at first, lauded for their safe and sensible approach—ultimately found that they had achieved less than they could or should have. They disappoint themselves, their partners and their colleagues and, in the long run, become sad, even depressed, though usually too late to change. Those who take considered risks are vital and vibrant, and often gain much from being bold. Risk is a part of our world, an element in creative success and an essential ingredient in enterprise and happiness. More and better science education, as promoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, is necessary not only for future scientists and technologists, but for everybody. Whether one enjoys taking risks or prefers to avoid them, we would do well to understand the concept of risk from an early age. This can be taught through the sciences, but as Daniel Barenboim has been saying all this week about music and non-musicians, scientific thinking is important to all, including those who will not become scientists. How young people are helped to think about these issues will affect their well-being and the part that they play in society. It is vital that these points are considered in their education and in science teaching. Balancing risk must be part of the package. That means that we should learn something of numbers, probability, uncertainties, chaos, mechanics and even some of the newer quantum mechanics, or we will become risk-averse and waste our lives hiding from it. In the end, education is about empowering young people to take control of their lives by encouraging them to take increasing responsibility for their actions. Exploring new ideas and places is a vital part of any child’s development, and risk is an integral part of that. Realising one’s potential involves going into the unknown and trying to accomplish things for which there is no guaranteed success. Exploring new horizons provides exposure to new experiences, which expands knowledge and increases capacity to handle unfamiliar situations. An aversion to uncertainty dampens the thrill of experimentation and stems the development of new ideas. Life is best approached in a spirit of exploration and enterprise. Without taking some level of risk, our society would stultify and cease to advance. We need sensible education and scientific information to allow people to strike their own appropriate balance between risk and safety, and between achievement and opportunity. That is where science can help all, future scientists and non-scientists alike. To close, I bring to the attention of your Lordships an initiative by the RSA, which has established a Risk Commission. We will meet for the first time later this month. The objective of the commission is to examine past scares and future areas of potential risk by taking evidence from a diverse range of experts. From this work, a set of guidelines aimed at enabling society to adopt a more rational approach to risk will be developed. We will look specifically at risks in medicine and health, alongside risk in other areas of life such as business, engineering, childhood, transport and security. Over time, we will produce a report on each of those areas. As it progresses, I hope that we might relate some of our findings to your Lordships’ House. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, is a member of the commission. As the demands of society and the attempts to manage risk have become very prominent in recent years, perhaps we might on a future occasion wish to debate the issue of risk here in your Lordships’ House.