Do the greatest minds think alike?

What 50 Nobel laureates think about the problems of science, universities, the world - from populist politics and researchers' mobility to artificial intelligence and threats to humanity

I think that practically none of the problems that I see today would bother me if we knew how to work together and carefully think through problems together in a rational way that combines fears and needs with a rational understanding of the world.

So said the Nobel laureate Saul Perlmutter at the Times Higher Education (THE) world scientific summit held at the University of California at Berkeley in September 2016.

However, a physics professor from Berkeley does not believe that today's methods of teaching and financing science contribute to the best disclosure of all solutions problems because researchers are not given enough freedom. “You cannot order a technological breakthrough. We need to let people try different ideas, ”he said. “When you send very smart people to solve existing problems, they invent all sorts of things.”

Regarding the study of the expansion of the Universe, which led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011, Perlmutter seems that today no one would have funded such a research. “It would be very difficult to justify in a world in which you count every penny and make sure not to spend money.”

Such statements by the Nobel laureate, of course, caused a lively discussion. But do other members of this elite club agree with this approach to the problems that the world, science and academic institutions are facing? To find out, THE magazine teamed up with the organizers of the meetings of Nobel laureates in Lindau, and conducted among them polls on these issues.

Since the first award was presented in 1901 in the field of science, medicine or economics, less than 700 people have received it. Of these, 235 are still alive. With the help of the German organizers of the annual conference, THE was able to interview 50 of them.

The article sometimes presents the unexpected views of some of the most intelligent and illustrious minds on everything, from the merits of the existing financing system to the greatest threats to humanity.

Financing

For over a hundred years, the Nobel Prize has been the greatest award in science. Although a small number of personalities received the award when they were not yet forty, most of the winners were awarded at a more respectable age for research that went on for decades, often with large teams and sponsorship millions.

But with the growing competition in the struggle for grants and with the increasing pressure exerted on scientists by politicians and financiers due to the fact that the latter expect from the first predictable results that can really affect the world, do the scientists we interviewed agree that they are a little divorced from Are the studies for which they often awarded the Nobel Prize no longer popular? Specifically, do they believe that their own award-winning research could be undertaken in today's funding environment?

In general, everyone was quite optimistic. 37% said they would definitely be able to conduct their research in the current funding system, while 47% said it was "possible."

“First and foremost, the quality and originality of the research is still taken into account,” said one laureate from Switzerland, and another scientist from the USA noted that “society has been and continues to be very generous” in the matter of research. Another optimistic interviewee living in Germany says he would be sure that he would receive a grant from the European Research Council for long-term projects.

Several prize winners criticize the growing bureaucratic obstacles surrounding research and the emergence of a trend towards preferred funding for applied science, but they remain confident that they would be successful in the current situation. “I believe that my hard work and inspiration would overcome the restrictions on obtaining funding,” says one scientist from Florida.

“Even in the most research-oriented environment, you can find a place for basic research,” adds a New York winner.

Many respondents believe that their prize was weakly related to the problem of financing research, because these studies were either inexpensive or funded from their own pockets. “I always worked cheaply,” says one British laureate. “I was a student, and I did not need funding,” adds another.

Do you think you could make a prize-winning discovery in today's funding situation?

0% - definitely no
16% - probably no
47% - probably yes
37% - definitely yes

However, 16% of the laureates believe that they probably would not be able to conduct their research in the modern world. Richard Roberts, an English biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1993 for his work in the field of gene splicing , doubts that a breakthrough would be possible in the current situation.

Roberts defended his doctorate at the University of Sheffield, and then moved to Harvard, and then to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. And it was precisely the time spent at the last institute, which was then led by pioneer in the field of DNA, James Watson, that was critical for his breakthrough.

“If I were in a regular academic position, I don’t think I would receive funding for my proposal,” says Roberts, now working at the private research company Biolabs in New England. “The subject of my request was a simple question, to which it was believed that the answer was known - but in fact it turned out to be wrong,” he adds.

Roberts worries that scientists are wasting an “incredible amount of time” writing giant sentences, most of which are unsuccessful. And those who receive financing also need flexibility and time to chase discoveries, which at first glance seem unsuccessful.

“Good scientists know how to write a grant application, but as a result, you will explore what is not included in this grant,” he explains. “When the experiments fail, you need to know why you either screwed up or nature is trying to tell you something.”

Peter Agre , an American molecular biologist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003, agrees that the high difficulty in obtaining grants can deter many people from pursuing a research career.

“Nobody would do this business and work as hard as they, knowing that the chances of getting a grant do not exceed 5%,” says Agre, now director of the Malaria Institute. John Hopkins at Bloomberg School of Health at the University of Baltimore.

But, nevertheless, a competitive level between researchers and a certain level of risk is normal, adds Agra. “Science is not a French social network, you don’t need to incorporate full insurance into it,” he says.

Other winners agree with Roberts' assessment of the current funding climate. “Today there is a lack of long-term positions and long-term financing of risky projects that could lead to a Nobel Prize,” explains one of the laureates from Germany. He is echoed by a New Jersey laureate, saying that "reducing support for basic research means lessening the desire to finance risky projects."

“ Brexit only adds uncertainty to the future climate of funding,” adds a British laureate.

One of the award winning projects from the United States was "a side project, not my main project." But this laureate is worried that such side projects are not encouraged in the modern world. “The current assessment of research is too short-sighted, and forcing young people to engage in fashion trends. This impedes the healthy growth of the scientific community. ”

International mobility

John Mater

Over the past year, internationalism has markedly passed. The rise in anti-immigrant populism on both sides of the Atlantic threatens to harm scientists' international mobility - if not specifically, then as a side effect.

At the same time, at least one Western leader still welcomes foreign scientists. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron invited U.S. scientists looking for a new home based on Donald Trump's announcement that the US was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement. Macron called on "all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens, disappointed by the decision of the US president to come to us and work with us."

But will such initiatives, falling into high-profile headlines, lead to significant scientific breakthroughs? Is international mobility of researchers important for expanding the boundaries of knowledge?

Nobel laureates emotionally insist that this is so. 43% of them noted international mobility as "very important" for research, and 38% called it "critical." One in five says that it is “important enough,” and no one considers it completely unimportant.

Often there are phrases “in science there are no boundaries” and “research is a joint and worldwide action.” “No one can tell where great ideas will come from or who will come up with them,” explains John Mater, chief cosmologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, whose work with satellites brought him some of the Nobel Physics in 2006. “But we know that people are moving to organizations that they consider promising and that support their research.”

Another US laureate adds that “most of the progress in advanced research is made by a very small number of people. In this sense, it is important to have a larger sample. ”

After the assembly of talented world-class scientists into a single research team, paradigm shifts often take place, taking science to a new level, Peter Agre explains.

“Science is a bit like the movie business,” says Agre. “Often the status of the industry really promotes the release of the blockbuster.”

How important is international mobility for research?

0% - not important at all
0% - not very important
19% - quite important
43% - very important
38% - critical

But the Chicago laureate says that international mobility is also important for students: “Our best students come because frontier ".

One California laureate suggests that the advent of Skype, FaceTime, and other video conferencing technologies means that trips abroad have ceased to be as important as the previous generation of researchers. However, many respondents believe that teleconferences are a bad substitute for personal meetings.

“Only by exchanging ideas with the greatest minds and institutions of the whole world - and this is best done through personal relationships between researchers, even in the digital age - can we hope to achieve the fastest progress in the advancement of knowledge," says Brian Schmidt, astrophysicist, who won the 2011 prize for physics in conjunction with Perlmutter and Adam Riess from the University. John Hopkins, now serving as vice president of Australian National University.

But the Japanese laureate notes that "researchers are often inspired by acquaintance with other cultures." Therefore, "international cooperation helps the joint creation of new scientific knowledge." A US laureate supports him: “Ideas come from everywhere, but often different styles of teaching and research, adopted in different countries and institutes, lead to different points of view - namely, such a combination is needed to successfully solve complex problems.”

For one laureate, international mobility is a personal whim. “Over the past 15 years, I have lived in South Africa, Britain, Israel and the United States. “I cannot stay in one place for more than a few weeks,” the researcher explains. “Not sure it's good, but it's so great.”

Populism and Political Polarization

Donald Trump dismissed climate change as “fraud,” and this is often considered one of the symptoms of the “after truth” era, where science and facts can be dismissed in favor of baseless and fanatical views. A remark by former British Minister of Education Michael Gove during the Brexit campaign on the fact that the British already had enough experts (in this case, economic experts were meant) made many alarm bells ring in British universities.

Does the spread of populism and political polarization threaten modern science? Nobel laureates think so. 40% consider these phenomena to be a mortal threat to scientific progress, and 30% call them a “serious threat”. Only 5% (two respondents) are completely not worried about this, and 25% consider them to be a “moderate threat”.

“Today, facts are being called into question by people who prefer to believe in rumors rather than verified scientific facts,” says Jean-Pierre Savage, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “Education is the only answer to that.”

But one US laureate noted that “it’s terrible when people start to believe in false things, and even worse, when governments encourage them to believe in facts that are obviously false and ignore evidence that has been scientifically and based on evidence.”

Another laureate notes that “any measures that suppress the exchange of ideas are detrimental to science,” and the Japanese laureate calls on the scientific community to “unite around the world against all unacceptable movements that deny a certain and natural truth.”

How serious threats to scientific progress are populism and political polarization around the world?

5% are not threats
25% are threatened by an average of
30% are seriously threatened by
40% are mortally threatened

Several winners criticize the “intellectual arrogance” of some political leaders, although only one of them directly calls Trump. However, describing climate change doubts as a special demonstration of ignorance and delusion is a "very bad strategy," according to NASA's Mater.

“The results of climate change are very clear; there’s much less clarity on what to do with them, ”he says. “People are starting to realize that just complaining about other people is pointless.” He believes that it would be more productive to insist on increasing investment in energy-saving technologies.

Several laureates do not believe that populism is a threat to scientific progress, but they are concerned about where it can lead. One researcher from New York explains that “populism is not dangerous to science until it turns into nationalism.”

One US laureate believes that not so much populism as demagogy, that is, “appealing to people's fears,” as a result, will lead to a reduction in research funding in favor of tax cuts or more 'pressing' problems. The real danger will be turning this into anti-intellectualism. ”

Some respondents are more optimistic.

“Despite a rather large and boisterous minority, it seems to me that during my life the world has become more aware of the role of science and technology in improving human well-being,” one of them notes. “The bias remains positive.”


Brian Josephson

Answering questions about the most difficult problems of universities, our laureates constantly returned to the same topic: money. Among the problems, two out of five mentioned either access to education at current prices or underfunding of universities.

“The cost of studying at US private universities is breaking records, and support for public universities in many states is fading,” one respondent explained. The second spoke of "growing inequality between public universities and wealthy tax-exempt institutions."

Another US laureate explains that “students increasingly need to have very rich parents. In the best private universities, the number of students whose parents are in the first percent on the income scale is equal to the number of students with parents from the bottom 50% of the income scale. ”

What are the biggest challenges for universities in your country and around the world? (it was possible to choose several options)

42% - lack of money
13% - lack of academic freedom
11% - populism and post-truth
8% - restriction of international student exchange
8% - lack of access to capable students regardless of their biography
8% - bureaucracy
3% - instrumentalism
3% - excessive expansion
3% - snobbery
3% - students and teachers fall short of standards

Roberts believes that "the biggest problem of universities is that politicians do not listen to science and education." He mentions "excessive bureaucracy trying to measure the impact of science." “Why do bureaucrats consider this a good idea, and why do we let them do it?” He asks.

Other respondents complain about the growing power of administrators, and one Southeast Asian laureate says that "the government is trying to control scientists more and more, making their lives less attractive and pushing away from long-term projects."

Universities should be “more open to heretics like me — then science will accelerate,” says Brian Josephson, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 at the age of 33. His subsequent research in parapsychology at Cambridge University sparked a wave of criticism.

Several respondents also complain about the suppression of freedom of speech within the walls of universities. One California laureate stigmatizes "suppressing the free exchange of views by people who rebel when alternative opinions arise."

Artificial Intelligence

Recently, the press has been full of articles announcing the advent of an era of artificial intelligence and voicing concerns about what this means for workers. If computers are playing chess better than people now, will machines and researchers replace them? Will the day come when the robot (or its programmer) will receive the Nobel Prize?

No, according to our respondents. When asked whether AI and robots would reduce the need for human researchers, almost three-quarters answered either “unlikely” (50%) or “definitely not” (24%). And only 24% said it was "possible." Definitely voted for this only one.

“AI showed little in terms of creativity and the ability to ask new questions,” says one California laureate. The French laureate adds: "Only human intelligence and its thoughts lead to the emergence of new and original concepts." A US laureate believes that "robots have no imagination or foresight."

“Don’t you think that if you put together a million robots, they will give out something like Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni or Everyone Does It, or Schubert’s works The Beautiful Mill and The Winter Way?” Asks the winner, who loves classical music.

Will AI researchers and robots reduce the need for human researchers?

24% - definitely not
50% - hardly
24% - maybe
2% - definitely

However, many respondents believe that robots can play an important role in laboratory work. “Robots will be able to facilitate the monotonous work of trainees in the experimental field,” says one of the US laureates. Another interviewee working in the field of biomedicine predicts that machines will be able to take on “mechanical functions, such as cloning, animal care and equipment maintenance”, which will allow small groups of researchers to work more efficiently.

Some laureates predict that AI can generate demand for more researchers. “Each solved problem opens up a new one, no matter whether a person or robot solved it,” says the German laureate. A survey participant from the United States explains that increasing the number of human-machine partnerships will open up so many new fruitful ways of research that "probably more people will be involved."

Schmidt of Australian National University says that “AI and robots are likely to complement the skills of researchers, not replace them.” But he adds: “Of course, if we create an AI, we can let him do all the work, and at this time we will rest on the beach - or we will be flooded with a stream of newly-minted self-taught masters.”

The greatest threat to humanity

Two respondents consider AI a threat. However, much more Nobel laureates care about the environment. One in three considers global warming and overpopulation a threat.

This amount is especially surprising against the backdrop of the US withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and the appointment of Donald Trump to the post of head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the skeptic in the field of climate change, Scott Pruitt. And if Trump believes that climate change is China’s fraud to harm American industry, it is clear that Nobel laureates do not agree with this.

“Climate change and providing enough food and clean water to a growing population is a serious problem facing humanity,” says one American laureate. “Science needs to address these challenges, as well as engage in public education with the goal of creating the political will necessary to address these challenges.”

Roberts believes that providing food to a growing population is the greatest challenge facing humanity. He is concerned about the widespread resistance to the use of genetically modified animals and plants to solve this problem, despite the scientific consensus confirming their safety.

“A vulgar neglect of scientific opinion will lead to a global crisis,” Roberts predicts, referring to a June letter signed by 124 Nobel laureates urging Greenpeace and other nongovernmental organizations to end their campaigns against certain types of biotechnologically improved crops.

“Telling people that they cannot eat or grow food that can prevent their hunger is disgusting,” says Roberts, and adds that climate change will increase the need for GMOs more than ever.

What is the greatest threat to humanity? (you could choose several options)

34% - population growth
23% - nuclear war
8% - infectious diseases and drug immunity
8% - selfishness, lies, loss of humanity
6% - ignorance, distortion of the truth
6% - fundamentalism, terrorism
6% - Trump and other ignorant leaders
4% - AI
4% - inequality
2% - drugs
2% - Facebook

But NASA Mater notes that “people are very busy with the greatest experiment on climate change since the ice age, but science has the potential to completely change the system of economic rewards that encourages using Table of fossil fuels. In other words, if renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil, people will switch to it very quickly. ”

North Korean missile tests increase tension on the US-China line, and problems with [ supposedly - approx. perev. ] Russia's intervention in the US elections, as well as its actions in Ukraine, the Crimea and Syria, explain why nuclear war is the second most popular threat that respondents cited.

Among the 23% of those who mentioned this problem, there is also a laureate from Israel complaining about "militaristic dictators." A German laureate notes “populist nuclear weapons regimes,” and Mater is more worried about nuclear weapons that might fall into the hands of terrorists.

Among the other threats mentioned are medical fears, such as the global epidemic and resistance to antibiotics, fundamentalism and terrorism, the loss of altruism, honesty, or “humanism in the process of our striving in the era of the Internet and its temptations.” Two especially noted Trump: “I think that science can do little here,” one said.

Several laureates are optimistic that the apocalypse is unlikely to occur.

“People are very successful in changing the world for the better,” says one. Another admits that “humanity has several unlikely but existential threats, including an epidemic, nuclear war, and AI.”

But the laureates believe that science can help in this: “The ideal insurance is to make humanity an interplanetary species. And science, obviously, has a big role in this matter. ”

Peter Agre on the villain Trump, Prime Minister Beckham and excessive geek

Donald Trump often boasts of a large electorate, but it is unlikely that there will be many Nobel laureates, given our survey.

Many laureates scorn the billionaire and property owner who occupies the White House, considering it a direct threat to scientific progress. But few criticize him so much as Peter Agre, a malaria researcher at the University. John Hopkins in Batimore, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003 for opening water channels in cell membranes .

“Trump could have played the villain in the Batman movies - everything he does is either evil or selfish,” Agra told THE magazine, describing the US president as “extremely uninformed and evil.”

Agra is especially worried about how Trump is “proud of his ignorance” to like a group of Americans who are happy to sweep the scientists.

People who support Trap’s populist rejection of climate change under the pretext of “fraud,” or the scientific opinion in general, “feel threatened by educated people,” Agre said. “We usually come from wealthy families, we have investments, beautiful houses, we read books - they don’t respect that.”

Science has not done enough to reduce this growing cultural division between society and the scientific community, Agre said. Many scientists abuse the image of a geek, a person who is not from the world of everything, from which most people easily deny themselves.

“When a person from far away can recognize a scientist, this is probably not the best of our possible images,” says Agre, and jokes that “perhaps we should not look like Doc Brown from 'Back to the Future'.” He is delighted with the “phenomenal work” carried out in scientific laboratories around the world, but believes that intelligence is not all that a great scientist needs. “I don’t think that I had an incredible scientific talent in my studentship - I was just as interested in journalism or politics,” he explains. “All the successes I have achieved are essentially a miracle.”

After graduating from a chemist at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Agra entered John Hopkins Medical School, which freed him from being drafted into the Vietnam War. And although the laboratory he was in was “very good,” she lacked famous names. His supervisor, Vann Bennett, was his classmate at medical school. However, Agra was allowed to work in the area of ​​interest to him as a graduate student, and his work with cholera paved the way for research that deserved a Nobel prize.

“If you just follow what is actively discussed in the scientific media, you can miss something,” says Agre, adding that, in his experience, “science fiction often comes from little-known places.”

But any young scientist who dreams of a Nobel Prize should banish such thoughts, Agra advises. “If you have a graduate student trying to defend a doctorate and change the world at the same time, he is unlikely to succeed in both,” he says.

And if Agra worries about the villains in world politics, he still hopes that equally heroic figures will stand up to fight them. However, his assumption about a new possible progressive politician in Britain seems unlikely. “I once met David Beckham in the airport waiting area in New Zealand. It was late, but he graciously agreed to write a note to one of my daughters, his fan - he was an excellent gentleman. ” “Perhaps the star candidate will be able to do something good.”