Ideas and Think Tanks in Contemporary Britain: Volume 1 by Michael David Kandiah & Anthony Seldon

Author:Michael David Kandiah & Anthony Seldon [Kandiah, Michael David & Seldon, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781306344272
Goodreads: 20586623
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Interviews

The Influence of Science in Post-War Britain

ANTHONY SELDON interviews DAVID EDGERTON

SELDON: To what extent have British governments since the war been affected in their thinking by scientific, medical and technological innovations and ideas, whether British-based or overseas, and what have those principal ideas been?

EDGERTON: It is a very tricky question. Are we talking about the influence primarily of scientific, technical and medical ideas on government thinking, or are we talking about the impact of technological changes, medical changes, scientific changes, on actual government policy and practice? If we are talking about the former, one would be forced to conclude they were probably minimal at a general level. Of course some scientific ideas have clearly influenced policy in particular areas, but there it is important to note that scientific ideas do not just come out of the blue. They are often closely associated with if you like pre-scientific ideas covering the same sorts of issues. A very good example of that would be Cyril Burt and intelligence testing. If one were to contrast the post-1945 years with the period around 1900, one could argue for example that Darwinism had quite an impact on the thinking of governments in the earlier period.

If governments have not been much influenced by particular scientific ideas, they have certainly been very powerfully influenced by certain ideas about what science could do. They have sought the advice of scientists, and they have funded research in science, in technology, and in medicine, in order to support government policy, and also to transform the economy and society. The extent to which government has done all these things is really striking. If one thinks, for example, of the armed services, one has scientific advice well before the twentieth century. You get an institutionalisation of this advice for example in a committee on explosives set up in 1902 to look precisely at what kind of new explosive the British forces should be using. That is essentially an ad hoc committee, but it is at the apex of a structure devoted to the creation of new explosives within the British government machine. Government has had, certainly from the beginning of this century, a whole series of government-owned laboratories, which are closely allied to policy making and to creating new products and processes to help the state carry out its functions.

One also has more arms-length institutions, funded by government but essentially spending their money in non-governmental organisations, notably universities and other research institutes, A very good example of that would be the Medical Research Committee, 1913, or the Development Fund of 1911. They set a model for a very important continuing form of government support for scientific activity, the so-called 'research councils'.

SELDON: Why did government afford the sciences a dignity and a position, and a financial base, that it never afforded the social sciences, particularly economics?

EDGERTON: Because science was seen, certainly by the late nineteenth century, as a key to national power, and a key to the transformation of societies and economies more generally.

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