Given the scale of issues like global warming and epidemic disease, we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a can-do attitude to science rather than a can’t-afford-it attitude.
It is foolish to claim, as some do, that emigration into space offers a long-term escape from Earth’s problems. Nowhere in our solar system offers an environment even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest.
Not even the most secular among us can fail to be uplifted by Christianity’s architectural legacy – the great cathedrals. These immense and glorious buildings were erected in an era of constricted horizons, both in time and in space.
The images of Earth’s delicate biosphere, contrasting with the sterile moonscape where the astronauts left their footsteps, have become iconic for environmentalists: these may indeed be the Apollo programme’s most enduring legacy.
We need to broaden our sympathies both in space and time – and perceive ourselves as part of a long heritage, and stewards for an immense future.
Some claim that computers will, by 2050, achieve human capabilities. Of course, in some respects they already have.
Crucial to science education is hands-on involvement: showing, not just telling; real experiments and field trips and not just ‘virtual reality.’
The scientists who attack mainstream religion, rather than striving for peaceful coexistence with it, damage science, and also weaken the fight against fundamentalism.
The extreme sophistication of modern technology – wonderful though its benefits are – is, ironically, an impediment to engaging young people with basics: with learning how things work.
To ensure continuing prosperity in the global economy, nothing is more important than the development and application of knowledge and skills.