The Limits of Science - The Romanes Lecture by Lord Rees at Oxford University

The Romanes Lecture is the annual public lecture of the Oxford University. A most distinguished public figure from the arts, science or literature is invited by special invitation of the Vice-Chancellor.

The lecture was created in 1891, following an offer by John Romanes of Christ Church to fund an annual lecture, and the first lecture was given in 1892 by William Gladstone.

Professor the Lord Rees of Ludlow OM FRS delivered his lecture on November 2, 2011.

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Synopsis
Telescopes reveal the remote universe; accelerators probe the subatomic world.

Thanks to such instruments, astronomers have established, in outline, how our cosmos has evolved from a still-mysterious beginning more than 13 billion years.

Billions more years - and perhaps even an infinite time - lie ahead of it but 99 percent of scientists focus neither on the very small nor the very large, but on the even greater complexities of our everyday world.

Materials science, biology and the environmental sciences proceed apace, revealing remarkable insights, and opening up an ever-widening range of applications, looking at both opportunities and threats.

We live on an ever, more interconnected and crowded planet, where each person who is empowered by transformative technology, is also making increasing demands on the world's resources.

There is a widening gulf between what science enables us to do, and what is actually prudent or ethical to do.

The Earth has existed for 45 million centuries but this is the first when, in our arrogance, one species, ours, can determine the long-range planetary future.

The stakes are high; optimum policies require a longer-term and less parochial perspective than normally prevails in political debate, the deployment of the best scientific advice, and engagement of a wider public.

In science itself, the most dramatic conceptual advances are the least predictable but, in scanning these intellectual horizons, we must be mindful that there may be fundamental limits to our understanding - concepts about key aspects of reality that human brains and accordingly, even computer-aided, cannot currently grasp.

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Download a transcript of the lecture - Romanes Lecture - The Limits of Science - Lord Rees (156 kb)