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Partridge
11-27-2005, 02:09 PM
'Loony' jibe at US policy over climate
The Guardian (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1651779,00.html?gusrc=rss)

Britain's most senior scientist warned last week that UK research is being stifled by an 'appalling, obsessive' bureaucracy. 'A bunch of academic apparatchiks' is threatening our scientific brilliance, said Lord May, retiring president of the Royal Society.'Today, Crick and Watson's work on DNA would have been blocked before they had got started. Crick would have been sacked for being idle and Watson would have been told to piss off and stop messing about with his grant.'

May - in short - is in typical form. The Australian-born mathematician - scourge of greenies, homeopaths, lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians - leaves office on Wednesday, but he is not going quietly. He described the beliefs of US climate chief James Connaughton as 'loony' and warned that Christian and Islamic fundamentalists now threaten to create a blighted, blinkered world worthy of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

He also attacked arrogant doctors for fuelling the recent MMR crisis and lambasted author Michael Crichton - whose State of Fear claims that global warming is a myth - for writing nonsense. 'Crichton's ... book is presented as something important. In fact, it is total rubbish.'

May, aged 69, remains convinced that science can make the world a better place, despite attempts to stifle it by fundamentalists, errant writers and bureaucrats: 'Ten years ago, UK science was pretty poorly supported. Now it is relatively well-funded.'

Unfortunately, a new layer of academic administration has been created to ensure this money is well spent, he added. 'We have pro-vice-chancellors for any old thing. Many are not very good. We have created an obsessive bureaucracy that masquerades as accountability. Crick and Watson would have had no chance.'

For a man at the peak of his profession, such directness is unsettling. For a Brit, emollient diplomacy is expected. But for May, an outsider to our class system, bluntness has been tolerated.

He grew up in Sydney, enduring a childhood of 'genteel poverty', but found that he shone at school. 'I topped every class for every subject,' he once recalled, a typical piece of unswerving self-confidence. As a colleague remarked: 'The trouble is Bob thinks he is five times cleverer than everyone else, but is really only twice as clever.'

An expert on animal populations and chaos theory, he ended up in Oxford, where, in 1995, he was appointed the government's chief scientific adviser, a job that required him to defend the UK's handling of the BSE crisis and the planting of GM crops. Five years later, as the Royal Society's president, he made similar pronouncements on MMR and autism, homeopathy (it doesn't work) and other issues, defending science and its practitioners with fierce loyalty.

'Scientists are trusted by most people,' he said. 'Polls make that clear. They are up there among doctors, particularly for young people. It is a myth that people do not have confidence in scientists.'

Trusting them is a critical issue for May, hence his outrage over the fact that Connaughton - 'a slick, charming lawyer' - heads George Bush's environmental affairs, and is not a scientist. 'Of course, if you are trying to defend the indefensible, the first thing you do is hire a good lawyer. That might explain it. Personally, I think Connaughton's argument that US carbon dioxide emissions are really going down - if you compare them with America's rising GDP - is loony. He and I live on different planets.'

'And it is very worrying. By the middle of the century, America's gulf states could be uninhabitable thanks to global warming. I hope people realise the danger sooner rather than later.'

As for claims that Tony Blair is wavering over the issue of compulsory carbon emission limits, May remains confident: 'I see no signs. I hope I am right.' The last remark is intriguing. May is rarely unsure about anything. His hesitancy therefore speaks volumes, though those who think there is nothing to fear from him now he has left office could be in for a shock. He has left the Royal Society but fully intends to keep battling over scientific issues in the House of Lords. Britain - and the Prime Minister - has not yet heard the last of Robert May.