From Here to Infinity: A Vision for the Future of Science

by Martin Rees

Overview

One of our greatest scientific minds reflects on the role of science in the twenty-first century.

In this riveting, eye-opening new book, preeminent astrophysicist Martin Rees charts out the future of science, offering a compelling vision of how scientists and laypeople can work together to address the most urgent issues of our era—including climate change and energy concerns, population growth, and epidemiological threats.

Scientific research is crucial to a growing number of policy decisions, but in our public discussions, ideology and indignation all too often threaten to drown out research and evidence. To shape debates over health care, energy policy, space travel, and other vital issues, ordinary citizens must engage directly with research rather than relying on pundits’ and politicians’ interpretations. Otherwise, fringe opinions that have been discredited in the scientific community can take hold in the public imagination. At the same time, scientists must understand their roles as communicators and ambassadors as well as researchers.

Rees not only diagnoses this central problem but also explains how scientists and the general public can deploy a global, long-term perspective to address the new challenges we face. In the process, he reveals critical shortcomings in our current system—for example, the tendency to be overly anxious about minor hazards while underrating the risk of potential catastrophes. Offering a strikingly clear portrait of the future of science, Rees tackles such diverse topics as the human brain, the possibility that humans will colonize other planets, and the existence of extraterrestrial life in order to distinguish between what scientists can hope to discover and what will always lie beyond our grasp.

A fresh perspective on science’s significance and potential, From Here to Infinity will inspire and enlighten.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393063073
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/18/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Martin Rees is a leading cosmologist and astrophysicist. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012, is a member of the House of Lords, and former president of the Royal Society. He lives in Cambridge, England.

Editorial Reviews

Rees, Britain’s former astronomer royal and a scientist’s scientist, offers his thoughts on how science should navigate its ongoing interaction with culture, politics, and ethics in the 21st century. Rees’s major thesis is that scientists, politicians, and laypeople must engage in meaningful dialogue about how science should be deployed to address the century’s looming dangers: “the threats without enemies.” This list includes developing reliable energy sources, a burgeoning world population, climate change, diminishing biodiversity, the misuse and unintended consequences of gene manipulation, and the design of drugs that may alter human beings themselves. Rees offers no set-piece solutions, but instead suggests rational and achievable responses—some scientific, some sociological—that might ameliorate these potential dangers. He champions better funded universities and the idea that science should remain agnostic as to religion; he says that the benefits of globalization must be fairly shared, and, most intriguingly, “There are doors that science could open but which are best left closed.” There is enough hard science for this book (based on a series of lectures) to satisfy readers concerned with science’s future horizons, as well as a surfeit of wisdom on science and its role in society at large. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"We finesse our relationship to a dangerous and glorious world through science. As no one else can, Martin Rees finesses our relationship to science."

Stewart Brand

"An absorbing summation of the state of science today."

BBC Focus

"[A] pithy explanation of the role of science in the global economy."

The Times

"Martin Rees provides sage advice on why and about what scientists should communicate with the rest of society, and what they might expect in return. He also offers a wonderful sampling of what we now know, don’t know, and likely won’t know from scientific study—now and in the future."

Alan Leshner

The fate of the world demands that scientists and the public communicate better, writes British astronomer and former president of the Royal Society Rees (Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning, 2003, etc.). Expanded and directed at an American audience, these are four of the distinguished Reith lectures, delivered annually over BBC radio by renowned thinkers beginning in 1948 with Bertrand Russell. Readers will learn that 21st-century science impinges on us more than ever and in ways that transform our lives, usually, but not always, for the better. It is the one "truly global culture, transcending all boundaries of nationality and faith." America is definitely the leader, and Rees uses American institutions as examples of how to do it right (our universities are the best; our entrepreneurs the most entrepreneurial), with exceptions (our politicians who proudly reject science). No Cassandra, he reviews our planet's looming problems, from climate change to overpopulation to nuclear war, emphasizing that there are no solutions outside of science. Since the future depends on our youth, he stresses that scientists are cool, pointing out that Einstein was a hip young guy when he made his dazzling discoveries, not the disheveled, elderly man portrayed by the media of the time. He also warns about the "tendency for long-term strategies, however important, to be trumped by more immediate issues that can be resolved within an electoral cycle." David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity (2011) provides a more powerful exploration of this theme, but Rees delivers shrewd insights into how science can lead us to a better future.

Kirkus Reviews