{"text":[[{"start":12.41,"text":"The writer is president of the Royal Society "}],[{"start":16.07,"text":"Science is increasingly central to our lives — from its role in creating day-to-day objects such as the smartphones in our pockets, to the big challenges of tackling disease, addressing climate change, dealing with pandemics and focusing on biodiversity loss. "}],[{"start":30.189999999999998,"text":"Many of the changes that the discipline brings are hugely beneficial, but they often come with potential downsides that demand public scrutiny. "},{"start":37.468999999999994,"text":"Will artificial intelligence take people’s jobs or subvert elections with fake news? "},{"start":41.924,"text":"How fast can we practically transition to a net zero economy? "}],[{"start":46.089999999999996,"text":"For the crucial public debate that is needed on all this to take place, we must have a scientifically literate population. "},{"start":52.419,"text":"Against a backdrop of widespread scepticism and misinformation, intellectual curiosity and the ability to understand the rudiments of science are paramount. "}],[{"start":61.41,"text":"But there is a divide between the scientifically minded and those who choose not to engage with science. "},{"start":66.789,"text":"I spent 30 years as an academic teaching how to reason rigorously, based on data — assessing the uncertainty of what you don’t know, in light of what you do. "}],[{"start":75.82,"text":"The insight of this scientific method drove me to be an advocate for evidence-based policymaking, which I carried into a role in government. "},{"start":82.999,"text":"There I sat in meetings with ministers — who did not have a science background — who said that evidence-based decisions were not what they were about. "},{"start":90.029,"text":"They were about values-based policymaking. "}],[{"start":93.60999999999999,"text":"This really does matter. "},{"start":95.40199999999999,"text":"For example, during the pandemic I had to publicly call out the government for their mantra of simply “following the science”. "},{"start":101.44399999999999,"text":"I spoke out to mitigate the risk that scientists would be drawn into a blame game by politicians, whose role it was to make the important decisions on Britain’s coronavirus strategy. "},{"start":110.23699999999998,"text":"Their approach presented “the science” as having all the answers — a fundamental failure in understanding how the discipline works, and the uncertainty that is inherent in cutting-edge research. "}],[{"start":119.87999999999998,"text":"It saddens me that our culture now views science as difficult, which discourages many from taking an interest in it. "},{"start":125.92199999999998,"text":"A British Science Association poll recently suggested that only around a third of 14- to 18-year-olds finds scientists inspirational or consider the subject to be relevant to their lives. "}],[{"start":136.48999999999998,"text":"In fact, science is woven through every aspect of our existence and people from all walks of life and of all ages should be able to access it easily. "},{"start":144.48199999999997,"text":"The invention of the printing press was crucial to the Enlightenment because it democratised knowledge. "},{"start":149.48699999999997,"text":"So, in this increasingly science-centred world, the same attention should be given to popular science writing as is given to other forms of literature. "}],[{"start":158.33999999999997,"text":"Good science writing plays a fundamental part in increasing access to the discipline. "},{"start":162.932,"text":"The latest thinking on problems that people really care about — be they climate change, pollution or health — should be discussed in cafés and pubs across the land. "},{"start":171.39899999999997,"text":"And often an understandable book is what helps this to happen. "}],[{"start":175.51,"text":"Our Trivedi Science Book Prize is the only one in the world dedicated to popular science writing. "},{"start":180.702,"text":"This is because we believe it provides a vital link between the expert scientific community and the public, communicating pioneering but often technical research to mainstream audiences. "}],[{"start":190.95,"text":"Books such as Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which was shortlisted for the prize in 1989, was written for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics and has since become a universally recognised text on cosmology. "}],[{"start":203.73,"text":"Democratising science has never been more important. "},{"start":206.99699999999999,"text":"There are so many scientific stories to be told that help us better understand ourselves. "},{"start":211.589,"text":"A society equipped with a solid understanding of the issues of the day is a society more able to respond to them in a prescient and pragmatic way. "}],[{"start":218.83999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/135012-1702961606.mp3"}