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Science must move with the times

Research cannot fulfil its social contract and reach new horizons by advancing on the same footing into the future, argues Philip Ball in the last essay of a series on how the past 150 years have shaped today’s science system, to mark Nature’s anniversary.
  1. Philip Ball

    1. Philip Ball is a science writer and author; his latest book is How To Grow a Human.

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Illustration by Señor Salme

In 1866, three years before the first issue of Nature was published, a transatlantic telegraph cable established light-speed communication between Great Britain and North America. The triumph won William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) a knighthood for the scientific advice he had given to the project. Yet Thomson had also advised on a disastrous earlier attempt in 1858 that barely worked from the outset and deteriorated within weeks.

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Nature 575, 29-31 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03307-8

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