Self-consciously modernist writers of the early twentieth century such as Henry James, Joseph Conrad or Virginia Woolf held that a novel should be a work of art and an end in itself. They argued against those like H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley who believed that novels should be means to ends, commenting and critiquing the human condition with a view to changing or improving it. We know from the subsequent reputations of these writers which position most literary commentators have taken. To use a cricketing analogy, James and Conrad are opening batsmen for genius, while Huxley and Wells are sloggers well down the order in the second 11. Subsequent modernists have followed James, such that literary art was set up in opposition to science, an argument rehearsed in two famous historical spats; T.H. Huxley's duel with Matthew Arnold in the nineteenth century, and the infamous F. R. Leavis/C. P. Snow ‘two cultures’ row in the mid twentieth century.

The great polymath immunologist, Sir Peter Medawar, questioned the validity of the myth underlying the whole dispute, that imagination and reason are antithetical, or independent ways of understanding the world. He argued that they are complementary and, in science at least, both are essential. The idea of their mutual hostility arose from serious mistakes made by thinkers on both sides. Those who favoured the rapid insights of creative imagination overdid their propaganda that truth derived through reason was slow and trivial. Reductionist philosophers of science compounded the false dichotomy by claiming that rational analysis was the only tool used in science. […]

Karl Sabbagh tells the unhappy story of Professor J.W. Heslop Harrison FRS and his lapses from the professional standards of behaviour expected of a scientist. He came from humble beginnings, the son of an iron worker, and grew up in harsh conditions in the early part of the twentieth century. By dint of hard work he went to university and eventually became an academic botanist, specializing in the study of plant classification and distribution. In the 1930s when Heslop Harrison began his professional career, the Hebridean islands off the Scottish coast were largely unexplored. When he and others made scientific surveys on the islands, they discovered they had unique species and subspecies of plant and insect, some of which were new to science. These discoveries made Heslop Harrison's reputation. His richest site was the island of Rum, previously in private hands and not botanically examined at all.

At first, his discoveries attracted no suspicion. But by the end of the 1930s some of his claims were becoming bizarre. He was using them to support a hypothesis that the islands had escaped the last Ice Age which had buried the Scottish mainland under a massive sheet of ice. The final straw for a Cambridge colleague, John Raven (a classicist and amateur naturalist), came in 1941 when Heslop Harrison published two papers announcing the discovery on Rum of species previously unknown in Great Britain. After the war, Raven managed to join one of Heslop Harrison's expeditions to the island and see these wonders for himself. […]

The true tale of Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church is as well known as the fictional Faust story. The great Italian astronomer used the newly invented telescope to reveal secrets of the Sun, planets, moon and stars, and to confirm the truth of Copernicus's earlier idea that the movements of bodies in the night sky are better explained by assuming that all the planets revolved round the Sun, rather than round the Earth. These ideas were opposed by the Catholic Church as heretical errors contradicting the Bible. As the most prominent exponent of the heliocentric view Galileo came up against the Papal Inquisition and was forced to recant his views on pain of torture and possibly death.

History has proved Galileo right and the Catholic Church wrong, making him a hero in the supposed struggle between reason and science, on the one hand, and religious superstition, on the other. But just as the Faust myth can be re-interpreted, so can Galileo's. He was indeed right, no one seriously denies that the Earth and other planets revolve round the Sun, but it is not that truth alone which determined his success. The role of cheer leader for the heliocentric universe fell to Galileo because of his skill with the politics of patronage and his clever use of presentational rhetoric.

While Galileo was scientifically right, the consequences of his discoveries were not value-free. At other times, when the consequences of science turn out to be morally undesirable, Galileo can be seen as a failure; someone who refused to take moral responsibility for the uses to which his knowledge was put. […]

“Joanna how can you read that stuff? Garish covers, cheap production values, it's all so repetitive. Science fiction looks clever to an adolescent, especially when you start to learn science. I used to read it myself, but when you grow up, it all seems pretty immature!”

“David, you've used the right word; garish. The covers are brazen and they're saying ‘pick me up! Read me! Don't be afraid! Here are adventures!’ ”

“Exactly, they're just thrillers set in deep space or time. There are no real characters; they don't face any moral challenges.”

“That's so patronizing.” Joanna chucked her rather dog-eared paperback at him but missed. “Conventional literary stuff is not the point. Science fiction is about ideas, what will happen if certain technological breakthroughs occur, if different political or philosophical ideas are played out? All these future scenarios warn us about what might happen.”

“Oh yeah, well most of them seem to rely on scientists being put in charge and monkeying about with what it means to be human to make us susceptible to control. I don't much like solutions to our troubles that depend on having Strangeloves in charge with robots and ray guns. Proper literature teaches us about the human condition, solving human problems needs humanity not science.”

“OK.” Joanna suddenly grinned. “Is Doris Lessing a proper literary figure?”

“Silly question.” From David, “of course she is, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.” […]

The storm blew out of nowhere at about 11 o'clock, first with violent showers then towards midnight with rain, thunder and lightning, throwing an eerie light over the little university town cowering before the onslaught. In a students' antechamber the great door shook in its frame sending vibrations through the walls, while water ran under the door and soaked the floor. By midnight, it was too noisy to sleep. The students made out other sounds; louder, sharper and hideous because both human and anticipated. Tough young men clung to each other in terror.

Well before dawn the storm had passed, the students dozed fitfully and shivered. At first light, they awoke, and watched the door to the inner chamber materialize from the shadows as the room grew brighter. Rising and stretching, the students inched towards the chamber door.

“He locked it,” said the first, “we won't be able to get in.”

“You're right,” said the second, “we had better go round the other way.”

“Let's try it,” said the third, “he may have unlocked it later.”

He gingerly lifted the latch and the door eased open and swung towards them. Someone or something had indeed unlocked it. The great study beyond was in chaos, furniture broken, books torn, and blood, hair and hunks of gristle smeared over the walls. The far door was open and numb with distress they passed into the garden. Several body parts were scattered among the garden sweepings and kitchen filth of the compost heap in the corner. […]

New times call for new men. The economy of computer and communication technologies has spawned new millionaires. Like successful businessmen of previous generations, they have turned to philanthropy and are giving their money away to good causes. In the past, if such philanthropists invested in science or technology, they had projects evaluated by the traditional process of peer review. Proposals were considered by panels of scientists specialized in the fields concerned.

But the new silicon millionaires do not favour this model. They want things to be riskier and more like their own business practice. They select areas of science that interest them personally (often biomedicine or neurophysiology) and target funds there. They often hire a leading expert in the chosen field as a technical advisor to network with other field leaders and identify people with interesting ideas whom they encourage to apply for funds. They are trying to spot winners, with the inevitable fall-out of failed projects hopefully counterbalanced by enough successes. The system has an element of peer review (opinions of field leaders are sought) and some early promise in track record is necessary, but much more emphasis is placed on searching out promising innovators to make applications that look like business plans. The millionaires make quick and less bureaucratic decisions than conventional funding agencies using traditional peer review, although the risks of failure are higher.

These new philanthropists are not the only ones questioning peer review as a gold standard in quality control in choosing projects to fund. The dissatisfaction with peer review runs deeper and some people are calling into question the whole system of quality control in science based on review and its modifications. […]

Vernon, cowman, awkward in his washed-out boiler suit, goes forth from the cottage across the starlit yard to the hulk of the milking parlour. He can hear the cows fretting at the entrance as he throws the switches and the neon strips falter to life and the main pump hums up. Ten minutes later he opens the doors to his charges who stumble through to the relief of the milking stalls.

“Steady, steady, g'on, g'on, lummox, lummox, move over you lummox – steady now,” restraining, directing beasts to stalls, “come on girl, come on”, to a misdirected enthusiast then, “back, back, that's right my girl, that's right”, in another adjustment of cow to stall, “g'on beauties, g'on,” as the first eight fill the herringbone and sense the clamp of Vernon's suction caps, their damp breath clouding in the dawn air.

And so on, Vernon cajoling his cows through the two hour milking until they are all clomping back across the field towards the hay strewn in the upper pasture. The children have already left for school when he sits down for breakfast, idly scanning the paper.

“Well, Elizabeth, have you seen this?”

“What love?” replies his wife.

“Well I never did – says here,” and Vernon scans the line with his finger, “Scientists at the National Dairy Laboratory have been working on a new way to make antibiotics and are forming a private company to develop their pioneering work. Herds of cows will produce milk containing antibiotic. […]

Professor Janet Docherty was smart, personable, articulate and running an important cell biology research group investigating the behaviour of cell lines taken from mouse cancers. She had no trouble getting research grants; she was a star at conferences, and eligible for election to the Royal Society. The organizations funding her and her university were keen to publicize her work and Janet herself was perfectly willing to do all that she could in talking to the media.

The press liaison offices at her university and at a leading research charity tried to build news stories round her best papers. Press releases were carefully drafted; press conferences organized at prestigious London venues, the press officers and Janet herself were careful to get to know the leading science and health correspondents personally and always to respond to requests from journalists for interview. Janet was the very model of a modern media-savvy professor and her labours and those of her press officers were rewarded, her work always attracted interest and a certain amount of low key coverage. But media attention did not reflect her professional status as a leading cancer researcher.

Then, one day in a faraway corporate laboratory in a rustbelt American city a small team announced a breakthrough in the treatment of lung cancer, a drug which might stop one of the most intractable cancers of all. It worked in rodents, but still had to go through the whole series of clinical trials in humans. Announcing it at this stage was a huge risk for the pharmaceutical company concerned but it was small, in need of more investment, and generated the publicity to attract it. […]