Last night I went to the Origins Symposium to see Stephen Hawking talk. Unfortunately he was ill and unable to leave the hospital. His speech was pre-recorded - it is very digital sounding anyway - and his daughter did the slides for familial familiarity. His speech wasn't that great. More interesting was the panel on Science and Culture which included Hugh Downs, Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lucy Hawkin.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was the pick of the group and the greatest realist of them. Ann Druyan (wife of Carl Sagan) was hopelessly political and pretty much espoused Obama's virtues including the homily 'change'.

The science reporter from the New York Times was also hopelessly idealistic as well. One of her stories was about the scientist who identified Hepatitis B and then created a vaccine for it. She said he didn't patent it, so has made no money from it. This brought an idealistic cheer from the crowd and Ann Druyan clapped heartily. This is why, in my opinion, scientists and academics remove themselves from the world. They live in little protected cloisters from the economic realities of the world Neil Tyson made the comment that someone still has to pay for that and the form of payment is political. University budgets do not appear from thin air.

Neil Tyson also made the point that the driving process behind the system, including science, is that no-one wants to die poor. Science has to align itself with the humanistic reality to stay relevant. This means some science goes toward hair growth fro bald men, and the anti-impotence drugs, but it also means that science is revalidated and re-legitimized with each new technological gadget and revolution that changes how society interacts; from drugs, to communications, to transport. It all points to the importance of science.

I don't doubt that the Bush years were bad for science, especially when science was politically inconvenient for the Bush Administration. I do not believe that Ann Druyan's approach is helpful. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was by far the most level headed and realistic of the panel.