Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Response by Sir John Sulston
Thank you very much. It is of course a tremendous honour for me to be
here, and as you gather I am rather surprised to be here. I have
indeed, I am afraid, been something of a dilettante. I have been told on
more than one occasion that a cobbler should stick to his last, as I moved
around from one bit of biology to another. What is my excuse? I
have lots of enthusiasm and obstinacy when I am engaged in something I think
is important. I think probably that’s what it's all about. If you have
the motivation to do something, then do stick to it – I think that is the
way for something to happen. But of course it is exciting to break new
ground, and I have been very lucky in the way my work has happened to have
gone. I have been very lucky to have been involved in the human genome
project, which is important, it's very important, but not quite in the way
that the headlines portrayed it. Because it was portrayed as a fight,
which was not really the point; though there was an important issue at stake
- namely the free release of the data.
So what is it ? It’s a milestone certainly, and it's fundamental, as
you were hearing, for medical science for the future. All it is actually,
is reading out the code of instructions that makes a human being. And there is
something rather amusing about that, in that it has taken four billion years of
evolution for a living organism to emerge which could read its own code of
instructions. And, although there is a nice philosophical paradox about
that, there's a much greater one to come. Because what is going to happen
probably in this century (maybe some people in this room will see it happen,
I hope some people in this room will be part of the process, or maybe I am being
too optimistic) is that at some point we are going to understand how the brain
works. Then the philosophical paradox will be complete: the living organism that
truly understands itself. Now some in this room will of course take issue
with me on this. I wish we could have a two hour debate on the subject. But you
are not allowed. I am going on speaking!
But we have not got there yet. This DNA business is just the beginning;
that is one of the reasons why it has been so important to make sure that the
DNA sequence data is released into the public domain, in order that everyone can
think about it and use it freely and independently. Because it can be used
in all sorts of ways, and we have to make proper choices about how it is used –
in medical science and perhaps in altering ourselves. The debate is
already beginning. Many of you will have read books this year which describe the
sorts of things which may happen, and describe fear and distrust as well as
excitement about these challenging advances.
Now, I want to put to you today a very important distinction which I think we
are in danger of losing sight of. That is the distinction between
scientific discovery, or indeed discovery generally, although we are speaking
about science here today, scientific discovery and know-how on the one
hand and its application on the other. There are two aspects, separate but
equal. Scientific discovery and know-how actually has been the greatest single
driver of human culture for hundreds if not thousands of years. Though it was
not named that, until relatively recently. It’s the finding out of what is
outside us and allowing our minds to explore the universe, doing experiments,
playing around; and now it has led us deep into our own bodies. It makes an
enormous philosophical change to the way we see the world. It is not in
itself philosophy, but it feeds in and drives the way we think about the world
and ourselves. Its application on the other hand is immensely important for the
development of civilisation, for our material prosperity. These two things – we
can have both. The market of ideas, if you like, versus the economic market on
the other hand, mesh together. But lets not imagine that they are coextensive,
because they are not. They will destroy each other if we try to make them
coextensive. They must mesh productively, each depending on the other.
Now this country must continue as a leader in finding the ethical resolution
of these two sometimes conflicting things. You have it here, you have it
in the way the University goes forward with research and education, the way the
University raises funds. It's all meshing together, but the future rests
on twin pillars. First, the pillar of understanding - and understanding in
the largest sense: the understanding by everybody, not just by the experts. The
experts' job is to find out and communicate. Everybody needs to
understand, and a great University like this scores in education, in discussion,
in communication of what is going on. So that is one pillar, the other pillar is
democracy. If we rest the future of humanity on those two pillars, of
universal understanding and universal democracy then mankind is safe. We must do
that. This University is an integral and vital part of that process and I am
proud to be honoured by it today. Thank you.