reviewed by Nancy Mills
Edited by Richard Eckersley and Kevin Jeans, 1995, CSIRO Publications, PO Box 89, East Melbourne VIC 3002. ISBN 0643 05675 0, RRP $34.95 plus postage ($6 within Australia).
What will the future hold for us in 25 years time - and what role will science and technology have played in getting us there? As a reader of this journal, you would probably be interested in a book which investigates this very subject, presented by eminent Australian scientists with imagination, vision and an eye for science in its broader social context, in a way that shows both the connections and the conflicts that exist between the disciplines of science.
Unfortunately Challenge to Change: Australia in 2020 is not such a book, although there are honourable exceptions among its 12 contributed articles. An odd assortment of 'optimistic stories' written by 15 men and two women, it is certainly 'speculative, provocative and imaginative' as claimed in the preface. It is also full of sweeping assertions, narrow reasoning and typographical errors. The editors, for example, show considerable imagination in linking the NW shelf project with 'Liquid Nitrogen Gas'.
All contributions were presented at the 1994 ANZAAS conference, and the book has no one clear purpose, although some cynical observers might see it as a lengthy promotional brochure for CSIRO (only two contributors were from outside CSIRO). Despite the assurances given in the preface, the book gives the impression of being written by a committee, without the benefit of a chair who could show how the contributions might be integrated into an harmonious whole.
The two most stimulating chapters are those on diet and health (Richard Head, CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition) and the 'wide brown land' (Dean Graetz, CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology).
Head's vision is of a future where predictive diagnosis (the ability to determine an individual's susceptibility to disease later in life) is routine, the 'health' properties of specific food ingredients are fully utilised and duly noted in product labelling, and the overall assessment of food safety takes into account the impact of racial origin on the digestion of foods. It is a future 'full of challenge with many ethical considerations and ... heavily influenced by public debate'.
Graetz presents four scenarios for life in 2020, and adds a few surprises. In the Lucky Country scenario, the prevailing belief is that because Australia has survived so far, it will continue to survive, and so we don't need to change anything. Dystopia is the result of a preference for the art of muddling through over the science of analysis and management. The Libertarian scenario is based on a desire to predict and prepare for a better future without necessarily controlling that future. The author's preferred future, Beautopia, acknowledges that 'technology is neither good nor bad in itself, and that science and the humanities together provide the most powerful ... problem detection and solving ability'. It is a great pity that some of the other authors in this book appear unable to grasp that last concept.
Science and technology are not, as John Stocker and Richard Eckersley claim in the first chapter, 'the most powerful forces shaping our destiny', but they have certainly helped to shape the way we live today and will continue to help shape our future.
A slogan in use some years ago was 'CSIRO: a mine of information'. This book is also a mine of information, and it contains some valuable material, but in most cases you will have to do an awful lot of digging to get to the good bits. The book's main failing is to present science for the most part out of context, in isolation from society, and for that reason I cannot recommend it except to those who would read it with a critical eye.
The old 'trust me, I'm a scientist' line no longer works. Our greatest challenge is now to find a way to integrate the needs and desires of our society with the means to bring about the changes we require.