Paul Nurse lectured on “Science as Revolution” at IST Austria

Yesterday evening Paul Nurse delivered an IST Lecture about “Science as Revolution” at IST Austria. His mesmerizing talk in the Raiffeisen Lecture Hall was given as part of the 10-year anniversary celebrations held this week on campus. In it, the Nobel laureate argued that science can be considered the longest lasting revolution in human history. From prehistoric to present-day times, inquisitive minds have been researching nature, following a scientific principle best outlined by Francis Bacon in his 17^th-century book The Advancement of Learning: “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” Fact is that scientists such as astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, biologist Charles Darwin and physicist Albert Einstein have changed the ways humans think and live. Based on rigorous thinking, experimental methods and reproducible results, science has acted as a major driver of culture and civilization and will continue to trigger revolutionary changes in the understanding of the natural world.

Paul Nurse is a geneticist and cell biologist who has worked on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled. He is Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, and served as President of the Royal Society, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, and President of the Rockefeller University. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and received the Albert Lasker Award and the Royal Society’s Copley Medal. He was knighted by Queen Elisabeth II in 1999, received the Legion d’honneur in 2003 from France, and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2018 from Japan.  For 15 years, he was a member of the Council for Science and Technology, advising the English government on science and innovation issues.  He is now one of the seven Chief Scientific Advisors of the European Commission.