MRC-PEN event
Wednesday 1 July 2009
The second annual MRC-PEN debating event took place on the evening of 1 July 2009; attracting almost 200 attendees from across the scientific and literary communities.
The MRC and English PEN are engaged in a long-term partnership to unite the ‘two cultures’ of science and literature. This year’s event focused on creative tensions; the challenges scientists and writers experience on their creative journeys and how these are overcome to achieve long-term success.
Panellists were novelist, biographer and critic Dame Margaret Drabble, Nobel Prize winner Sir John Sulston, novelist Andrew O'Hagan and MRC Toxicology Unit Professor Giovanna Malluci. Lisa Appignanesi, President of English PEN, chaired the event.
Pictured clockwise from top left: Andrew O'Hagan, MRC Chief Executive Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Sir John Sulston, Professor Giovanna Malluci, Lisa Appignanesi, and Dame Margaret Drabble.
Dame Margaret spoke of the pressure to conform and write safely as the most damaging block to her creativity. The fear of causing appropriation and offence as a writer is huge. Writers did not foresee the disabling sensitivity towards race and religious issues, which is perhaps comparable to areas such as animal testing in medical research. There is a literary battle between cowardice and exhibitionism. Dame Margaret fears causing pain or outrage in her work. She now thinks long and hard about these issues before writing and her work has suffered for this, in her own words, she has become “too polite”.
Sir John echoed Dame Margaret’s comments, noting that science readily ignites public opinion. Science exists to do good but is also an intrinsic part of our culture. It is probably “the greatest driver of human culture that we know” as it has the power to change our own perceptions and devastate the opinions of the day. Science is at the heart of how we perceive ourselves and provides a feed for the humanities. Scientists must be free to discover without censorship as there is so much to find out. The direction of science is for everyone to determine, not just scientists or their funders.
Andrew O'Hagan shared his lifelong connection with science through family experiences. His view was that our generation has seen science and the arts become vastly separated; with scientists feeling like outsiders to the creative enterprise, and a correctness and taboo which kept writers away from the topic of science. However science is at the heart of our lives and “has always been at the very centre of my literary imagination,” he said. The fantasy world of science fiction used to act as a block to the marriage of the two cultures. However it is now seen as a door to a literary imagination fuelled by the changes that science has brought to society.
Giovanna said that scientists’ careers are built on written communication, particularly through research publications. Although scientists are not censored as in the literary world, Giovanna spoke about “a political correctness that cramps creativity”. There is also pressure for all research to have a pre-determined outcome with clear health benefits. Unlike novelists, scientists must express their creativity through others. As you acquire seniority, you become more of a manager and less of an individual. The responsibility to your team limits risk-taking but also creates energy and ideas that ultimately lead to catalytic scientific advances.
The annual MRC-PEN event serves to promote MRC science and medical research though channels not normally used. It reaches out to a wider audience of the public, journalists and other stakeholders with messages about medical research and its benefits, and about the lives of our scientists. The event also provides our scientists with the opportunity to expand their skills in communicating science and their work to the layperson and the media, and to gain advice and inspiration from the literary community.