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Content: an endeavour that is currently referred to as “sustainability”. Scientists often justify their work using these and similar arguments—currently linked to personal health and longer life expectancies, technological advancement, economic profits, and/or sustainability—in order to secure funding and gain social acceptance. They point out that most of the tools, technologies and medicines we use today are products or by-products of research, from pens to rockets and from aspirin to organ transplantation. This progressive application of scientific knowledge is captured in Isaac Asimov’s book, Chronology of science and discovery, which beautifully describes how science has shaped the world, from the discovery of fire until the 20thcentury. However, there is another application of science that has been largely ignored, but that has enormous potential to address the challenges facing humanity in the present day education. It is time to seriously consider how science and research can contribute to education at all levels of society; not just to engage more people in research and teach them about scientific knowledge, but crucially to provide them with a basic understanding of how science has shaped the world and human civilisation. Education could become the most important application of science in the next decades. “It is time to seriously consider how science and research can contribute to education at all levels of society…”
More and better education of citizens would also enable informed debate and decision-making about the fair and sustainable application of new technologies, which would help to address problems such as social inequality and the misuse of scientific discoveries. For example, an individual might perceive an increase in welfare and life expectancy as a positive goal and would not consider the current problems of inequality relating to food supply and health resources.