This is a forum dedicated to increasing interest in science education. It is sponsored by the World Mind Network, an organization dedicated to exploring new ways to use modern Web and Mobile tools to promote worthy efforts in conservation, education, sustainability, the arts, and social enterprise. It is co-led by Dr. Peter Doherty, a WMN Board member and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine. To get the discussion going, Dr. Doherty has written this piece outlining what he sees as the challenges the world faces which must be met by young people today.

With challenge comes opportunity
I’ve just been at the big Biovision meeting in Lyon, France, that seeks to promote the application of biotechnology and related science-based approaches to deal with issues in what we used to call the developing world. The talks I heard left me in no doubt that the problems faced by the poorer countries are enormous, and are being continually exacerbated by stresses resulting from uncontrolled population growth, environmental degradation and the spreading drought that seems to be a direct consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Where human numbers are not rising, that is happening in the cruelest possible way as a consequence of horrific diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria. We can’t expect human beings to limit family size if there is no reasonable prospect that their children will survive.
No matter what your area of interest, there is a great deal that needs to be done if we are to change this fatal equation. In the end analysis, we are all in the same boat on this small planet and we should be in no doubt that our future as a species is limited if we do not act to, for instance, preserve the CO2 sinks of the tropical rainforests. That’s the big challenge for young people, to build a fairer, healthier and more sustainable world that rewards the poor for the assets of minerals, land and forest that they hold. Whether your interest is in economics, medical research, engineering, energy, plant molecular science, international law or any other discipline that seeks to promote solutions, there is an enormous amount that has to be done. My conviction is that we will only solve these problems if we apply the best that the human intellect and science has to offer. We must change. Concerted action by committed young people has to be at the forefront of that process.

Peter Doherty, March 2009