THE SILENCING OF SCIENCE

YOU might not have noticed, especially with all the great stuff on Netflix at the moment, but all hope finally died this month. And it was not a Priest or paramedic who uttered the last rites - it was Harrison Ford. Yes, delivering humanity's eulogy was a man whose legend is built on scowling through two days’ growth and looking good in a hat.

Harrison, ach let’s call him Han, had been receiving some made-up honour from the US Conservation Society when he schooled the assembled throng: “Today's greatest threat is not climate change, not pollution, not flood or fire. It’s that we've got people in charge of important s*** who don't believe in science."

Bold words from a man whose own entire contribution to science was starring in Blade Runner. Still, Han - or rather the assistant who cobbled together his speech - was right. The importance, prominence and influence of the scientific method is presently being systematically decimated in every industry-lobbied, bought and sold government across the planet. None more so than the Trump administration’s current cull of rational thought.

One of The Donald’s recent appointments, Head of the Department of Energy Rick Perry, isn't so sure about climate change. It also seems he believes fossil fuels can stop sex offenders. He recently enthused: “From the standpoint of sexual assault, when the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts… fossil fuels are going to play a role in that. I think it’s going to play a positive role.”

I did not make one word of that up. Then there’s the ironically-monikered US Environmental Protection Agency, whose head Scott Pruitt has just removed numerous scientists from his advisory committee and replaced them with representatives from various manky corners of the global energy industry.

Trump has also nominated his pal from Oklahoma, Jim Bridenstine, to be the new head of Nasa - a man with no background in science whatsoever. Apart from mibbie catching the last half hour of Apollo 13 on TV one night. And the President’s nominee to become chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture? Former talk radio host Sam Clovis, whose CV also lacks any scientific qualifications. He has, however, seen Field of Dreams and thought Neil Young was pretty rockin’ at Farm Aid.

It’s a battle even Han Solo can’t win - there’s not a scriptwriter alive who could convincingly pen a happy ending. They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn - but they clearly didn’t see the recent episode of This Morning where Amanda Holden asked astronaut Tim Peake if he had nicked anything while exploring the moon. We are at war, mass media is the battlefield and the prize is our minds. That Holden kept her job as a “journalist” tells us all we need to know about who is winning.

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PRAYING FOR ETERNAL LIFE

The Amish often look like they hail from another century – and as it turns out, many possibly do. It seems a rare genetic mutation discovered within one Amish community in deepest, darkest, eeriest Indiana has the ability to slow down the body’s ageing process.

In an example of real belt and braces science, researchers discovered carriers of the Serpine 1 gene lived over a decade longer than others within their village. Don’t feel too sorry for the non-carriers, they’ll still live about 40 years longer than the oldest man in Coatbridge.

As ever with these things, the discovery has Big Pharma rubbing its rubber gloved hands with glee, anticipating new treatments to combat ageing and prevent geriatric disorders such as heart disease and casual racism. Keeping us alive as shambling, decrepit shadows of our former selves is not an altruistic gesture, mind – it’s a pause on the inevitable for as long as our money lasts. There’s no profit in a cure – certainly not for death itself. Fear of oblivion makes the pharmaceutical world go round.

Thus, human trials are now underway at Tohoku University in Japan, testing drugs that allegedly reduce PAI-1 levels – a substance that builds up like skeletons in Hollywood stars’ closets and kickstarts the ageing process.

It’s raging against the dying of the light, of course. Epic lifespans are not something evolution sought to optimise in complex multi-cellular creatures. For one simple reason – offspring thrive without an older generation competing for resources. We exist solely to pass on complex chains of DNA as part of an ancient, unbroken chemical skin-bag lineage. Our family tree stretches three billion years, way back to the very first sexual act on Earth – I’d name the naughty pair but my search crashed ancestry.com.

For the time being, the continued existence of biological form is the only true immortality we can achieve. And unlike our long-lived Amish friends, it’s an endless genetic relay race that promises eternal life without the need for a pudding bowl haircut or dodgy kecks.

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WHEN YOUR MIND IS NOT YOUR OWN

YOU think, therefore you are. It’s often said that we are our memories – but surely we are also the facts that our brains choose to absorb over the years. That said, it’s often an inexplicably random grab-bag that pollutes our minds.

I can still recite most of Bob Dylan’s lyrics – and often do when intoxicated – yet the sole result of countless hours of high school German lessons is the ability to tell someone my name and ask them the time. Pointless, as I wouldn’t be able to understand their response.

Those with exceptionally sticky brains often become doctors, scientists, politicians, academics and artists. We others live in the world these people create. Soon, however, the purchase of a special “wizard’s hat” may help those of us who sometimes can’t remember why we’ve walked into the kitchen.

Quazillionaire futurist inventor Elon Musk – he of electric cars and Mars missions – has somehow found the time to start yet another company, Neuralink. This seems to be Musk’s attempt to stop humans becoming irrelevant in the age of AI – a fear he often publicly airs. In reality, he is a businessman promoting brand Musk as the friendly face of scary tech advances. And Neuralink’s “neural lace” certainly sounds terrifying.

This wizard’s hat of sorts will take the form of either an implant or appendage which is directly attached to the brain, allowing us to store extra memory, interact with devices by thought and even tap directly into the internet – upgrading our brains with all the facts, thoughts, cat videos and fake news that have ever existed.

But when everyone is an insufferable know-it-all, no-one will be an insufferable know-it-all. Intelligence and the ability to retain knowledge will have no currency in a fully homogenised society where people’s minds are as indifferentiable as tubs of Lurpak. Musk knows we’re well on the path already – classrooms full of pupils with no attention spans all Googling the same answer is just the beginning.

There doubtless will come a day where humans will be able to directly access everything that’s ever been thought, written, photographed or recorded. But it’s surely dangerous to wield knowledge without the appreciation, gratification and understanding which is gifted by study. Perhaps we’ll discover that it isn’t memories or retained facts that define us, but the gulfs of nothingness in between that give them space to breathe.