• Question: What will science answer in 100 years?

    Asked by haleemakhan to Anna, Chris, Jane, Iain, Nick on 7 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anna Middleton

      Anna Middleton answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      @haleemakhan. Good question, I have no idea where we’ll be in 100 years time. But I imagine that genetic disease will no longer exist as we would have figured out how to deliver gene therapies for every genetic condition. In one sense this sounds great, but in another, I worry – having diversity in the world makes the world an eclectic and interesting pleace. I worked for many people with Deaf sign language using adults who had a genetic deafness – I would not have missed that experience for the world, being deaf was their identy and their life and they had no problem with it.

    • Photo: Chris Cole

      Chris Cole answered on 8 Mar 2014:

      100 years is a very long time. Just think what life was like in 1914: no antibiotics, no TV, no internet, life expectancy was only around 50 years (now it’s about 80).

      I don’t think the changes in the next 100 years will be quite as dramatic. We do face some real challenges soon, though, such as climate change, increasing populations and the pressures on food, increasing resistance to antibiotics. Science and society together will be able to address these.

    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Great question. Some people say that the 20th century was the century of physics, and that the 21st century will be the century of biology. I agree with this. The amount we have learnt about life recently, and the speed we are learning about it, is absolutely astounding. I think our understanding of the human brain will revolutionise artificial intelligence and robotics, and that we will make bounds and leaps in fighting disease, as well as using engineered microorganisms to make fuels and new materials.

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