Practical nonsense

摘要

"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science." So wrote US astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1929, but was he right? How much should science be an exploration of the senses - as well as a test of knowledge and intellectual flexibility? Does a physics student need to peer through a telescope to grasp the enormity of the Universe? Must a potential chemist grapple with the tap of a titration flask to appreciate the subtleties of reaction synthesis? The UK government is about to take a massive -and massively misguided - gamble that they do not.