Address of the President Sir Andrew Huxley at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1982

Address of the President Sir Andrew Huxley at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1982Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 217, No.1207 (Jan. 22, 1983), pp. 117-128Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/35742 .

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Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 217, 117-128 (1983) Printed in Great Britain

Address of the President Sir Andrew Huxley

at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1982

Award of Medals 1982 The COPLEY MEDAL is awarded to SIR JOHN CORNFORTH, F.R.S.

Sir John's early research, conducted in Australia, was principally on natural products from plants. Later he came to work with Sir Robert Robinson at the

University of Oxford on the chemistry of penicillin and steroids. The latter research culminated, in 1951 and simultaneously with that of R. B. Woodward in the United States of America, in the first total synthesis of non-aromatic steroids. About the same time, Cornforth also described the use ofhecogenin starting-material for cortisone synthesis, and a new stereoselective general synthesis of olefines.

Subsequently, with G. Popjak, he made major contributions to the determination of the stereochemistry of reactions controlled by nicotinamide coenzymes. They also devised labelling methods to elucidate the stereochemistry of steroid and polyterpenoid biosynthesis, resulting in the definition in every detail of the stereochemistry of squalene biosynthesis. To do so, asymmetrically labelled mevalonates and, subsequently, asymmetrically labelled methyl groups were synthesized; this provided a technique to study the fine details and elucidate the stereochemistry of many enzymic reactions. In the 1950s Sir John also synthesized the mucopolysaccharide component, acetylneuraminic acid, and in the 1960s the plant hormone abscisic acid. At present, he is attempting to synthesize organic molecules specifically designed as enzyme-like catalysts of olefine hydration.

The RUMFORD MEDAL is awarded to PROFESSOR C.G. WYNNE, F.R.S., in

recognition of his unique contribution to the design of optical instruments, ranging from large telescopes to bubble-chamber optics.

Professor Wynne's major earlier work was in developing optical aberration theory and applying computer optimization techniques to the design of complex optical systems. He has led the subsequent worldwide activity in devising new forms of optical imaging systems and instrumentation. He has concentrated on optical systems for large telescopes and his instruments have greatly enhanced, in some cases revolutionized, the performance of optical telescopes at the world's major observatories. These instruments include field correctors to extend coverage; spectrographs of high efficiency and optical quality; and instruments for the Space Telescope and for the Hipparcos satellite. His achievements result from a high degree of expertise, together with an ability to find highly innovative solutions to longstanding problems.

A ROYAL MEDAL is awarded to PROFESSOR R. H. DALITZ, F.R.S., in recognition of his outstanding contributions to particle physics, particularly in relation to the properties of 'strange' particles.

5 [ 117 ] Vol. 217. B (22 January I983)



Anniversary Address by Sir Andrew Huxley, P.R.S.

Professor Dalitz is a theoretical physicist of great insights, yet remaining in close touch with experimenters. His early work predicted the production of certain electron-positron pairs ('Dalitz ' pairs) which were soon observationally confirmed. His analysis of kayon decays introduced the 'Dalitz plot' and the 'T-0 puzzle' which, in its resolution by Lee and Yang, demonstrated the non-conservation of parity in weak interactions. More recently he has studied decay modes of hypernuclei (those containing 'strange' particles), kayon nuclear physics generally and quark shell models in relation to baryon spectroscopy. In all his work he has had a profound and highly beneficial effect on the development of elementary particle physics and he continues to contribute constructively to the debates on new discoveries.

A ROYAL MEDAL is awarded to DR C. MILSTEIN, F.R.S., in recognition of his fundamental contribution to understanding the structure and genetic control of

immunoglobulins; his hybridoma technique for producing monoclonal antibodies has revolutionized the potential practical applications of immunology.

In his early work, Dr Milstein innovated techniques to elucidate many structural features of antibody molecules, including the identification of genes controlling the

synthesis of specific light chains and their variable regions. His work on cell cloning and fusion, to isolate mutants and to characterize immunoglobulin products, led to the discovery, with Kohler, that hybridomas between myeloma and normal

immunoglobulin-producing cells produced monoclonal antibodies of defined speci- ficity, in potentially unlimited amounts. The technique has revolutionized im-

munology and enormously expanded its potential application to practical clinical medicine. Monoclonal antibodies make possible high discrimination of features of cells and offer greatly improved immunodiagnostic techniques and drug and hormone assays; they can be used to isolate minor cell constituents, such as interferon and antigens; and reagents with specific cell affinities offer great promise for immunotherapy and drug targeting.

A ROYAL MEDAL is awarded to SIR WILLIAM HAWTHORNE, C.B.E., F.R.S., in

recognition of his outstanding contributions to engineering thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, and particularly the internal aerodynamics of turbomachines.

Sir William's work is characterized by his ability to develop mathematical models of practical flows and then to obtain elegant solutions. He was associated with Whittle in the development of the combustion system for the jet-propulsion engine, and then worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on gas dynamics. His classic results for one-dimensional compressible flow are widely used in the design and performance analysis of gas turbine and jet engines. Subsequently he concentrated on the internal aerodynamics of turbomachinery and in particular on secondary flow (rotation of fluid about the primary streamlines), becoming the major authority in this field. On moving to Cambridge University he continued his research with studies of flow through actuator discs, inviscid flows in cascades and unsteady flows. His most recent work is concerned with the full three- dimensional design of compressor and turbine blading to meet prescribed changes of tangential velocity and therefore of work input or output.

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The DAVY MEDAL is awarded to PROFESSOR M. J. S. DEWAR, F.R.S. Professor Dewar has been enormously influential in developing the theory of

organic chemistry. He has combined, with great success, the intellectual predictions of the theoretical chemist with the experimental art of the organic chemist. In this way he explained the chemistry of stipitatic acid and colchicine on the basis of a new aromatic structure, the tropolone ring; he predicted the stability of tropylium salts, and synthesized them; he generalized the concept of benzenoid aromaticity which he demonstrated in borazaro ring systems. His experimental studies have included aromatic substitution in relation to electronic structure, the mechanism of aromatic and heteroaromatic rearrangements, and the stereochemistry of hydrogen halide addition to olefines. His theories, particularly on the mechanisms of chemical reactions and reactivities based on semi-empirical calcu- lations, are always stimulating and have influenced both theoretical and practical chemists. His theory of the concept of 7-complexes created a new perspective on a large body of observations, while his theory of the stereochemistry of pericyclic reactions has questioned the completeness of the current accepted theory of orbital symmetry.

The DARWIN MEDAL is awarded to PROFESSOR J. HESLOP-HARRISON, F.R.S., and DR (Mrs) YOLANDE HESLOP-HARRISON, in recognition of their major contributions to plant physiology, including fundamental studies on incompatibility and on insectivorous plants, much of this research having been carried out jointly.

The Heslop-Harrisons, with their colleagues, were able to identify the gametophytic and sporophytic domains within pollen grains and established the role of certain proteins and glycoproteins in the gametophytic and sporophytic incom-

patibility systems within plants. Recognition of these systems had emerged from Darwin's extensive work on breeding systems in plants and on the inheritance of

self-sterility. Their later work concentrated on studies of the stigmatic surfaces and their reactions with the pollen grain. These studies have greatly advanced our

understanding of the many and subtle controls on breeding systems and have

implications for understanding pollen allergies. Similar processes of recognition, rapid response and release of enzymes are

involved in the capture and digestion of prey by insectivorous plants. The

Heslop-Harrisons showed how these were accomplished, in work of great breadth of approach and elegance of technique.

The BUCHANAN MEDAL is awarded to SIR FREDERICK WARNER, F.R.S., in recognition of his important role in reducing pollution of the River Thames and of his significant contributions to risk assessment.

Sir Frederick is a distinguished chemical engineer with great regard for the social

consequences arising from developments in engineering. He has been involved in major schemes for controlling pollution and improving the environment, including leading the team that advised on cleaning up the Thames. As Chairman of the Department of the Environment Standing Technical Committee on Synthetic Detergents he persuaded industry to adopt biologically degradable straight-chain compounds for detergents. Overseas he was responsible for the chemical engineering

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aspects of the Teheran water-treatment plant, he advised on treatment to reduce the fluoride levels of the Nile Delta waters, and has advised on industrial pollution problems in India. He has been a member of the Royal Commission on Environ- mental Pollution and the Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea. As an assessor in the 1977 Windscale enquiry he contributed to ideas of risk assessment

and, more recently, he has been involved in methods to assess potential hazards in genetic engineering.

The SYLVESTER MEDAL is awarded to PROFESSOR J. F. ADAMS, F.R.S., in recognition of his solution of several outstanding problems of algebraic topology and of

the methods he invented for this purpose, which have proved of prime importance in the theory of the subject.

Professor Adams's main creation was a technique, termed the Adams spectral

sequence, which significantly simplified aspects of the study of homotopy theory

(the geometric study of deformations) to the more computable area of homology theory (the algebraic counterpart of homotopy theory). To develop the technique Professor Adams built upon and brought together earlier work by Steenrod, Whitehead and others in a bold combination of geomnetrical and algebraic ideas.

Shortly afterwards he developed these ideas to solve a famous and difficult problem of Hopf. His studies have also included the more general problem of vector fields on spheres, relations between linear and nonlinear maps (in which he put forward

a notable conjecture subsequently to be solved by Quillen and Sullivan), maps between the classifying spaces for Lie groups, the cohomology of finite Hopf spaces, and, in his current work, the deep Segal conjecture.

The HUGHES MEDAL is awarded to DR D. H. MATTHEWS, F.R.S., and PROFESSOR F. J. VINE, F.R.S., in recognition of their elucidation of the magnetic properties of the ocean floors, which subsequently led to the plate tectonic hypothesis.

In the 1950s it was observed that parallel strips of the Pacific floor showed linear

magnetic anomalies. The phenomenon remained unexplained until 1963, when Matthews and Vine, who had found the anomaly pattern to be symmetrically distributed about the oceanic ridge in the Pacific and other ocean floors, proposed the hypothesis of volcanic eruption at the ridges and the spreading to either side of volcanic rock bearing the magnetic signature of the direction of the Earth's

magnetic field at the time of eruption. The hypothesis showed the reality of sea-floor

spreading, the way in which oceans grow and a means to measure the growth. It

explained continental drift and led directly to the theory of plate tectonics. It established a geomagnetic time-scale of field reversals going back more than 150 million years, both providing methods of dating the ocean floor and revealing important aspects of the history of the Earth's field.

The MULLARD MEDAL is awarded to MR M. F. WOOD, MR J. M. WOODGATE and DR P. E. HANLEY, in recognition of their development, manufacture and marketing of advanced superconducting magnet systems, in recent years particularly systems for nuclear magnetic resonance (n.m.r.) spectroscopy and low-loss cryostats. As

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a result they have established Oxford Instruments Ltd as the leading supplier of these systems throughout the world.

Under their direction - Mr Wood, founder and chairman; Mr Woodgate, man-

aging director; Dr Hanley, technical director - Oxford Instruments has worked

closely with U.K. research organizations, including universities, and exploited complementary R & D to establish and maintain world leadership in the

technology of superconducting magnets for research laboratories. Their latest n.m.r. magnets using niobium-tin conductors provide fields up to 12 tesla, resolutions better than I part in 109 and field decays less than 1 part in 108 per hour. New low-loss cryostats improve on previous performance by a factor of 10; these developments are important in broadening the application of superconducting magnets.

The turnover of Oxford Instruments is about ?7.5 M, of which 95 % relates to

exports to some 35 countries; 80 % of exports are to companies in Japan, Germany and the U.S.A., where the magnets are incorporated into spectrometers which are then sold internationally. Over 25 % of the Company's employees have tertiary education in science or technology; this, together with good relations with the academic world, has been instrumental in the Company's very successful record of converting results of research into commercially successful products.

Anniversary Address 1982

In September of this year I visited Rome in order to take part in two meetings. Both of these raised questions of a very general nature about the scope of the activities that should be undertaken by a body such as the Royal Society.

The first of these meetings was a celebration of the bicentenary of the foundation of one of the Italian scientific academies, the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei Quaranta. After an opening session at which presidents or other

representatives of national scientific academies from all parts of the world

presented addresses of congratulation, the meeting consisted of a symposium on 'The role of academies of sciences in the year 2000'. The second meeting, which was timed so as to take advantage of the presence in Rome of so many scientists in notable positions, was convened by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to

prepare a final version of a document, already in draft, concerning nuclear warfare, that was to be presented to the Pope.

The symposium on the role of academies inevitably brought out the very great differences that exist between the ranges of tasks undertaken by the national scientific academies of different countries. The Akademia Nauk of the U.S.S.R., and the academies of the countries of Eastern Europe that are modelled on it, form a class apart. Like the governments of those countries, they are highly centralized; indeed they are arms of government at the same time as being scientific academies, and they control aspects of science for which responsibility in this country is divided between the research councils, a number of Government departments, private and nationalized industry, and non-governmental bodies of which the chief is the Royal Society. Further, they regulate matters such as visits abroad and the

participation by scientists in international congresses which in Western countries are largely left in the hands of individual scientists.

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Leaving aside this rather homogeneous group of Academies, there are almost unlimited variations, due largely to historical accident on the one hand and to the availability - or otherwise - of funds on the other. The differences are mainly in the range of practical - and expensive - tasks that are undertaken: direct support of scientists, either individually or through institutes; promotion of foreign visits and exchanges; and membership of international organizations. Most academies also undertake activities that are not very expensive or may even make a profit, such as holding scientific meetings and publishing journals. But all of these are activities that can also be carried out by bodies other than national academies, such as Government departments or research councils, and specialist scientific societies, and, as I have said, it is largely a matter of historical accident and availability of funds that determine how these activities are shared out in each country. But there is another set of activities, which one might call moral as opposed to practical, which it is peculiarly the duty of a national academy to perform. These are activities which can only be performed by an independent body of respected scientists; they include such things as informing the public, and giving advice to the Government, on scientific matters which have practical implications, and, on the other side, expressing the views of scientists on matters which may promote or restrict the advance of science. Many of these 'moral' activities were well expressed in an epigram pronounced at this Bicentenary meeting in Rome by Professor P. Jacquinot, President of the Academie des Sciences at Paris, when he said that a national scientific academy should be 'the conscience of science and the scientific conscience of the nation'.

Inevitably, these 'moral' activities deal with issues of which science is only one out of many aspects. They therefore raise the perennial and thorny question how far should an academy - the Royal Society in particular - extend its interests, and its discussions and expressions of opinion, beyond the strictly scientific and technical sphere ? Any matter of public importance is likely to have aspects which are individual value judgements, or which are essentially political in the sense that they depend on weighing the advantages and disadvantages of a particular course of action to different nations or to different sections of the population of a single nation. Science as we know it today cannot help in resolving these differences, and most scientists would agree that their own views on such matters do not deserve more consideration than the views of other educated people, and that a body claiming to represent scientific opinion ought not to express firm opinions on such aspects.

To adopt such an attitude is not mere pusillanimity. One specific reason for not making pronouncements on non-scientific issues is that much of the public is perfectly capable of recognizing that we are then pretending to an authority that we are not entitled to claim, and we shall therefore lose the credibility that we need when speaking on matters within our competence. The other specific reason I have in mind is that there is a substantial chance that scientists' opinions on such matters may actually turn out to be wrong, and that we may do harm because of the respect that is still accorded to scientists, despite the tendency to blame us for all the ills of the world. Scientists as such are not practised in judging the reactions of human beings to decisions which affect their interests in complex ways; fortunately, science still operates for the most part on a basis of openness and

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mutual trust which is quite unlike the basis of national or international politics or even of competitive industry.

Even if most scientists will agree that some aspects of public questions are so

purely political that scientists as such should not pronounce on them, the problem is that we are not dealing with matters that fall naturally into two categories, the scientific or technical on the one hand and the political on the other. There is a

spectrum, and different people give widely different answers to the question just where the line should be drawn. Evidently, if we draw it too near the scientific end, we shall sometimes fail in our duty of giving opinions that would be both valuable and justifiable. But this statement is comparable to the remark made by Mr Rushworth in Mansfield Park that Jane Austen describes as 'the sort of self-evident

proposition which many a clearer head does not always avoid': it amounts to no more than a definition of the words 'too near'. It will remain a matter of individual

judgment where the line should be drawn; if anything, I have the impression that I draw it a little nearer to the political end of the spectrum than the majority of

my fellow members of Council. This question whether, and how far, a body like the Royal Society should extend

its activities beyond the strictly scientific and technical arises perhaps most acutely in connection with nuclear weapons. Clearly there are important aspects of nuclear warfare that fall within the scientific and technical sphere: the scale of damage to be expected if nuclear weapons were to be used in attacks of various magnitudes; long-term effects of major nuclear war, for example on world climate or on living organisms; the effectiveness of battlefield nuclear weapons against tanks; and so on. But numerous and elaborate studies of these questions have already been made, and everyone already knows that the consequences of major nuclear war would be devastating. The really crucial questions before us are not of a scientific kind: how to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons being used, and if they are used, how to prevent escalation to major nuclear war.

As I told you at the beginning of this address, I did accept an invitation from Professor C. Chagas, President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, to take part in a meeting convened by that body to prepare a document on nuclear weapons. This was the second of the two meetings in Rome that I attended in September. It was clear from the outset that it was not to be confined to scientific and technical issues. A steering committee had already met twice and had prepared a draft which was sent out with the invitations to take part in the September meeting. This draft

naturally contained statements of a technical kind, drawing attention to the

devastating consequences of nuclear war and to the impracticability of any effective defence against attacks on cities with nuclear weapons. But it centred on a call to all nations to take various steps aimed at avoiding the use of nuclear

weapons, and this part of the draft was squarely in the field of international politics and not in that of science.

The Officers and I had serious doubts whether it was appropriate for scientists as such to make public statements on such questions. Nevertheless, we agreed that on balance it was right that I should take part, not least because we did not approve of several features of the draft, and we recognized that the only way to try to

improve it was for me to accept the invitation. In the end, the meeting at the Pontifical Academy produced a document that

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all present felt able to put their names to - as individuals, not as representatives of the academies or other bodies of which many of us were presidents or other officers. No doubt, each of us had reservations on particular passages of the document, but if so they were not serious enough to prevent any of us from signing. It is perhaps remarkable that a statement which does not consist only of platitudes should have been agreed by such a range of scientists, who had not been selected for a particular attitude towards nuclear weapons, and who came from 'East and west and south and north': from the U.S.S.R. as well as the U.S.A., from

developing as well as developed countries, and from nations that do not possess nuclear weapons as well as those that do. Whether a document of this kind will in fact achieve anything towards avoiding nuclear war is of course another

question. It has been presented to the Pope, as was the original intention in

preparing the document, and no doubt His Holiness will make use of it in future

approaches to world leaders. It has been made public, at least in a number of countries - in Britain through mention in the Royal Society News and through distribution by the Royal Society to the Press, and other media, of the document itself and of a press release. One way and another, I think it will contribute

something towards creating an atmosphere in which the avoidance of a nuclear

conflagration is recognized as an overriding objective. But I think it relevant to the general question whether scientists as such ought to involve themselves in the

political aspects of matters of this kind that I wish to say that in my view the draft that had been prepared at the preliminary meetings would have been more likely to do harm than good if it had been adopted and published. Its emphasis was

entirely on urging a policy of 'no first use of nuclear weapons'; it said little about avoidance of armed conflict between nuclear powers and nothing at all about

avoiding escalation to major nuclear war in the event that a nuclear weapon has been used - two steps in what is widely regarded as the most likely way in which

large-scale nuclear warfare could come about, and which I consider to be at least as important as 'no first use'. As a result, the draft seemed to imply, first, that war with conventional weapons is acceptable, and, second, that once an enemy has used even a small nuclear weapon on a battlefield, it is acceptable to retaliate with a full-scale nuclear attack on his cities - two outrageous propositions which, if

generally accepted, would clearly increase the risk of major nuclear war. I do not for a moment suppose that either of these implications was intended by the authors of the draft; presumably they are accidental consequences of an excessive concentration on the first use of nuclear weapons, at the expense of attention to other steps on the way to major nuclear war.

The other feature of the draft that I regarded as tending to increase the risk of nuclear war was a ' call on all nations to pledge never to :be the first to use nuclear

weapons'. If such pledges could be completely trusted, they would of course mean that nuclear warfare would never begin. But if such pledges were trusted, they would also destroy such value as nuclear weapons possess as deterrents against starting a war with conventional weapons. And if war did break out between nuclear powers, I do not believe that a nation on the point of being overrun by an enemy would be deterred by a pledge from using nuclear weapons as a last resort if it believed that it could thereby stave off defeat. So the risk of nuclear warfare

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would probably be increased by a pledge of no first use. The final version of the document that was agreed in Rome, I am glad to say, omits the words 'to pledge' so that it 'calls on all nations never to be the first to use nuclear weapons' - a very different matter.*

I have spoken about these pronouncements on nuclear war at some length because they illustrate the point that when scientists step far outside their own

sphere of expertise, they are liable - probably just as liable as non-scientists - to make judgements that are actually wrong. This conclusion does not depend on

assuming that I am right in thinking that the draft prepared at the preliminary meetings would have been actively damaging: I readily admit that it may be the other way round and that it may be I who am misjudging the possible effects of a 'pledge of no first use' and of concentrating on 'first use' at the expense of efforts to avoid conventional war in the first place or escalation from small-scale to major nuclear war. Either way, one scientist or another was making a wrong judgement, and the methods that we are accustomed as scientists to using in order to resolve our uncertainties are not available in such an instance.

Another matter on which the Royal Society is often pressed to take up a more conspicuous public position is the harsh treatment of certain scientists in the U.S.S.R. I expressed my personal view on some aspects of this matter in my Address as President of the British Association in 1977. Earlier in that same year, the Council of the Institute of Physics had sent a memorandum to the Royal Society, urging the Royal Society not merely to protest to the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. but to enforce that protest by the threat of terminating their

programme of exchange visits between scientists of the two countries. The Royal Society declined to take such action; I said in my address to the British Association that I was clear that the Royal Society was right in this, and I still take the same view. I went on to say 'These victims of oppression, not only in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and other Iron Curtain countries but also in some South American countries and elsewhere, are suffering not for their scientific opinions but for political acts unrelated to the fact that they are scientists.. . The persecutions of the present day . .are directed against individual citizens who have had the

courage to speak up against oppressive features of the regimes under which they live.' I do not regard the scientific community in the countries in question as responsible for these acts of oppression, but it is the scientific community that would suffer if scientific exchanges were restricted by way of protest. And not only the scientific communities in the countries which are our partners in these exchanges: it has to be admitted that British scientists in general pay much less attention than they should to scientific work in the U.S.S.R., and curtailment of our exchange programmes could only make this position worse. Science is an international activity; one of the chief duties of a national scientific academy such

* An editorial article in Nature of 4 November 1982 (vol. 300, p. 2) has criticized the Pontifical Academy's document as if it had called for a 'declaration of no first use', and I have replied pointing out that the document does not contain any such call (Nature, 11 November 1982, vol. 300, p. 102). I drafted my Anniversary Address before Nature's editorial appeared, and I made no subsequent changes to the paragraphs referring to the Pontifical Academy's meeting and document.

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as the Royal Society is to foster international cooperation in science; and I find it difficult to imagine a situation in which it would be right for us to sacrifice international cooperation between individual scientists in the hope of persuading the government of another country to change its internal policies. It would be a different matter if it were scientists themselves who were responsible for the

persecutions, as was the case in the purge of Mendelian geneticists that took place after Lysenkoism had been established by the joint meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1948, and in the less widely known purge of physiologists which was set in train in 1950 when a joint session of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. with the

Academy of Medical Sciences (i 95 1) called for a 'united front to defend Pavlov's materialist teachings against the reactionary assaults of men like Sherrington, Lashley, Fulton and other Western idealist physiologists'; fortunately for physiology and for many Soviet physiologists, however, this purge had affected only a few individuals before it was brought to an end by the death of Stalin.

Even without restrictions on exchange schemes, however, the oppressive treatment of scientists regarded as dissidents in the U.S.S.R. is harming scientific

interchange between that country and Britain. The sums made available annually under our agreement with the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences for visits by British scientists to the U.S.S.R. are not being anything like fully taken up, and it is clear that an important reason for this is the reluctance of individual scientists to spend time in the U.S.S.R. because of the oppression in that country of dissident scientists, the refusal of permission to Jewish scientists to emigrate to Israel, and

recently the revoking of the academic degrees of certain individuals. In May of this year the Royal Society received a delegation from the U.S.S.R. Academy of

Sciences, headed by one of its vice-presidents, and we took the opportunity of

putting this point forcefully to them. The first point in their reply was that

permission to leave the country was refused only to a very small proportion of those who applied (which I believe to be true). Their second point was that the actions we complained of were not the responsibility of the Academy of Sciences (probably also true, though the Academy must have considerable influence, which it could use in individual cases). Their third point was that we were not fully informed of the reasons why permission to emigrate had been refused in certain instances and

why punishments were being inflicted in others; they offered to investigate the cases of any individuals we might specify by name and to send us details. Our Foreign Secretary wrote in June naming thirteen scientists who, according to our information, were being subjected to various forms of punishment, five who had been refused permission to emigrate, and three who had been prevented from

attending scientific meetings in the U.K. -A reply to this letter was at last received in early November, but it falls far short

of what we had been promised. Seventeen of the twenty-one scientists named in our letter are not even mentioned, and I take this as a tacit admission that in most or all of these instances there is no respectable excuse that can be put forward as

justification of the treatment they have been given. Three cases are presented as

'examples' of the reasons for the treatment of which we complained: it is stated that Aleksandr Lerner has been refused permission to emigrate to Israel 'for reasons of national security (including knowledge of classified and defence material)'

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though I find it difficult to accept this as a justification since it is now eleven years since he was removed from his post at the Institute of Control Sciences, Moscow, for applying for leave to emigrate; V. Kislik is said to have 'committed petty crimes and suffered the punishment ordained by law', but nothing is said about

deprivation of his degrees which is the matter we complained of in his case; and of Y. Orlov, a supporter of Sakharov's group, it is said that he was 'tried for acts

having the express intention of damaging the Soviet Union politically'. Most of the letter from the Academy of Sciences, however, is devoted to the case

of Academician Andrei Sakharov himself, who was named in the Royal Society's letter as being 'persecuted for his work in Defence of Human Rights'. No one can

deny that Sakharov has mate outspoken criticisms of the restrictions on individual freedom and initiative in the U.S.S.R., or that these have been published in the West, for example in the book Sakharov speaks ( 974), or that he has been allowed to retain the position and privileges of an Academician. The Academy's letter however describes his exile to Gorki and the restrictions on his contacts with

foreigners as 'comparatively mild measures' in relation to 'his actions, which had the aspect of crimes against the State', emphasizing his opposition to the Soviet Union's international policies regarding arms control rather than his criticisms of the illiberal internal regime in the U.S.S.R., which most in the West believe to be the real reason for the restrictions put on his movements and contacts and for the more severe treatment given to many of his supporters.

In my first draft of this address, written before we received the reply from the Academy of Sciences, I wrote: 'It is my guess, however, that the problem goes deeper than ignorance of the particular grounds of complaint against each individual, and that we shall feel just as dissatisfied after receiving a reply as we do now.' This guess has indeed turned out to be correct. The fundamental disagreement concerns the way in which particular actions are regarded: a degree of dissent, or of public criticism of the system, which would be acceptable in a Western country, is regarded in the U.S.S.R. as 'anti-Soviet activity' and is treated much as treason would be treated in Britain or the U.S.A. The same applies to the treatment of Jews who have applied for permission to emigrate: this action in itself seems to be regarded as justifying dismissal from a job or revoking of degrees, and the U.S.S.R. does not recognize any of the statements of human rights which lay down that any person should have the right to leave the country of which he is a citizen. The position of Jews who wish to emigrate is in many cases exacerbated by the widespread discrimination that is practised against them in the U.S.S.R., driving them to forms of protest which in turn are regarded as additional justification for refusing permission to emigrate.

Each of us can no doubt name many countries whose regimes he disapproves of for one reason or another, and the question how far we should cooperate with the governments, or the citizens, of those countries arises in many contexts as well as in science: conspicuous examples are competitive sport, and international trade especially where modern high technology is involved, and there is pressure to politicize ever more of the spheres of human activity. These questions are never clear-cut: their answers depend on judging the weight that should be given on the one hand to the good that international cooperation may do in each particular case, and on the other hand to the support, material or moral, that such cooperation

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128 Anniversary Address by Sir Andrew Huxley, P.R.S.

may give to the regime in question. Different answers are given by different individuals; the same individual will give different answers on different issues; and - as I said in connection with the risk of nuclear warfare - these are questions that cannot be resolved by the methods which as scientists we are accustomed to

rely on. My own position is partly defined by the fact that I have thought it proper today to express publicly my own feelings, and what I believe to be the feelings of many British scientists, about the treatment of scientists in the U.S.S.R. who in one way or another have expressed criticism of the regime. In this I am taking the same position as did my predecessor Lord Todd (i980) in his address nearly three years ago at the Scientific Forum held in Hamburg to follow up the declaration of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Conference. As regards the upper limit of responses that I myself would regard as appropriate, I have already said that this limit falls short of

wishing to curtail the exchange visits of scientists that we operate with the

Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., just as we do with many other countries. It also falls far short of the refusal of visas to bona fide scientists wishing to attend international scientific meetings: when, in August of this year, the Australian Commonwealth Government refused visas to the two most senior Soviet scientists

wishing to attend the International Congress of Biochemistry at Perth, Western Australia, I protested in a strongly worded telegram to the Commonwealth Prime Minister. (This refusal was not specifically aimed against science but was the

operation of rules that had been made by way of protest against Soviet actions in Afghanistan; I am glad to say that the Commonwealth Government has now

given assurances that, in future, multilateral scientific conferences will be exempted from the strict operation of those rules, and these assurances have been accepted by the International Council of Scientific Unions.) I do not think I am able to state

my own position more precisely than I have done by telling you of one action that I have judged appropriate and two that I have not: judging how one would react to some hypothetical intermediate situation is notoriously unreliable.

As is the case at all times for all Presidents, I have throughout the year been

continuously indebted to my fellow Officers and to the devoted staff of the Society. The way in which so many of the latter devote their lives to the Society is illustrated by the fact that a couple of months ago our Executive Secretary, Ronald

Keay, completed twenty years in the service of the Society, and he celebrated the occasion by throwing a party for the members of our staff who were already here - or rather, at Burlington House - before he joined us, and they numbered no less than seventeen; among them I will name only Mr W. G. Evans, head of our editorial staff, as he will be leaving in a few months' time when he reaches the retiring age after being with us for thirty-five years. Long may we be so well served.

REFERENCES

Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.; Academy of Medical Sciences of the U.S.S.R. I95I Scientific session on the physiological teachings of Academician I. P. Pavlov, June 28-July 4 1950, p. 17. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Sakharov, A. D. 1974 Sakharov speaks. London: Collins & Harvill Press. Todd, Lord 1980 Royal Society News, no. 2, March 1980, pp. 5-6.



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Address of the President Sir Andrew Huxley at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1982

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