I would like to start quoting a sentence that sometimes is ascribed to Richard Feynman (he was one of the greatest physicists of the century and perhaps the most popular one). Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.

This phrase reflects very well the subjective passions of scientists. Science is a huge puzzle and every piece that is put in the right place opens up the possibility of placing others. In this gigantic mosaic, each scientist adds tiles, with the knowledge that he has made his contribution, and that when his name is forgotten, those who come after will also climb on his shoulders to see further. The more we explore the universe, the more we discover new regions to explore, each discovery allowing us to formulate so many new questions that previously we were unable to formulate.

But beyond these considerations, it is crucial for scientists to have fun trying to solve the puzzle. My teacher Nicola Cabibbo often said, when discussing what to do, “Why should we study this problem if we’re not having fun?” Often among scientists, there is almost an amazement at being paid to do the very thing you most want to do.

However, except in the rare cases in which the scientist was from a wealthy family and research was conducted during long periods of idleness (e.g. Pliny the Elder, Fermat), the scientists always had the problem of finding resources for living and the applications of science were essential for this purpose. Just think of one of the first sciences, in order of time, astronomy. It is difficult to imagine, now that we live in well-lit cities, the enormous prestige and power of those who controlled the flow of the seasons, the motion of the stars, and who knew how to predict the eclipses of the moon (not to mention the terrifying phenomenon that are the eclipses of the sun).

Even if the motivations of the patrons could only be cultural or of social prestige, certainly the importance of practical applications did not escape the scientists: for example, Galileo proposed to use the occultation of Jupiter’s satellites as a method to determine the absolute time without the need of precision clocks and then determine the latitude. Actually Galileo’s proposal was too complicated to be used in practice and the problem was finally solved in the next century with the precision chronometer which crowned more than a century of research.

With the passing of the years, science becomes more and more useful to society (economic development is based on scientific progress), but it also becomes more and more expensive and requires more and more complex facilities and organization. World War II marks the first stirrings of mass-based science (“big science”): Vannevar Bush coordinated the war efforts of six thousand American scientists and at the same time fifty thousand people worked on the construction of the first atomic bombs.

Science with its institutions needs to be funded by a society that doesn’t give a fig whether scientists have fun or not. This point of view was expressed very clearly by the Soviet delegation at the congress on the history of science and technology held in London in 1931. Bukharin (a political personality of the first rank, extremely popular in the USSR, who was later one of the most illustrious victims of the Stalinist purges) wrote that “the idea that science is an end in itself is naive: it confuses the subjective passions of the professional scientist, who works in a system of a very strict division of labor (…) with the objective social role of this kind of activity, as an activity of practical importance.”

All of us here realize that technological development is not possible without a parallel advancement of pure science. Pure science not only provides applied science with the necessary knowledge for development (languages, metaphors, conceptual frameworks), but it also provides another more hidden role of no less importance. Basic scientific activities also function as a gigantic circuit for testing technological products and stimulating the consumption of high-tech goods.

1 Science as Culture

Science must be defended not only for its practical aspects but also for its cultural value. We should follow the courageous example of Robert Wilson who, in 1969, in response to an American senator who insistently asked what the value was in building an accelerator at the Fermilab, near Chicago, and, in particular, if it was militarily useful to defend the country, replied “(…) It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with those things. It has nothing to do with the military. I am sorry. (…) Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending. (…)”.

To promote science as culture, it is necessary to make the population (at least the educated population) aware of what science is, and of how science and culture intertwine with each other, both in their historical development and in today’s practices. It is necessary to explain in a non-magical way what living scientists do, and what the challenges of our times are. It is not easy, especially in the hard sciences where mathematics plays an essential role. However, with some effort, excellent results can be achieved.

It is often said that the hard sciences are not easily understood by those who have not studied mathematics. But the same problem also exists with Chinese poetry, which is an inseparable mixture of literature and painting: the original manuscript of poetry is a picture where the individual Chinese ideograms are the pictorial elements that are represented each time differently. This pictorial dimension is completely lost in the translation and its beauty cannot be appreciated by those who do not know Chinese well. Just as it is possible to make people appreciate the beauty of Chinese poems in Italian, it is also possible to make people who do not know mathematics and have not studied science understand the beauty of hard sciences.

Now, it’s clear that we have to defend the culture on all fronts and we must avoid losing our ability to pass our culture to the next generation. If we lose our culture, what remains of our civilization?

2 The Refusal of Science

This deep integration between science and technology might suggest that science has a bright future in a society that is becoming increasingly dependent on advanced technology (the mobile phones widely used today can reach a computing capacity of hundreds of billions of arithmetic operations per second, like the mammoth supercomputers of twenty-five years ago).

Today the opposite seems to be true: there are strong anti-scientific tendencies in today’s society, the prestige of Science and the trust that has been placed in it are rapidly diminishing, astrological, homeopathic and anti-scientific practices are spreading widely, along with voracious technological consumerism. For example the NoVax movement before COVID or the denial of Xylella as the origin of the disease that struck the Apulian olive trees).

Now, we have also seen during COVID, the tragedies that happened to people that were negating COVID in denial. They refused to vaccinate despite millions of deaths. This came from the refusal of science.

It is not easy to fully understand the origin of this phenomenon: this mass distrust in science may also be due to a certain arrogance of scientists who present science as absolute wisdom, compared to other debatable knowledge, even when it is not the case. Sometimes, the arrogance is not in trying to bring to the public the available evidence, but in expecting an unconditional assent based on trust in experts.

The refusal to accept limitations can weaken the prestige of scientists, who sometimes flaunt unfounded excessive security; a stance which the public may somehow perceive as partial or limited. Sometimes bad propagators present scientific results almost as superior witchcraft, which is understandable only to a selected few. In doing so, non-scientists may be put in a position to take on an irrational viewpoint towards science which is perceived as inaccessible magic and therefore, in turn, have unreasonable expectations: if science becomes pseudo magic, why not choose the real magic rather than its surrogate?

But perhaps the current difficulties have deeper origins that must be understood in depth so that they can be counteracted. We are facing a period of pessimism concerning the future, originating from crises of different natures: economic crisis, global warming, depletion of resources, and pollution. In many countries, there are also increasing inequalities, insecurity, unemployment, and war. While it was once thought that the future would inevitably be better than the present, the faith in progress, in the magnificent and progressive fortunes of human beings has eroded: many fear that future generations will be worse off than the present ones. And just as science received the merit for progress, it now receives the blame for its decline (regardless of whether it is real or just perceived). Science is sometimes deemed to be a bad teacher who has led us in the wrong direction, and changing this perception is not easy. There is great dissatisfaction with all those who have led us into this situation and scientists do not escape reproach.

Science sometimes is deemed to be a bad teacher that leads us in the wrong direction. The change in this perception is not easy. We should not take for granted that the development of science is unstoppable: it is a mistake to think that technological development can always rely on scientific development. The Romans preserved Greek technology without much consideration for Greek science and the Christian fanatics, led by Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, quietly tore to pieces the body of mathematic-astronomer Hypatia, without worrying much about the long-term consequences, and indeed rejoicing at the disappearance of a profane knowledge, considered useless if not harmful.

3 The Future of Humanity

There are some practical consequences of science that are very, very important. Science is making great advances and many of the world’s problems could be solved using the tools of science put in front of us.

In these days humanity must make essential choices; it must stand firm against climate change. For decades, science has been warning us that human behavior was laying the groundwork for a dramatic increase in the temperature of our planet. Science alone is not enough. Political decisions are needed, especially on the part of the rich countries. We need to go beyond short-sighted national self-interest to solve global problems in the spirit of whatever it takes. COVID has taught us that we are all connected, and what happens in game markets or in the Amazon forest deeply affects all of us.

Unfortunately, the actions taken by governments have not been up to this challenge and the results so far have been extremely modest. In recent years, the effects of climate change are there for all to see: the floods, hurricanes, heat waves, and devastating fires of which we have been astonished spectators are a timid foretaste of what will happen in the future on a much larger scale. Now that climate change is beginning to affect people’s lives, there is perhaps a more resolute reaction, but we need much stronger measures and we must not limit ourselves to just saving our conscience. From COVID’s experience, we know that it is not easy to take effective measures in time. We have seen how often measures to contain the pandemic were taken late, only at the moment when they could no longer be postponed. I remember one head of government being told “we can’t do a lockdown before the hospitals are full, the citizens wouldn’t understand”.

We all know that the pitiful doctor made the festering sore: we have a duty not to be pitiful doctors. Our generation has to pass through a road full of dangers. It’s like driving at night: the science is the headlights, but then the responsibility to not go off the road lies with the driver who must also take into account that the headlights have a limited range.

Even scientists don’t know everything. It is laborious work during which knowledge is accumulated one after another and pockets of uncertainty are slowly eliminated. Science makes honest predictions on which a scientific consensus slowly forms. When the IPCF predicts that in an intermediate scenario of reduced greenhouse gas emissions the temperature could rise between 2.1 and 3.5 degrees, this range is what we can best estimate from current knowledge. However it must be clear to everyone that the correctness of climate models has been verified by comparing the predictions of these models with the past; if the temperature increases more than 2° we enter an unknown land where there can be other phenomena that we have not foreseen that can worsen enormously the situation: for example colossal forest fires like the Amazon that would introduce catastrophically enormous quantities of greenhouse gases, but when would they happen? The oceans are currently absorbing many of the greenhouse gases we emit, but will this phenomenon continue in an earth two degrees warmer? The temperature rise is not only controlled by direct emissions but is mitigated by a lot of regulatory mechanisms that could stop working as the temperature rises. While the 2° lower limit is something we can be pretty sure about, it is much harder to figure out what the most pessimistic scenario is: it could be much, much worse than what we imagine.

We are facing a huge problem that needs decisive interventions not only to stop the emission of greenhouse gases, but we also need scientific investments: we must be able to develop new technologies to conserve energy by transforming it into fuels, non-polluting technologies based on renewable resources: not only we must save ourselves from the greenhouse effect, but we must avoid falling into the terrible trap of the exhaustion of natural resources.

Energy saving is also a chapter that needs to be tackled decisively: for example, as long as the internal temperature of our homes remains almost constant between summer and winter, it will be difficult to stop emissions.

Blocking climate change successfully requires a monstrous effort by all: it is an operation with a colossal cost, not only financial but also social with changes that affect our lives. The policy must ensure that these costs are accepted by all: those who have used the most resources must contribute more, to affect the bulk of the population as little as possible; the costs must be distributed fairly and equitably among all countries: decency requires that the countries that currently affect the planet’s resources must make the greatest efforts.

4 Science and Peace

We must build ties, and bridges among people of different countries, and stress what unifies all human beings beyond nationalism. Science is a worldwide enterprise at it is very well suited. Of course, it takes time, but these are long time process and we have to think from a long-term perspective, which will be the situation 10–20 years from now.

This happened in the past. Europe is a cultural creation done by humanist philosopher scientists that created the European cultural space. Starting from the clerici vagantes (wandering clergy), the foundation of the Universities, Europe has been characterized by a class of highly cultivated people that were in contact among themselves, and moved from one place to the others. In this construction a very important role was played by the scientific academies that were founded in Europe (they still dominate the scientific scene) as the Accademia dei Lincei in 1603, the Royal Society in 1646, the Académie des Sciences in 1666. Let me mention also the American philosophical society that was founded in 1743. This Academy is particularly interesting, it was founded by Benjamin Franklin with the state of the purpose of promoting useful knowledge.

Much time later CERN was founded by 12 European countries in 1954, 3 years before the Rome treaty, where the European Economic Community was founded, with only 6 of the 12 countries of CERN. It is clear that science was ahead of politics also if we consider that many countries, also on the other side of the curtain wall participated in the experiments done at CERN.

Now, we have in recent times, we have seen the creation of Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), a remarkable laboratory, located in Jordan, that was founded by a few meddle Est countries: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority and Turkey, that have a quite different political stance.

Unfortunately not always science is being used for peace: it could be used for war as we have seen in the past. There are still problems at present. Let me recall a declaration of the Academic G7, that happened in Paris in 2019, where there was an important declaration on autonomous weapons signed by all the seven Academies.

AI opens new possibilities for military applications, particularly concerning weapon systems with significant autonomy in the critical functions of selecting and attacking targets. Such autonomous weapons might lead to a new arms race, lower the threshold for war or become a tool for oppressors or terrorists. Some organizations call for a ban on autonomous weapons, similar to conventions in the chemical or biological weapons realm. Such a prohibition would require a precise definition of weapons and autonomy. In the absence of a ban of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), the compliance of any weapon system with International Humanitarian Law should be guaranteed. These weapons should be integrated into existing command and control structures in such a way that responsibility and legal accountability remain associated with specific human actors. There is a clear need for transparency and public discussion of issues raised in this area.

This year we face an enormous tragedy, not only the military killed but also a large number of civilians. We are witness of an incredibly high number of refugees, so high I cannot compare with anything that I have seen. This tragedy should stop now, but we need also to think in the long term We are returning to cold war times and we have heard again the menace of using nuclear arms. Cold war, a confrontation that went on for more than 40 years, was not only cold, but it had also hot periods with millions of deaths. It and I think that now that cold war times are coming back, we should ask a very fundamental question. Why we are alive? Why we have not dyed in the Third War that could be unleashed?

Much of the credit comes from the realization that uncontrolled escalation must be avoided, and that it was essential that the armies of the Warsaw Pact and NATO did not clash militarily. One was and is in a situation of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in the case of the atomic war. We are still in the same situation, the 2000 or so strategic warheads of NATO and the 1600 Russian warheads are capable of completely devastating the northern hemisphere. It was crucial to defuse the conflicts before it came to an armed clash between the respective armies.

Science had a direct role in building peace. “Track II Diplomacy” had a very important role. The first example of this kind of diplomacy where Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Pugwash played a useful role in opening communication channels during a time of otherwise-strained official and unofficial relations. It provided background work to the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), the Biological Weapons Convention (1972), and the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993). Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has credited a backchannel Pugwash initiative with laying the groundwork for the negotiations that ended the Vietnam War. Mikhail Gorbachev admitted the influence of the organization on him when he was the leader of the Soviet Union. In addition, Pugwash has been credited with being a groundbreaking and innovative “transnational” organization and a leading example of the effectiveness of Track II diplomacy.

As you all know, Amaldi conferences are also another example of the effort in the same way as the “Colloquia on Science and Diplomacy” (program ideated by Wolfango Plastino) that our Academy, is organizing with great success from 2020.

I am very confident that the discussions here (without public) will be extremely useful in constructing a mutual understanding, as can be seen from the proceeding of the previous Amaldi conference and you will see from that the proceedings of this one.