Tonight Professor Sir Mark Walport will provide this year’s Royal College of Physicians Harveian Oration.
In this year’s oration Professor Sir Mark Walport discusses the relationship between science and human values, and that, ultimately as humans we are strongly driven by values.
He notes:
That if we are to achieve the maximum benefit from science and, in particular from advances in medical sciences, then we need to focus on the interactions between science and human values. And we need to start by recognising where science meets values and distinguishing arguments about science from arguments about values.
He will discuss the impact of innovation on the practice of medicine - areas of note include the effect of information technology, the role of science and values in medicine and the importance of the distinction between hazard and risk.
Professor Sir Mark Walport will also call upon the profession to play its part:
Humans find themselves between a rock and a hard place - between the growing impact of 7 billion humans on the planet and an increasing resistance to the acceptability of innovative solutions. We must play our part both as individuals and collectively as a profession... We should be proud of the value system that we have inherited from Harvey and the other great leaders and innovators of our profession.
The RCP’s Harveian Oration dates back to 1656. William Harvey, the eminent 17th Century physician who discovered the circulation of the blood, gave an indenture to the RCP in 1656 for an annual dinner to encourage friendship between Fellows and Members of the College at which there should be an oration 'with an exhortation to the Fellows and Members of the said College to search and study out the secret of Nature by way of experiment'. The RCP continues the tradition by inviting a leading doctor or scientist to give the Oration on issues relating to his or her own field of work.
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- The full speech is available below.
- Professor Sir Mark Walport was appointed government chief scientific adviser (GCSA) and head of the Government Office for Science in April 2013. He is honorary distinguished professor of medicine at Imperial College London. He has served on the prime minister’s Council for Science and Technology since 2004.