BIOLS celebrates 30 years of breaking barriers
But one-sided Arts/Science is "a bloody disgrace" says Maynard-Smith
Thirty years of teaching and research were celebrated by BIOLS on Saturday 15th November, with speeches at the Gardner Centre and a party with exhibits in the refectory. There was quite a spread of opinion, however, about the age of the school, which first opened its doors to students in 1965, but had its official opening four years later. The choice of 1997 seemed a reasonable bit of scientific approximation (plus or minus two years) and gave a chance for a tribal 'counting' of those who had survived from the early days. These included a complete run of presiding Deans and a continuity of Building Managers.
The proceedings were started by the present Dean, Tony Moore, who showed Colin Atherton's alternative slide collection. This is normally kept safely locked away as it shows members of the School when they were young and serious - a sort of Dorian Gray in reverse.
Next came the keynote speech by founding Dean, John Maynard Smith, who, like Dick Whittington held the top job more than once. When the School was set up, he said, the University was committed to the breaking of barriers between disciplines, something which Sussex has mostly done rather well. Few remember now that most universities used to have separate departments of botany, zoology, genetics and biochemistry, with professors who talked to each other as little as possible. According to John, good collaboration, like sex, depends on a combination of proximity and personal chemistry. Sometimes, he elaborated, partners, who seem totally unsuitable, manage to co-operate productively. In BIOLS, creative tensions have flourished and unplanned but vigorous offspring have grown up as the result of the academic mating of neuroscientists, evolutionists, ecologists, molecular biologists, geneticists, developmental biologists and cognitive scientists. COGS itself seems to have originated in this way and is now remating with BIOLS in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics. The important thing is to create conditions in which bright young people can collaborate. It is a mistake to underestimate the vital importance of a good central coffee room.
Some barriers have come down, but others have been resurrected. It is "a bloody disgrace", John said, that Arts has dropped the science-for-arts component of the Arts/Science scheme and an absolute scandal that people can study psychology without genetics. He also expressed concern at the steady decline in the mathematical competence of the BIOLS intake and therefore in their ability to make use of mathematical ideas in biology.
It is a fault of the elderly, he said, to wish to give advice. So, to the usual advice (don't get it right, get it written and never repeat a successful experiment) he would add something a bit more personal. Never work in a subject where other clever people are working. Realise that the most important things you know are what other people in your field don't know. Be willing to change your mind and to believe you may be wrong. As Cromwell once said " I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken".
In reply, Sir David Attenborough talked about the excitement brought to biology and to popular science by the developments of the past 30 years and thanked Sussex for its contribution. Nevertheless, he made a plea for the 'stamp-collecting' side of science. As a schoolboy, he was bewitched by fossils, butterflies, birds and plants and this love had remained with him throughout his career. It is encouraging that molecular biology is now returning to taxonomy; classification is the basis of all science.
The rest can be left to the photographs and to the imagination.
Chairman of Council Dr Brian Manley, Sir David Attenborough, Karen McComb and David Streeter
... and a good time was had by all. Gail Taylor's daughters Charlotte and Constance
 Mike Land and Sophie Furneaux |  John Burns and John Sparrow |
John Maynard Smith, Maggie Boden and the VC