Ferederico Mayor Zaragoza: “The scientific community must be at the forefront of change”

2012/05/16 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Azokak, biltzarrak

Federico Mayor Zaragoza, president of the Foundation for the Culture of Peace and former director general of UNESCO, spoke on Monday at DIPC about the important role that the scientific community should play in the coming times.

In his lecture entitled "Dare to know and dare", Mayor conveyed his optimism by stating that "we live shocking times" in which many things are to be done. In the words of Mayor, scientists cannot be indifferent witnesses of the new era, but must be advisers on expert issues and, above all, be able to anticipate events that may be harmful or irreversible.

According to Mayo, “the role of science is to avoid or reduce as much as possible the suffering of the human being”. To do this, scientists must use all available resources and, above all, dare to use their knowledge. In line with the title of the conference, “as important as daring to know it is to know how to dare”.

“The scientific community has to say that it is sufficient and to be at the forefront of change,” said Mayor, “since the current asymmetry in the world is unacceptable.” Today society knows what is happening in the world, there is “global consciousness.” In the opinion of Mayo, “true democracy is not only voting, since the vote counts the citizen, but it is not taken into account”. The powers, the politicians, do not listen to the citizens, but “today we have tools to make our voice heard”. The inflection to real democracy in history, on a personal, national and international level, forces us to invent the future. And “we, people, are able to do it.” “Now more than ever, the scientific community has to talk about a single voice and ask it to invest in basic science, as there will be no application of science if there is no science to apply.”