The Great Science Debates
To commemorate the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society
Introduction
The Royal Society in association with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums presents:
The Great Science Debates
to commemorate the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society.
In 2010 the Royal Society celebrates 350 years of scientific brilliance and fearless investigation. To celebrate this, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums will hold a series of three debates. Free, and open to the public, a number of our country's leading scientists, journalists and politicians will debate some of the most pressing scientific issues of our day.
About the Royal Society
On November 30th 1660 a dozen men gathered to hear the young Christopher Wren give a lecture on astronomy. In the discussion that followed they decided to form a society for the study of the new and still controversial Experimental Philosophy. Two years later Charles II made it his Royal Society and in the 350 years since it was founded, its Fellows have given us gravity, evolution, the electron, the double helix, the internet and a large part of the modern world.
The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, and has been at the forefront of enquiry and discovery since its foundation in 1660.
The backbone of the Society is its Fellowship of the most eminent scientists of the day, elected by peer review for life and entitled to use FRS after their name. There are currently more than 60 Nobel Laureates amongst the Society's approximately 1400 Fellows and Foreign Members.
Throughout its history, the Society has promoted excellence in science through its Fellowship and Foreign Membership, which has included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin, Francis Crick, James Watson and Stephen Hawking.
Supporting excellence in science is at the heart of all the Society's work. The society supports established scientists as well as funding newly emerging scientists. It encourages effective science and mathematics education in the UK by influencing decision-makers involved in defining policy, supporting science and maths teachers with resources and by enthusing young people about science and mathematics.
Each year the Society elects around 44 scientists, engineers or technologist to become part of its Fellowship - an honour that is the UK equivalent of receiving the Nobel Prize.
The Society's influential position as the UK's academy of science means it can influence policy makers by providing them with independent and objective science advice on a wide range of issues. This advice is based on the latest evidence, provided by world experts.
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