HOW WILL HISTORY REMEMBER US?

I love history. There are many many reasons for this but one stands out above all. It is perspective. Winston Churchill said that he understood Hitler and foresaw World War Two because he read history. It takes us outside our own time and shows us cultures that think differently from ours. Someone once said that we should read history because although people from a different age make mistakes, just as we do, they make different ones to us.

Often people look back on their lifetime and wish they had been given the gift of hindsight. Others, either by skill, or luck, correctly see how things will turn out, and make their fortune.

An abiding theme, it seems to me, is the conceitedness of our own time. We always believe we are on the edge of a great breakthrough in understanding. We think that in our lifetime great issues will be decided and great scientific discoveries will be made which will settle major issues for ever. History suggests this perspective is wrong. It is exactly what our forefathers thought and their ancestors before them.

What we should be doing is to weigh up what we are fairly happy about and analyse what we still do not understand. True wisdom lies in knowing what you don't know. The latest scientific theory, however weighty, will give way to others. Easy now to understand why Newton failed to go far enough but Einstein could fill in the gaps in our understanding of gravity. Who, though, can see where Einstein is wrong? That's the real challenge.

Looking back on previous centuries it is relatively easy to see where the main growth points are. Not so easy at the time and not so easy to do the same thing for own time. So here is my question. In a few hundred years from now what will the scientists of the day think best characterises our age. There are many possible contenders. This has been the fastest growth period in all of history. You will not be expecting my choice.

I believe that we will best be remembered as the map makers. What we are doing is to catalogue everything in the world. Some of it is about actual maps. Some is about people and their vital statistics. Other elements are huge technical achievements such as the human genome. It is all going into computers and finding its place in the great doomsday book of life.

Surely there is more to it than that. No, I don't think so. Most of our so called huge scientific discoveries are still scratching the surface. They will not seem so momentous when there has been real progress. It is access to information that will endure. Imagine how people got around in days gone by with no maps to guide them. Lost in the wilderness. With an accurate map, however, all becomes clear. Take the human genome, for example. Our children will take it for granted but the use they make of it will be astounding - for centuries.

Pierre