Science Is My Copilot

As the world around us seems increasingly volatile, protecting and respecting the integrity of research and evidence becomes more important than ever.

Written byBob Grant

| 3 min read

Save for Later

Listen with Speechify

0:00

3:00

ABOVE: ISTOCK.COM, JANIECBROS

Sitting down to write this editorial, I thought I would look back at the one I wrote for our first issue of 2020 to get a sense, at the end of an extremely unpredictable and disconcerting year, of how I was feeling going into it. “In those halcyon days of boyhood, one date stuck in my mind as ‘the future’—2020,” I wrote in The Scientist’s January/February 2020 issue. “That year, difficult to imagine but endlessly entertaining to dream about, was when everything would be different. World peace would be a reality. Technology would solve humanity’s and the planet’s ailments. And yes, cars would fly.”

I knew that my childish fantasies had failed to materialize well in advance of last January, but early in the year I had no idea how wrong I would be about 2020. This year has shown us all that, despite humanity’s decades of ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
View Full Profile