The most important thing in science is ...

If you could teach the world one thing about science, what would it be? If you're John Sulston, cowinner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, the answer is: "Evolution, as truth, insofar as we can comprehend it at the moment; as a realistic assessment of our position in the universe; and as a joyous celebration of our potential future."

Sulston is one of more than 250 leading science practitioners, communicators, and educators who responded to the question posed by Alom Shaha, a former physics teacher. Shaha's project, funded by Britain's National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts and assisted by the online magazine spiked http://www.spiked-online.com, came to him during 2003 at a job at which he was surrounded by producers madly trying to come up with ideas to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis this year.

It struck him that for all the focus on ...