"I hope we'll get people interested in science"

In this exclusive chat with heart matters online, Alice Roberts tells us about science, women, organ donation and filming Coast.

Has the public attitude to science changed in recent years?

I’ve been doing science programmes on TV for nearly ten years. I don’t think much has changed in terms of public appetite. On the other hand, I think TV producers’ appetite has changed and they've realised that there’s an awful lot of people out there who are genuinely interested.

Ten years ago there did seem to be a complete dearth of science programming. Now there are lots of big science series that have been very successful, particularly Brian Cox’s series.

Millions of people are tuning in and showing broadcasters that there is this appetite for that kind of programme and that people do want to watch something as seemingly esoteric as astrophysics. I hope that we’ll get people attracted into the subject, even if we’re not talking about people who are considering it as a career but are getting interested in it in later life too.

It’s not just non-scientists, because science is such a broad subject, we phrase it as though it’s ‘them’ and ‘us’, scientists talking to a wider public, but there are scientists within that wider public. Science is very diverse, each of us working in science is working in a very narrow part of it and we’re interested in learning about other aspects of science, or indeed our own aspects.

Do you think more young people are being attracted to science?

We need to look at the subjects individually and ask why physics and engineering might not be attractive to girls

We have to look at figures quite carefully to understand where problems still are. If you look at all science admissions to university, about 50% are female so that sounds great, we’ve achieved equality, brilliant. If you pick it apart a bit and look at the different sciences and you get a very different picture, actually only a small proportion of women are doing physics, chemistry, engineering. In some universities most medical students are female, so that skews the figure for all the other subjects. We need to look at them individually and ask why physics and engineering might not be subjects that are attractive to girls. I think it’s because there’s something weird going on that’s undoubtedly cultural that they’re not considered particularly feminine subjects to do – still! In the 21st century it seems so weird that we’re still talking in those terms.

There is another problem as you go through science careers. If you look at young researchers nearly half are female, then as they go on we’re losing women, or at least women are not moving up through their career in the same way men are. So by the time you get to professorships, only 15 per cent of science professors are women in science which is really shocking. Something very worrying is going on, it is not a level playing field at all for men and women throughout their careers.

It makes me really cross. Why should having a family mean that you’re actually going to damage your career?

We’re probably looking at a situation where we’re winning in terms of attracting women into science careers, although there’s much more work to be done in some subjects, but we’re not winning later on in their careers and the reason for that is that we’re trying to shoehorn women into men’s jobs. There’s absolutely no concession made for families and I don’t even like using the word concession because having children shouldn’t be something that’s deleterious to your career, it makes me really cross. Why should having a family mean that you’re actually going to damage your career?

It’s really not fair that careers are still designed around 1950s model of work where you’re expecting men to spend very little time with their families and women spending much more. We need to get the balance right, I suspect there’s a lot of men out there who’d like to be spending a lot more time with their families.

There needs to be a lot more research done  on exactly why there’s such an inequality when it comes to men and women’s careers. We need to get the evidence and design the strategy to tackle the problem.

What attracted you into science?

I enjoyed it at school - I went to an all-girls school, though it’s difficult to tell if that made a difference. Certainly I did sciences for A-level and there was no question that that was an odd or unfeminine thing to do. I really enjoyed the sciences, though I struggled with maths once it got to pure maths. Physics I found very useful in my degree. My first degree was medicine, which I did because I was interested in science but also in people wanted to do something that had both those aspects in a job - a bit of a cliché I know.

Even though I haven’t ended up in medicine, I’m on the periphery of medicine. I still teach surgeons but not a practicing doctor any more. I’ve always got my foot in both camps - I’m interested in wider social aspects and in science itself as well.

What do you do to keep fit?

I love cycling; I used to cycle to work but now I work further away from home so I can't really do that. I do a bit of aerobics and I’ve got a two-year-old so running round after her keeps me fairly busy. We go for walks and climb up hills most days, she’s well into walking. I have a dog, which is great because they make you them out for walks.

Did filming Coast make you appreciate the British countryside?

I love being outside so I loved doing Coast, which was all about getting out into the British countryside

I love being outside so I loved doing Coast, which was all about getting out into the British countryside, which is amazing. I visited parts of the coast that I would never have thought about going to, the Northumberland coast for example, and it’s epic, it’s stunning. I love walking on the coast, with the sea on one side and lovely wildlife. One of my favourite creatures is the fulmar, little sea birds that fly along the cliffs, they are really manoeuvrable, like little Spitfires. I really enjoy going on coast walks for pleasure.

Who do you rate as the greatest scientist ever?

Darwin, absolutely. And [Alfred Russel] Wallace, I always feel sorry for Wallace - he was away in New Guinea looking at his birds of paradise and he sent a letter to Darwin saying ‘I’ve had this idea about evolution’ and Darwin looked at it and realised that Wallace had come up with the same theory. It was a long time after he’d been on his voyage with Beagle and he was gradually drawing all his thoughts together into this manuscript that would become the origin of the species. And getting Wallace’s letter prompted him to write the book more quickly.

But he was a consummate professional, he recognised that Wallace had come up with a similar idea and so the paper that was given to the Linnean Society had both their names on it and Wallace didn’t even know because he was away doing his research. The two of them together are just amazing, they drew together all those threads of biological research that had happened up until that point.

It’s a common misconception that until Darwin came along no one had even thought of evolution, they had, there were ancient Greek philosophers who wrote about the idea of animals evolving but what nobody had come up with was the mechanism by which that happened, the idea of natural selection. It's such a powerful, elegant and simple explanation and it makes everything clear.

I don’t like the term breakthrough because so much science is about very gradual steps

I don’t like the term breakthrough, because so much science is about very gradual steps, and every now and then we point to something and say there’s been a massive breakthrough but actually it’s been the culmination of 50 years of research and hundreds of people working on it and then one person comes along just at the right moment. I suppose the outstanding things are the first, so Christian Barnard and the first heart transplant, that was the dawning of a new era for medicine I think.

You’ve got strong views on organ donation – tell us about that

When people are asked whether they’d like to donate their organs, nine out of ten people say yes, but only three out of ten are on the register, so we need to encourage people and make it easier for them. It’s about awareness and making people remember that they do actually need to put their name on the register.

Every day people are dying because they haven’t got organs

But the other thing is actually talking to your family about it because even if you sign it, if your family say no then your organs won’t have another life in someone else.

Alongside that you need the capability in the health system to deal with organ donation. You need teams working in hospitals knowing how to approach bereaved families and the logistical capabilities.

The BHF is working to raise awareness of organ donation, thinking about how we might change to an opt-out system and looking at what is needed in hospitals to make sure we’d have the capabilities to deal with that.

Every day people are dying because they haven’t got organs when the organs are there, it seems absolutely crazy. That’s what it comes down to, the fact that people are dying for want of organ donors, and I think the need is so great that the opt-out system is the best way to deal with that.

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