April 2009
Just as fire regenerates a forest, so a great
university regenerates human culture. We burn the rubbish, and create the space
for new stuff to grow.
Vice-chancellors echo ministers’ vision of the
university as a research laboratory for local industry — just as they assured
government in the 16th century that they were fighting heresy, and in the 19th
that they were building empire.
But as the University of Cambridge celebrates its
octocentenary, we should celebrate a deeper truth. Cambridge has been successful
as a focus of dissent; we’ve had the biggest impact because we have long been
the hottest flame-thrower.
The ground we cleared made us the cradle of
evangelical Christianity in the 16th century, of science in the 17th, of atheism
in the 19th and of the emerging sciences of information since.
Rebellion has been in Cambridge’s DNA from
the start. We were founded by scholars fleeing persecution at Oxford. As the
Renaissance got going, Cambridge was one of the first to embrace the Classics,
or “humane letters.” Because we were a self-governing community of scholars,
the reformers only had to convince colleagues.
During the Reformation, Cambridge had scholars on
both sides of the barricades. One of the most influential was Erasmus, who “laid
the egg that Luther hatched” by undermining the Vatican’s authority.
When Henry VIII needed a theologian to justify
rebellion against the Pope, he turned to Cambridge and Edward Foxe, the provost
of King’s College. Foxe was soon eclipsed by his colleague Thomas Cranmer, who
became the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.Puritanism got traction as an internal Cambridge rebellion against statutes
imposed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1570, which gave college masters power over
academics with the aim of curtailing heresy. Wishful thinking! Our Puritan
tradition drove not just the Civil War, but also the settlement of America — key
Pilgrim leaders were Cambridge men.
The Restoration saw science blossom. Within a
decade of Oliver Cromwell’s death, Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion
and gravity, and the calculus. This trashed the medieval notion of a God
micromanaging the world. By 1703, Edmond Halley became a professor at Oxford
despite being an atheist. The 18th century Enlightenment flourished in the space
all this created.In the 19th century, many Cambridge scientists extended the idea of the world as
mechanism. Charles Darwin was the greatest iconoclast. By explaining how
organisms evolve by random variation and natural selection over time, he
shredded the notion of humans being qualitatively different from other animals.The early 20th century continued this tradition of disruptive scientific
innovation, with John Cockroft and Ernest Walton splitting the atom. It also saw
disruptive work in the humanities from the likes of John Maynard Keynes and E.
M. Forster, and Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell (jailed for opposing
the First World War). Pioneers such as Alan Turing and Maurice Wilkes made the
computer a reality; James Watson and Francis Crick decoded DNA’s structure.
Bioinformatics is now a strong point — about a third of the Human Genome Project
was done at Cambridge.
Our effect on belief systems, from Reformation to
atheism, has been profound: if Richard Dawkins is the Devil’s chaplain,
Cambridge is the Devil’s flame-thrower. At the practical level, our talent for
creative destruction has led to huge advances in liberty and prosperity.So how can academia drive and support the next eight centuries of progress? The
critical factors are self-government and intellectual freedom. The two are
deeply linked, and are both under pressure from bossy governments and
centralising university bureaucrats.The Government would like to see Cambridge (and Oxford) controlled by boards of
“external” worthies chasing Treasury targets. Why? Every pound spent on research
at Cambridge over the past 800 years has been repaid a hundredfold to following
generations. Fencing in the golden goose is not the way to optimise egg
production. The academic goose needs to be free range.So my suggestion is this. Let’s make the Oxbridge model universal and encourage
every university to have a majority on its governing body elected by university
staff from among our number. David Cameron, Nick Clegg, what say you?
Ross Anderson is professor of security engineering and an elected member of
Council, University of Cambridge. Web:
www.Ross-Anderson.com.
Times Higher Education, February 5, 2009.
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