With the politics of behaviour in the ascendancy, there is increasing interest in what science can tell us about why people behave the way they do. The British government is funding the creation of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, with the express aim of training a ‘parenting workforce’ to provide science-based child-rearing advice to parents. In the USA, the MRI scanner and the neuroscientific community are entering the court room to give evidence about whether defendants can be regarded as being responsible for their alleged crimes. UK policymakers cite scientific ‘evidence’ to explain new interventions on everything from early years’ education to the alleged impact of school dinners on academic performance.  The science of nutrition now informs earnest discussions about how children’s diets improve their classroom behaviour, in order to justify policing lunchboxes and putting school meals at the top of the political agenda.  Studies of teenage brain development now regularly inform social debates about the impact of new technologies on young people.

But how much can science tell us about behaviour? Do scientific findings justify the government’s many interventions into the early years of children’s lives? Should neuroscience enjoy an exalted place in the courtroom? Are policies being developed because of genuine advances in scientific knowledge – or is science being (mis)used, perhaps in the place of political conviction, to justify policies?

Particle physics is the quest to understand the most fundamental constituents of matter. But the deeper we probe into the secrets of subatomic particles, the bigger the machine required. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the next generation of atom smasher. Having a circumference of 27km and sitting 100m beneath the Swiss/French border, the LHC is the largest machine ever made. When operating it is claimed it will be the coldest place in the universe, and create conditions not witnessed since just after the dawn of the universe. The construction of the LHC is a big step forward for science. Once the LHC switches on in 2008, it will make us think about the universe differently.

But is this the end for big physics? At a cost of some 2 billion euros, the LHC did not come cheap. Famously, in trying to explain the need to fund the LHC in the 1980s, scientists were reduced to appealing to Margaret Thatcher’s ego. But has the justification for pure scientific research run out of steam? Even scientists at CERN now take great pains to explain their work’s spin-offs for medical physics. At a time when science seems to be re-orientating itself around the battle to stop climate change, is there a place for particle physics? With the closure of so many university physics departments over recent years it would seem the writing is already on the wall. And yet the questions big physics addresses colour everyone’s view of the universe we live in. Our fascination with the seeming implausibility of the Big Bang and the quantum theory of matter mean bookshops continue to be filled with biographies of Einstein and lay guides to physics.

At a time when theoretical physics seems trapped in speculation about the validity or otherwise of string theory, the LHC experiment gives us the chance to rejuvenate our understanding of the universe from particle physics to cosmology. Will this finally convince the world that particle physics is sexy?

Tomorrow's innovators - will today's science education create the Brunels and Einsteins of tomorrow?

In association with Pfizer and produced by Tony Gilland at the Royal College of Art, Lecture Theatre 1, 15.30 - 17.00 on Saturday 28 October 2006

Students at university and secondary school are abandoning pure science. While total A-level entries rose between 1991 and 2003, chemistry, mathematics and physics all dropped significantly. Applications for degree courses in science, maths and engineering have fallen by a third in recent years.

Few deny that the situation is a serious cause for concern, but there is little clarity about the underlying problems or what the solutions might be. The government has emphasised the importance of students having the opportunity to study three separate sciences – physics, chemistry and biology – at GCSE to provide them with a better grounding for A level study and beyond. But with a desperate shortage of physics and chemistry teachers is this wishful thinking?

At the same time, from September 2006 all students are required to study a new science GCSE that aims to assist school students to become scientifically literate citizens. A key argument underpinning this new GCSE is that for too long science education has focused on training the minority of students who will go on to be the scientists of tomorrow when in fact greater emphasis needs to be given to preparing all young people to make informed choices about issues such as global climate change, healthy lifestyles or the risks and benefits of the MMR vaccination.

What are the prospects for this new approach to both educate and inspire the Brunels and Einsteins of tomorrow and arm future citizens to engage in constructive debates and decisions about the risks and benefits of new innovations? Amidst all this change is there a danger that we are losing faith in science as an academic discipline worthy of study and failing to push the next generation to engage with it in a serious way?

Dr Eliot Forster, vice-president of development, Pfizer
Dr Brian Iddon, MP, Bolton, South East; member, House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee
David Perks, head of physics, Graveney School; writer, Times Educational Supplement, The Times and spiked
Michael Reiss, professor of science education, Institute of Education; director of education, Royal Society
Chair: Tony Gilland, science and society director, Institute of Ideas; national co-ordinator, Debating Matters