This year’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture was given by Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society of Great Britain. The tenet for Sir Paul’s lecture was that science and investment in science has given greatly to the society that we live in today – not just for scientists but also for technology and the economy and far beyond. He makes a well-reasoned argument, which politicians would be wise to listen to. Historically, scientists and researchers have been looked up to in society and have been considered to be those whose work underpins our society. I think that to some large degree that perception is in the descendant and has been chipped away or damaged over the years. Certainly, the act of working in science is getting forever harder and more and more time is spent on administration, teaching, form filling and justification of funding proposals with less and less time actually spent on science itself. “The business of science” is now arguably a larger industry than “the practice of science”. A recent article in the Guardian by Professor Mike Duff of Imperial College London would appear to agree with this last point. Basic science is coming under fire and only popular science remains. Britain has always been a leader in innovation, it would be sad to lose that in favour of following the crowd.