The Appliance Of Science

‘IT is estimated that Tesco already receives £1 out of every £8 spent on the British high street and on current trends we will all be doing all our shopping there within five years.

But we can’t rebuild him…

Thanks to the trim trolley, however, we will all be fit, healthy specimens, gambolling like spring lambs (£4.99/kg) down the aisles of Jack Cohen’s Brave New World.

That is until the trim trolley develops a malfunction, at which point we will all look around in vain for an engineer to fix the damn thing.

‘Didn’t you study engineering at college?’ ‘No, I did media studies like you, stupid.’

‘What about you?’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I did design. I can come up with 1,000 ways to make the trolley look cool, I just can’t make it work.’

‘Anyone know an engineer?’

The Times reports that fewer and fewer students are signing up to study science at university these days, leading the University Of Wales in Swansea to announce that it is closing its renowned chemistry department altogether.

Needless to say, the decision has provoked a furious reaction in what remains of the scientific community, with three Nobel laureates among those deriding the measure as short-sighted.

The university says it is simply reacting to lack of student demand.

There are, according to the Times, 40 chemistry departments left in Britain, but by the end of the decade the Royal Society warns there could be as few as six.

Only 51 out of 100 universities offer physics as a first-degree course – which a mathematician, if there were any left in the country, could tell you equates to 51%.

Where 40 years ago, pure science was second to arts as the most popular course to study at university, these days it is design studies ahead of computer science, management studies, law and psychology.

As for media studies, research shows that a person who takes a media studies degree will actually earn less than an equivalent person who left school at 18 – an average of £9.95 per hour over a lifetime.

By contrast, a person who takes a chemistry degree will earn £11.95 an hour over a lifetime – 21% more than an equivalent school leaver.

Or they could just get a job on the check-out at Tesco like everyone else…’

Posted: 28th, April 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink