Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

In Private Eye, @drphilhammond makes an excellent point. Scientists tend to avoid politics "because they hate the bluff, bluster, lies and deceit. Science is about sensible guessing ... making errors, owning errors and learning from them ... the antithesis of politics.”

It's not just that many politicians are amazingly ignorant of science. It's also that the scientific, empirical worldview is often entirely alien. So when they have to respond to scientific findings - whether on covid or climate - they repeatedly screw up.

We are rightly exercised by the lack of diversity in public life. But one aspect we discuss too little is the diversity of academic disciplines. Politics and the media are overwhelmingly dominated by humanities students. Humanities are essential, but we need a wider mix.

So dominant are PPE students in senior political and media positions that you could almost repurpose the construction site warning: "No PPE, No Job".

Underlying all this is a wider problem: the remarkably early age at which our education system forces us to specialise. From A-Levels onwards, we more or less have to decide whether to study only science or only humanities. We could all do with a more rounded education.

I would love to have studied philosophy, history, logic, literature etc, alongside zoology (+ my concurrent half-degree in biological anthropology). I felt obliged to specialise long before I wanted to. I left university knowing even less about the world than when I arrived.

I reckoned I had a better chance of teaching myself humanities than of teaching myself a science. So I took a strategic decision. Given the constraints, I think it was the right one. But it takes a lot longer to teach yourself.

The specialist teaching I received was fascinating, if frustratingly narrow. But much more important was learning the scientific method, that can be applied to all disciplines (including journalism). I would love to see everyone properly schooled in it.