Government call for science ‘weirdos’ prompts caution from researchers

Researchers have reacted with surprise and caution to a bizarrely worded job advertisement posted by a senior UK government adviser. The notice calls for scientists, mathematicians and “super-talented weirdos” to work for the prime minister and to help make “rapid progress with long-term problems”, and cites several scientific papers.

Researchers, including the authors of some of the papers, welcomed a focus on data-driven techniques and scientific skills from the top level of government, but caution against oversimplifying how science is applied to policymaking.

Dominic Cummings, a political strategist who is chief special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, posted the advertisement on his personal website on 2 January. Cummings is known for his strong and sometimes controversial views on science, as well as a “move fast and break things” approach that aims to disrupt the status quo. Johnson’s Conservative party held on to power — and increased its majority in Parliament — in a general election last month.

In the 2,900-word advertisement, Cummings says that he is seeking “data scientists, project managers, policy experts, assorted weirdos”, as well as “unusual” mathematicians, physicists and economists, to work in the Prime Minister’s office at Downing Street, which will see through major policy changes as part of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. The post attracted attention for its brash language and odd requirements, such as that applicants show excitement about a slew of specific scientific ideas.

Cummings describes his plan to take a data-driven, computational approach to tackling the science of prediction and decision-making in government. The ad cites research papers^1,2,3,4 in fields such as data science and artificial intelligence that candidates should familiarize themselves with (see ‘Reading list’) — although he does not mention the overarching policy goals or societal problems the government wants to solve.

“What Cummings wants seems to be a classic Hollywood scientist, coming in wearing a white coat and telling him what the answer is and saving the day, and it doesn’t work like that,” says Jack Stilgoe, a researcher in science and technology studies at University College London. “The idea you can come up with technological fixes to social problems — we have a century of experience showing how flawed that theory is.”

Complex problems

Many authors of the papers, contacted by Nature’s news team, expressed surprise — and in some cases delight — at a senior government figure paying attention to the scientific literature. “It gives us immense pleasure to observe that our results can pave the way for the young talent to solve issues of highest importance,” says R. I Sujith, an aerospace engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India, whose paper¹ on catastrophic changes in physical systems was cited by Cummings.

Policymakers should indeed exploit the huge scale and granularity of data now available, adds Aaron Clauset, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, who authored two of the cited papers³. But he warns against blindly using these tools on complex social and economic problems, the solutions to which often involve understanding humans rather than technical issues. “In many cases we don’t understand causality well enough to formulate a policy that will not do more damage than good,” he says. For many questions, science is just one of many factors that should determine policy, he adds.

This opinion was echoed by Sujith and four other authors contacted by Nature. Sam Gershman², a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose work Cummings also cited, says that some elements of his research could be relevant to policy projects. “However, we must be extremely cautious in how we apply these ideas, because there are many historical examples of social engineering gone awry due to overly simplistic assumptions about human cognition,” says Gershman.

Advice networks

Researchers familiar with how science advice is already used in the UK government said that new and unusual talent is welcome — but that Cummings’ post is unfairly critical of the government’s civil service. He should focus on bringing new scientists in “rather than dismissing the whole service as it is at the moment,” says geneticist Paul Nurse, who leads the Francis Crick Institute in London.

Natalie Perera, executive director of the Education Policy Institute in London and a former senior civil servant, added on Twitter that Cummings’ call — which explicitly referenced applicants attending a “great university” and foregoing their work–life balance, as well as shrugging off the need for “gender diversity blah blah” — would prevent the advert from attracting the “genuine cognitive diversity” it purports to target.

Gershman adds that Cummings’ approach to research encapsulates a dilemma facing scientists in current political environments. “There is a danger that science could be used to serve programs that many scientists might not personally wish to support, given the divergence in political attitudes between most scientists and the current government.”

Cummings’ desire to model and predict real-world events may face an additional hurdle, Jeni Tennison, who leads the London-based non-profit company the Open Data Institute, writes on her blog. “I think Cummings’ team will pretty rapidly come up against a lack of usable, accessible data for the things they want to look at,” she says.