NEWSLETTER No. 32 IV/2012 The BBVA Foundation … · BOLETÍN FUNDACIÓN BBVA N.º 13 FEBRERO 2008...

BOLETÍN FUNDACIÓN BBVA N.º 13 FEBRERO 2008 MEDIOAMBIENTE 1

NEWSLETTER No. 32 IV/2012

The BBVA Foundation Receives the Fine Arts

Medal of Honor

Fundación BBVA

San Nicolás Building

Plaza de San Nicolás, 4

48005 Bilbao

Tel.: +34 94 487 52 52

Fax: +34 94 424 46 21

Marqués de Salamanca Palace

Paseo de Recoletos, 10

28001 Madrid

Tel.: +34 91 374 54 00

Fax: +34 91 374 85 22

[email protected]

www.fbbva.es

BBVA Foundation Newsletter

No. 32, IV/2012

Distributed free of charge

Project and editorial management:

Carlos Gil

Translations:

Karen Welch

Editorial coordination:

Editorial Nerea, S. A.

Graphic design and production:

Eurosíntesis

Legal deposit: SS-1318/06

The opinions and conclusions

expressed in this newsletter are solely

the responsibility of the authors and

do not necessarily reflect the views of

the BBVA Foundation.

An electronic version of this newsletter

is available at www.fbbva.es

ContentsBiodiversity Conservation Awards: a warning against foot-dragging on environmental issues 3

San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts presents its Medal of Honor to the BBVA Foundation 4

The BBVA Foundation sponsors exhibitions on Van Dyck, Claes Oldenburg and the legacy of Jackson Pollock 6

A BBVA Foundation Atlas surveys the architecture of the world since 2005 8

The BBVA and María José Jove foundations publish a practical guide to child asthma for families and schools 10

Advances in cancer and aging with the aid of genomic techniques 11

Inflammation annuls cold sensation and its analgesic effect 11

Educational disparities between Spanish regions are as large as those separating OECD countries 12

Spanish families want to take care of their elderly members but call for government support 14

The Nicolás Cabrera School welcomes some of the experts who are bringing nanotechnology to the clinic 16

Ernst Fehr talks in the BBVA Foundation about the neuronal origin of altruism and its role in the economy 17

Curiosity and risk-taking are what drives science as a motor of development 18

Citizens see science and scientists as worthy of support and as a unifying force in times of crisis 24

A majority of Europeans support EU membership but are less sure about the economic impact of the euro 28

Orchestras take stock of their challenges: a shrinking, aging public, and a deficit that cannot be made up from ticket sales 30

FORUM. Prof. Raúl Villar The finding of the Higgs boson: meaning, implications and what comes next 32

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 ENVIRONMENT 3

he chief message emanating from the ceremony of the sixth BBVA Foundation Awards for

Biodiversity Conservation was that envi-ronmental concerns cannot be relegated to second place, even in these times of economic difficulty.

Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, stressed the ongoing nature of the Foundation’s commitment: “Both before and throughout the present crisis, our pledge to maintain a responsi-ble interaction with the environment has remained unaltered. Firstly, because it stems from a profound conviction that how we treat our world today will define the opportunities available to future gen-erations and the preservation of the spe-cies with whom we share the planet Earth. And, secondly, because we know that it is the cumulative effort that really counts.”

The BBVA Foundation Award for Biodiversity Conservation Projects in Spain was granted to WWF España, “for the tran-scendent impact of its innovative actions,” including its work on the certification of sustainably harvested forestry products, its efficacious monitoring of groundwater extraction in Doñana National Park, and its

campaign to create a marine sanctuary for the bluefin tuna in Mediterranean waters.

In the category of Biodiversity Conserva-tion Projects in Latin America, the winner was the Center for Environmental Sustain-ability at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, for its campaign “Anchoveta Week: creating the conditions to boost the

contribution to social welfare and sustain-ability of the world’s largest fishery.”

The award for Knowledge Dissemination and Communication in Biodiversity Con-servation was presented to Catalan natu-ralist Josep del Hoyo Calduch, creator and senior editor of the Handbook of the Birds of the World.

T

Biodiversity Conservation Awards: a warning against foot-dragging on environmental issues

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Patricia Majluf, Director of the Center for Environmental Sustainability (CSA) at Universidad Peruana Cayetano

Heredia; Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation; Pedro Calderón, President of WWF España; and

naturalist Josep del Hoyo Calduch.

FUNDACIÓN OSO PARDO, BIRDLIFE INTERNATIONAL AND JOURNALIST ARACELI COSTA TAKE THE 2011 AWARDS

The winners of the 2011 BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation were announced on September 28. The award for Biodiversity Conservation Projects in Spain went to the Fundación Oso Pardo for its decisive contribution to the recovery of the Cantabrian brown bear. Today around 190 brown bears roam the mountain ranges of this northern Spanish region. Twenty years ago their numbers were down to just eighty.

BirdLife International was granted the sister award for Biodiversity Conservation Projects in Latin America for its Important Bird Areas program, “which is proving an invaluable aid in the design of protected-area networks in Latin America, since birds are a key biodiversity indicator species,” in the words of the prize jury.

The award in the Knowledge Dissemination and Communication in Biodiversity Conservation category went to Araceli Costa. A jour-nalist with Spanish daily ABC and author, since 1998, of almost 2,000 articles on the environment including news items, features and interviews, Costa is also a regular commentator on environmental policy and management issues.

4 ARTS AND HUMANITIES BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

he San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts was the venue on December 10 for the formal cere-

mony of presentation of its 2012 Medal of Honor to the BBVA Foundation. Francisco González, the Foundation’s President, received the medal from the hands of the Minister of Culture, José Ignacio Wert.

The award was granted in May this year to the candidature put forward by academi-cians Juan Bordes, Antón García Abril and Gregorio Marañón, who read the laudatio for the BBVA Foundation before the ple-nary of the institution.

The Royal Academy of Fine Arts bestows this distinction each year on a person or institution, Spanish or foreign, that has contributed outstandingly in the realms of artistic creation, the study, promotion or dissemination of the arts or the protec-tion of historical, natural or cultural her-itage, or else has rendered extraordinary services to the Academy.

In his laudatio, academy member Gregorio Marañón said that the BBVA Foundation transcends the division between science and culture through a program of work

informed by humanist values. “Without sac-rificing the necessary rigor in its approach to each subject, the BBVA Foundation none-theless adopts a clearly interdisciplinary,

Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, expresses his thanks after the laudatio delivered by academician Gregorio Marañón.

Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, receives the Medal of Honor from José Ignacio Wert,

Minister of Education, Culture and Sport, in the presence of Antonio Bonet and Fernando de Terán, Director and

General Secretary of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts presents its Medal of Honor to the BBVA Foundation

T

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 ARTS AND HUMANITIES 5

humanist perspective that runs through all of its activities. Humanist in the sense that everything thought, felt and done by human beings concerns and interests us, and that there is no parcel of knowledge that is not intimately bound in with the rest.”

Marañón stressed the importance of the BBVA Foundation’s commitment in today’s circumstances: “That the BBVA Foundation exists and so magnificently fulfills its pur-pose, is not just exceptional but also fun-damental for Spanish society. And we have come here this evening to recognize and celebrate that fact.” He also reserved words of commendation for the BBVA Foundation President, Francisco González, whom he credited with having “ensured the Foundation’s independence and objectivity in decision-taking by making it proof against external pressures, allowing it to stand as a paradigm of the exercise of institutional patronage in the realm of civil society.”

Excellence is the standard

Replying, Francisco González said he felt especially honored by what the medal signified: “The fact that this recognition comes from our country’s foremost insti-tution devoted to fostering artistic crea-tivity and its transmission to society, is a singular accolade and one of the most valuable intangible assets to which a cul-tural organization can aspire.”

He also explained that when the BBVA Foundation was created, it was decided

that its focus should be on offering “sus-tained support to science and culture, understood as a means to help broaden people’s choices and address what is a core dimension of being human.”

The BBVA Foundation’s activity, he pointed out, is guided by two main prin-ciples. The first, that the contribution in question be sustained and sustainable in time. “In few areas can such impor-tance be attached to cumulative effort and the construction and preservation of traditions, which, far from holding back progress are a prerequisite for innova-tion.” And this, he went on, “is more vital than ever at times when history traces an

erratic course, punctuated by advances in support to science and culture which rapidly give way to setbacks and retreats in line with the fluctuations of the busi-ness cycle and the needs of the moment.” The second principle is that the BBVA Foundation operates according to the rules of play shared by scientists and crea-tive practitioners: “None of the numer-ous proposals received in each period are appraised against any standard other than the excellence of the résumés and the innovativeness of the project. Funds, as such, are assigned on a strictly com-petitive footing, endorsed by the judg-ment of leading members of the research and creative communities.”

In the center of the image, Antonio Bonet, Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts; José Ignacio Wert, Minister of Education, Culture and Sport; Francisco González, President

of the BBVA Foundation; and Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation, flanked by academy members attending the event.

Rafael Bermejo of BBVA; Alicia Koplowitz, President of the Fundación Koplowitz, and companion; Emilio Lora-Tamayo,

President of CSIC; and José Pedro Pérez-Llorca, President of the Museo Nacional del Prado.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA


he BBVA Foundation inaugu-rated three exhibitions over October-November at the

Museo del Prado, the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Fundació Miró, bringing to Spain hitherto unseen works by Van Dyck, Claes Oldenburg, and thirty-five artists repre-senting Jackson Pollock’s legacy in action painting and performance art.

With The Young Van Dyck, which will run until March 3, 2013, the Prado hosts one of the largest ever exhibitions of the work of the Belgian master (1599-1641), and the first in Spain devoted to his painting and drawing output. The inaugural event was attended by Her Majesty Queen Sofía, Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, José María Lasalle, Secretary of State for Culture, and José Pedro Pérez-Llorca, President of the museum’s Royal Board of Trustees. The exhibition focuses entirely on the art-ist’s early work and features more than 90 paintings and drawings spanning the years between approximately 1615, when Van Dyck was fifteen, and 1621, when he left Antwerp for Italy. During these six years of his early career, the intellectually restless and remarkably prolific young artist produced around 160 paintings, including portraits, medium-size works, and more than thirty large-scale can-vasses of great creative ambition.

His close relations with Rubens, who employed him as his assistant, gives rise to some of the most interesting ques-tions relating to this period: why did Van Dyck produce some works that were as close as possible to those of his master but distanced himself in others, giving his figures a naturalistic appearance that was quite different from Rubens’s ide-alization? Among the exhibition’s aims is to explain the evolution of this young and often contradictory painter, while revealing the refinement of his work in this period. The fifty-two paintings and forty drawings on display manifest the art-

ist’s precocious talent, which is evident not only in the quantity of works that he produced but also in their quality. Had he created only the works of his early period, Van Dyck would still be considered one of the most important painters of the 17th century.

This will be one of the largest ever exhibi-tions dedicated to the artist, the first to be held on his painting in Spain and the first to focus on his early period since the one held at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in 1980. Around a score of insti-tutions and private collectors have sup-ported this project with the loan of works, including Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie and the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

A mosaic of art and artists

Until February 24, the Fundació Miró Barcelona will be the setting for Explosion! The Legacy of Jackson Pollock, co-organized with Stockholm’s Moderna Museet and sponsored by the BBVA Foundation. Andreu Mas-Collel, Minister of Economy and Knowledge

with the Catalan Government, Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, and Jaume Freixa, President of the Board of Trustees of Fundació Joan Miró met in Barcelona on October 22 to inaugurate the exhibition, which comprises some 70 works by thirty-five artists spanning painting, photography, videos, performance, dance and audio works and instructions.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

SAN

PET

ERSB

UR

G, T

HE

STAT

E H

ERM

ITA

GE

MU

SEU

M

T

José María Lasalle, Secretary of State for Culture; José Pedro Pérez-Llorca, President of the Royal Board of Trustees of

the Museo Nacional del Prado; Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation; and HM Queen Sofía during

the inauguration of The Young Van Dyck.

Portrait of a Family, ca. 1620 - 1621, oil on canvas by

Van Dyck.

The BBVA Foundation sponsors exhibitions on Van Dyck, Claes Oldenburg and the legacy of Jackson Pollock


Explosion! The Legacy of Jackson Pollock explores the web of influences and connections that emerged from “action painting” and the work of its main exponent, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). From the late 1940s, the notion of painting as action opened up an enormous field of possibilities that resulted in performance art and in the innovative practices known as concep-tual art. Many of these artists came to place as much importance on the crea-tive act as on the finished painting. In this border zone between painting and performance, the element of chance and the spectator often ended up being co-creators of the work. This experimental, conceptual approach to painting and art would later inspire many other artists.

The exhibition offers a geographic and chronological overview of the phenom-enon. It includes works in a variety of media by artists working in the period from the late 1940s to the present, includ-ing Jackson Pollock himself, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Allan Kaprow, Andy Warhol, Lynda Benglis, Saburo Murakami, Bruce Nauman, John Baldessari and Paul McCarthy.

Since the exhibition includes action rather than focusing exclusively on painting, performance and performance docu-mentation are a vital part of the material, not least the footage of Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein and the Gutai group painting in performance-like acts which provoked considerable artistic controversy.

The decade of change

The third of the current exhibitions spon-sored by the BBVA Foundation is Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties, on view at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao until February 17, 2013. Oldenburg is famous for his monumental installations in public spaces. But this selection focuses on an equally vital but less known stage in his artis-tic journey: his landmark pieces from the nineteen sixties, which played their part in the revitalization of the American art scene as part of the broader Pop Art movement.

Visitors will have the chance to observe at first hand icons of contemporary artistic creation, beginning with the installation The Street (1960) and its graffiti-inspired depictions of modern life in the big city, continuing with the famous consumer articles of The Store (1961-62), to the spectacular everyday objects of the “mod-ern home.” The exhibition also takes in Oldenburg’s first designs, depicting enor-mous monuments of consumer objects intended for display in public spaces, and concludes with Mouse Museum, on loan from the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (co-organizer of the event); a walk-in, miniature museum in the form of a geometric mouse, for which Oldenburg has collected 385 objects since the late 1950s.

The exhibition includes a number of unseen or rarely shown works: drawings, photographs, sketches and films by the artist himself which give the visitor a privi-leged glimpse into the ingenious mental processes of Claes Oldenburg.

CLA

ES O

LDEN

BU

RG

CEN

TRE

POM

PID

OU

, PA

RIS

The enormous Floor Cake is Oldenburg’s humorous exploration of the metaphorical force of everyday objects.

Painting (1948) is an example of the drip technique pioneered by Pollock, using dance movements that echoed the

rituals of Native American tribes.


orty expert contributors and just under 400 photographers have documented the world

architecture of the early 21st century across four volumes – Asia and Pacific, America, Africa and Middle East, and Europe. The series Atlas. Architectures of the 21st Century, published by the BBVA Foundation and released simultaneously in two editions – English and Spanish – proposes an itinerary extending to over one thousand projects, of which 237 are illustrated and described in detail.

The series was not the Foundation’s first publishing venture in the world of architec-ture. That was Spain Builds, a monographic survey of architectural output in this country from 1975 to 2010, later re-edited in 2010 on the occasion of the Shanghai World Expo. Next up, in 2007, was the publication Atlas. Global Architecture circa 2000, featuring landmark projects in the period opening with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ending at the start of the new century. Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation, explained the origins of the series at the launch event: “After the warm reception to the first book, we realized this was a subject meriting deeper exploration, and set out to systematically document the architecture of the present century, adopt-ing a geographical approach that would confer greater visibility on hitherto under-represented regions. This was the genesis of the project entrusted to Luis Fernández-Galiano and now available under the Foundation’s publishing imprint.” Like the initial Atlas, the new series combines analy-sis of specific buildings with texts explor-ing their sociopolitical and cultural context, abundantly illustrated with photographs. drawings and diagrams.

Fernández-Galiano, Professor of Projects in the Architecture School of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, explained the structure of the series and how the work was organized. Each vol-ume is divided into ten chapters cover-

ing a given geographical area, with each one assigned to a different author. “The majority are architects,” he notes, “but we also wanted them to have academic expe-rience as architectural critics or histori-ans, and to have a record of achievements and publications that marked them out as an authority in their respective regions.” Asked about the Atlas’s most innovative feature, he singles out the part devoted to Africa, with an architecture that is “largely unknown even to those of us working in the field.”

To select works for inclusion, the editors drew up an initial list based on dimen-sions, quality, influence and impact on other projects. This was passed to the authors who were able to come back with their own proposals. “It was this dialogue that produced the final list of 237 works that are reviewed in detail, though many more are referred to in passing. The selec-tion also includes unbuilt projects.”

As regards stylistic trends, the Atlas seeks to be a true reflection of the world archi-tecture of its time: “The 20th century was characterized by movements that tended

to overshadow individual visions. Now there are no schools but only authors, or rather large practices employing hun-dreds of people, and the trends are eclec-tic,” Fernández-Galiano affirms.

The emerging powers in architecture, he goes on to say, do not always coincide with the country’s economic position. “The big powers in architecture are often small countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands or Finland, but others are coming up fast. In Latin America, Chile has the best home-grown architecture, but Mexico is also a rising force. Among the African countries, South Africa is outstanding, but the real dynamo of world architecture is China. The Chinese began by importing or else train-ing abroad, but now they have major stu-dios of their own.”

Architecture and globalization

The authors of the Atlas start from the premise that ours is the age of architec-tural globalization. “Globalization to some extent means standardization, perhaps too much standardization,” Fernández-Galiano admits. “Its least acceptable face

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

F

Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation; Norman Foster, founder and chairman of Foster + Partners; and Luis

Fernández-Galiano, architect and director of the series Atlas. Architectures of the 21st Century.

A BBVA Foundation Atlas surveys the architecture of the world since 2005


is failure to cater for the specific geog-raphy, climate and culture of where the building is to be located. But there is also a positive globalization, as seen in this atlas, in which ideas and architects travel and interact with the local environment in a process of cross-fertilization.”

And he adds: “Insofar as architecture is a useful art at the service of the community and needs to be inserted in a time and place, the best global architectures are those that attain this context-awareness and manage to transform themselves through contact with their future surroundings.” When par-ticipating in international competitive ten-

in all four volumes. His global architect status is evidenced by the versatility of the works featured in the Atlas, which run from Beijing International Airport or the Reichstag Cupola in Berlin to a prototype for school buildings in Sierra Leone which weds elements of sustainable architecture with local construction techniques.

Foster emphasized the economic weight of architecture, a sector which brings in some 125 billion dollars in revenues and employs 1.2 million people, of whom three quarters are registered architects. Yet, “European business accounts for only two percent of these revenues.” For archi-tects here to survive, he urges them to “believe in the future, go where the action is – particularly the emerging economies – and learn to do more with less. Iconic New York buildings, like the Chrysler or the Rockefeller Center, that have endured the test of time, were created in the Great Depression. Crises are a cyclical phe-nomenon which helps push the human spirit to break through new boundaries.” Fernández-Galiano concurred with the idea that the climate of austerity obliges us to “do more with less: more safety, beauty, quality, utility and comfort with smaller budgets, less energy consump-tion and less expensive materials, and giving the priority to shared urban spaces. We are looking at an architecture of neces-sity, with the accent on renovating, recov-ering and rebuilding as opposed to our recent history of grandiose new build.”

ders, global architects undertake a cultural and technical immersion process in order to come up with a bid that “clients see as realistic and can identify with.” A common practice is to establish a partnership with local architects who can anchor the project in its national setting, and are familiar not only with the sociocultural and symbolic context but also with the relevant rules and regulations.

Fernández-Galiano was accompanied at the press event by British architect Norman Foster, founder and chairman of Foster & Partners, the studio with most entries in the series and one of just three appearing

TOM

FO

X

IWA

N B

AA

N

HEL

ENA

SA

ND

MA

N

California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, United States), by Renzo Piano. Its green undulating roof reveals

the forms within: two large spheres – the planetarium and the visitable recreation of a rainforest ecosystem – and a

central covered courtyard that serves as a piazza.

An image of Burj Khalifa (Dubai, United Arab

Emirates), by Adrian Smith-SOM. The form of the

tower came from an initial impulse to keep its gra-

vitational center as close to the ground as possible.

In Africa, women are the pillar of community welfare. And their input was central to the design of this woman’s

center in Rufisque (Senegal), by Hollmén, Reuter and Sandman.

10 BIOMEDICINE BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

sthma is an inflammatory dis-ease of the lower respiratory tract that causes shortness of

breath, wheezing, coughing and tight-ness in the chest. It is also the most com-mon chronic ailment among children in developed countries. But despite the fact that one of ten school-age children and adolescents in Spain suffers the disease, and that these children spend 30% of their time in education centers, 93% of teachers in Spain feel their knowledge of the condition is inadequate and needs improving. This was one of the findings of the 2010 survey conducted by the BBVA and María José Jove foundations with the participation of 208 primary and second-ary schools. It was to address this infor-mation deficit that the two foundations joined forces once again to publish El asma en la infancia y adolescencia, directed by Ángel López-Silvarrey, pediatrician, pneumologist and child allergy special-ist at the El Castrillón Health Center in A Coruña, and Javier Korta, Head of Pediatric Pneumology at Hospital Universitario Donostia in San Sebastián, with contributions from a further twelve experts, and the seal of approval of the Asociación Española de Pediatría.

“Among our Foundation’s priorities in the health domain is to work on conditions that affect children and the care avail-able to them. It is therefore an honor for us to share this platform with the BBVA Foundation to present an asthma hand-book that is the first of its kind in Spain, offering guidance to both families and teachers,” remarked Felipa Jove, President of the Fundación María José Jove.

Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation, explained that the book was a product of the Foundation’s support program for biomedical research and its translation to clinical practice, and its work to improve health standards by dis-seminating recent biomedical advances and contents endorsed by the scientific

community. Its publication, moreover, marked a new milestone in what has been a fruitful partnership with the Fundación María José Jove in child health matters.

The goal of universal accessibility

A full version is available free of charge in pdf format from the websites of the BBVA and María José Jove foundations, where visitors can also download use-ful resources like asthma management questionnaires and recommendations on sport and physical exercise. The print edi-tion of the book can be acquired at book-stores and through the BBVA Foundation website.

It is vital with asthma to treat symptoms as soon as they appear and thereby avert an eventual attack. Patients and those around them must therefore be able to recognize such symptoms and act appro-priately. This, precisely, is one of the pri-mary goals of this handbook directed at patients, their families and the educa-tional community.

“It is a general reference book setting out the facts about asthma as we know them today, but which also tries to answer the specific questions that may come up in day-to-day school life. Like what to do if a pupil has an asthma attack at school, or how to get rid of potential asthma-induc-ing elements in the classroom,” says López-Silvarrey.

As well as explaining its causes, symp-toms, diagnosis and treatment in strictly layman’s terms, the book lends special attention to the care and management of asthma, asthma in the school, and the relationship between asthma and physical activity. The idea is to provide a rigorous account, based on scientific evidence, of aspects of the condition which the teach-ers taking the survey were most unsure of, and to do so in a plain, comprehensible manner with the aid of diagrams, when describing the use of devices, and practi-cal examples, when talking about how to react in the event of a seizure.

IMA

GEN

CED

IDA

PO

R E

L A

UTO

R

A

Felipa Jove, President of the Fundación María José Jove, and Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation, flanked

by the book’s co-directors, doctors Ángel López-Silvarrey (left) and Javier Korta.

The BBVA and María José Jove foundations publish a practical guide to child asthma for families and schools

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 BIOMEDICINE 11

he technology enabling genome analysis at a reduced speed and affordable cost is opening new avenues in the study of cancer and aging. Some recent advances were

described by Carlos López-Otín, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo, in his Alberto Sols-Fundación BBVA plenary lecture, delivered at the congress of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM).

López-Otín is joint coordinator with Elías Campo at Hospital Clínico de Barcelona of the genome project looking at the most common form of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and the first to publish findings under the aegis of the International Cancer Genome Consortium. The Spanish researchers have already sequenced the genome of 105 leukemia patients, and have identified 78 genes implicated in the disease. Some of these genes are linked to more aggressive forms of leukemia, so their pres-ence in the patient’s tumor has significant prognostic value. In future, López-Otín believes, “tests will be run on each patient to define the genetic profile of their particular cancer,” so they can be treated with the most suitable drug among those available. In other words, personalized medicine, tailored to each patient’s own genes.

In 2002, while researching on the relationship between cancer and aging, López-Otín’s group discovered one of the genes involved in Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, a kind of progeria that affects one child in every 4-8 million. This disease – among “the rarest of the rarest,” López-Otín calls it – causes “a runaway accelera-tion of the life clock. It’s as if the hours become minutes and the minutes seconds, and in a few years the body has gone through all the changes that would normally take decades.” His research-ers developed an animal model of the condition and discovered drugs capable of controlling the genetic defect, which are now being tested on fifty children from around 20 countries.

he BBVA Foundation Chair granted to Professor Peter McNaughton of the University of Cambridge to under-take research at the Instituto de Neurociencias in

Alicante (a joint center of Miguel Hernández University and the Spanish National Research Council) has helped elucidate a new and unexpected mechanism that regulates cold sensation. This discovery opens up the possibility of developing drugs to mimic the amply documented analgesic effects of cold and menthol. The results were published last July in the prestigious journal Nature Cell Biology.

It is commonly known that pain gets worse with inflammation and is inhibited by cooling. Inflammation, unfortunately, annuls the analgesic effects of cold by means which scientists were till now unable to decipher. The first novel finding of the joint research project established under the Biomedicine Chair “was to discover that inflammation switches off this natural analgesia by inhibiting the TRPM8 receptor for cold, and so makes pain worse,” Professor McNaughton explains. “The surprise came, however, when we examined the mechanism. We found that a critical intermediate protein, called a Gq protein, binds directly to TRPM8. When com-pounds such as histamine are released by inflammation, Gq is rapidly activated and switches TRPM8 off. Cold sensation is there-fore deactivated by inflammation.” These findings suggest that reversing this process, and reactivating cold sensation, may be a useful analgesic strategy.

For Carlos Belmonte, “having a front-line scientist from another country work for a year in a Spanish laboratory yields a unique opportunity to establish a longer standing collaboration with the scientist and the institution where he or she works, which of course is of huge benefit to trainee researchers. The paper pub-lished in Nature Cell Biology signals new directions in the studies on peripheral pain mechanisms, and will shortly be followed by new announcements from our lab with regard to the mechanisms of ocular pain.”

IMA

GE

CO

UR

TESY

OF

THE

AU

THO

R

IMA

GES

CO

UR

TESY

OF

THE

AU

THO

RS

T T

Peter McNaughton.Carlos López-Otín, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo. Carlos Belmonte.

Advances in cancer and aging with the aid of genomic techniques

Inflammation annuls cold sensation and its analgesic effect

12 SOCIAL SCIENCES BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

ducational attainment in Spain has not kept pace with the spec-tacular increase in school enrol-

ment, and indeed is where the Spanish system is most clearly falling down. Not only that, the disparities in results from one Spanish region to another are as large as those between OECD countries, even though the education system is the same. The difference between the best and worst performing region is equiva-lent to as much as one and a half year’s schooling. And the breach is wider still if we talk about educational quality as well as performance.

These are among the conclusions of the BBVA Foundation-Ivie report Educación y Desarrollo. PISA 2009 y el sistema edu-cativo español, the fruit of a research project coordinated by Antonio Villar, Ivie researcher and Professor of Foundations of Economic Analysis at Pablo de Olavide University. The Ivie team assessed the education systems of PISA-participating countries and Spain’s autonomous com-munities by reference to the Educational Development Index, an aggregate indi-cator measuring attainments in perfor-mance, equity and quality.

Education system performance is meas-ured via average scores in the PISA test, the most commonly used summary vari-able. The notion of equity is linked to the idea of equal opportunities and the strength of the relationship between stu-dents’ socio-economic background and their success at school. Finally, to assess education system quality, the reference used is the six levels of proficiency into which test results are classified. The Educational Development Index (EDI) is the geometric mean of the normalized values of these three components, and serves as a synthetic measure.

As we can see from table 1, Spain com-pares well with other European Union countries by the yardstick of equity, and

ties – the fourteen in which the PISA sam-ple was enlarged to facilitate like-for-like comparison – the first thing that strikes us is their sheer diversity (see table 2). All score below the OECD average in terms of quality, though some do relatively well

trails the average in performance and, by a wider margin, quality, one of the major weaknesses of our education system.

Looking at the results of the education system in Spain’s autonomous communi-

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Antonio Villar, Ivie researcher and Professor of Foundations of Economic Analysis at Pablo de Olavide University, is

coordinator of the PISA report.

Educational disparities between Spanish regions are as large as those separating OECD countries

TABLE 1. RESULTS OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM UE-15. OECD = 100

Educational Development Index

Performance Equity Quality

Finland 135.8 108.7 106.7 215.9

Belgium 113.5 102.6 95.4 149.4

Netherlands 112.8 103 102.5 135.9

Sweden 106.5 100.8 99.6 120.3

France 106.4 100.6 95.8 124.9

United Kingdom 101.7 100.2 99.3 105.7

OECD 100 100 100 100

Germany 99.4 100.8 96.9 100.4

Ireland 98.3 100.6 100.7 93.9

Italy 90.2 98.6 100.4 74.2

Greece 88.5 98 99 71.4

Denmark 87 100.4 101.5 64.6

Portugal 86.1 99.2 100.3 64.1

Luxembourg 84.9 95.7 93.5 68.3

Austria 80.7 95.3 95.8 57.6

Spain 75.9 97.6 100.9 44.4

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

E

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 SOCIAL SCIENCES 13

in terms of performance (Castilla y León, Madrid Region, Catalonia and La Rioja) and equity (Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, among others).

We can also see that the regions scor-ing highest in performance are among the best rated by the measure of equity, though note that there is no clear cor-relation between economic and educa-tional development. Indeed the regions of north-western Spain – Galicia, Asturias and Castilla y León – obtain good educa-tional outcomes despite not figuring in the top bracket by the measure of eco-nomic development or per capita income.

The education shortfall

The Educational Poverty Index sheds light on a society’s educational short-comings by measuring the incidence and intensity of educational failure along with its distribution. Incidence is calculated as the average percentage of students falling below a given profi-ciency threshold in mathematics, sci-ence and reading (scoring lower than level 2 of the 6 in the PISA report range). Intensity, meantime, is the average dif-ference of this group of students’ test results with respect to the same thresh-old. And distribution, or more specifi-cally distribution inequality, is meas-

ured through a dispersion index similar to that used for income.

Spain comes out reasonably well by this yardstick: its Educational Poverty Index, at 105.8, stands at around half the aver-age of all survey countries and not far off the average score of the EU-15 group. The best rated countries are Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal (indices of 24.02, 45.46, 69.85 and 83.12 respectively) with Greece (131.53), Austria (132.30), France (135.66) and Luxembourg (158.17) bringing up the rear.

The distribution of “educational poverty” by Spanish autonomous community resembles that found for the Educational Development Index: the best rated regions are bunched in the country’s north and tend to be those with the highest perfor-mance scores. This is the case, for instance, with Navarra, the Basque Country and the Madrid Region, which all come in at less than 65% of the national average. In this indicator, remember, the lower the score the better the result.

Another of the study’s key findings is that differences in educational outcomes have important implications for development, wealth generation and employment. Although greater wealth does not neces-sarily denote a higher level of individual

educational achievement, there is some evidence that better education confers a relative advantage in income and job creation.

Educational performance and economic growth

International studies have shown that educational performance has a boost effect on the economy. And in Spain too, regional differences have been found to add to or detract from growth, to the extent that an additional 50 PISA points would imply around 0.9 points on top of the annual growth rate of per capita income. By this reckoning, differences in educational performance can translate as long-term growth disparities as wide as 1% to 1.4%.

In the hypothetical case that all of Spain’s regions had reading comprehension scores on a par with those attained by the highest-scoring Madrid Region and Castilla y León, the dividend for income growth could run from 0.10% in La Rioja and Catalonia to a full 1% in the Canary Islands. And these large improvements in most autonomous communities would deliver an annual 0.4% increase in Spain’s long-term output growth.

Learning performance during compulsory education is also a significant predictor of students’ employment prospects. Thus a 15-point improvement in the basic gradu-ation rate and a reduction in drop-out would boost the activity rate by between 0.3 and 2 points, reduce the unemploy-ment rate by 2.3 to 3.8 points and increase productivity by at least 4.5%. Conversely, finishing compulsory secondary educa-tion without receiving a diploma is not significantly better in economic terms than having primary studies alone.

TABLE 2. Results of the education system. Spain and its autonomous communities* OECD = 100

Educational Development Index

Performance Equity Quality

OECD 100 100 100 100

Castilla y León 97 102 103 87

Madrid 95 102 101 84

Rioja 93 101 100 81

Asturias 91 99 99 75

Navarra 89 101 103 68

Aragón 88 100 104 66

Basque Country 87 100 106 62

Cantabria 86 99 101 63

Catalonia 81 101 105 50

Galicia 78 98 106 45

Spain 76 98 101 44

Murcia 68 97 102 32

Andalusia 57 93 99 20

Balearic Islands 57 93 101 20

Canary Islands 57 91 103 19

Ceuta and Melilla 42 84 91 10

*Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencia Region and Extremadura did not take part individually in PISA 2009.

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

14 SOCIAL SCIENCES BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

ife expectancy in Spain stands at around 80 years, but indica-tors show that the last years of

life can be marked by illness and depen-dence. Confronted with such a situation of dependence, a majority of Spaniards would want their parents to move in with them so they could be looked after, with a more or less even split between those saying they would employ outside help and those who would prefer care to be provided exclusively by relatives. A majority also stress the key role of public authorities in attending to the needs of elderly people who live alone, either uni-laterally or in collaboration with family members.

These are among the findings of a five-year research project commissioned by the BBVA Foundation and conducted by a team led by María Ángeles Durán, a research professor in the CSIC’s Center for Social and Human Sciences, and recently published as a book with the title Unpaid Work in the Global Economy.

When unveiling the preliminary results some months ago (see Newsletter no. 30), Durán remarked that demand for care in Spain will expand by around 50% before 2050. Most affected of all will be the elderly segment, which could account for 46% of such demand by halfway through the century against 27.5% today.

In this context, 55% of interviewees say they would want to lodge dependent par-ents in their homes, and a further 30% say they would rather look after them in their current place of residence.

Taking on the care of elderly parents involves a series of choices which researchers summed up in two: the option of the family taking on sole responsibility for care or the option of sharing the bur-den to varying degrees with paid, external help (see table 1).

Interviewee age, it turns out, was a clear determinant for the option chosen, with 43.7% of those over 65 saying they would personally take care of dependent parents, against just 18% of those aged under 30. Indeed the option of partially or fully exter-nalized care was the most popular across the board, winning out in every age group except the over 65s (34.1%).

The feeling of being personally obliged to take on parents’ care is linked to gender, work situation, age and socioeconomic status. This sense of duty is stronger

among women (38% versus 25% of men), older respondents (41% among over 65s against 29% among under 30s) and housewives (43% against 25% of women in paid work). But though it is expressly felt by 91% of unpaid carers, half of them add that they “have no alternative,” a fur-ther 22% that they “feel trapped” and 21% that “the burden is too great.”

As many as 85% of carers look after their charges on a daily basis, and 40% of them put in between 8 and 24 hours a day. One consequence of being so overtaxed is that

HO

RTO

N G

RO

UP

L

Spanish families want to take care of their elderly members but call for government support

TABLE 1. Situation of choice if your mother/father needed help to perform basic activities (percentage)

Total Men Women

1. A residential home or day center 11.8 12.9 10.8

2. Cared for mainly by a paid helper 13.9 18.1 9.9

3. Cared for by interviewee and a paid helper 22.2 21.3 23.1

A Total 1+2+3 28.6 23.6 33.3

4. Cared for mainly by interviewee 28.6 23.6 33.3

5. Cared for by other family members 7.8 8.6 7.1

6. Care shared equally between interviewee and other family members 12.8 12.7 12.9

B Total 4+5+6 49.2 44.9 53.3

% B/A 102.7 85.9 121.7

Source: M.A. Durán based on figures from the Care Hours Survey (CSIC, 2009).

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 SOCIAL SCIENCES 15

45% of carers suffer some kind of chronic disease.

Asked who should be responsible for the needs or problems of old people living alone, interviewees are divided between those replying families or friends (37%), the public authorities (25%) and a com-bination of the two (35%). On the ques-tion of government aid, 63.4% affirm that there are big differences between the autonomous communities in the support given to dependent persons.

Expectations for respondents’ own dependence

The CSIC’s Care Hours Survey also broached the topic of who people thought would care for them in the event of dependence. One striking result is that 10% said they were unsure of what would happen. A further 40.8% believed their family would care of them on an exclusive basis, while 15% said they would mainly be cared for by a paid helper, 21% that they would be tended to by the family with help from an outside carer and 12% that they would move into an old people’s home (see table 2).

Here too age makes a difference. The nearer respondents get to a potential dependence state, the higher their expec-tation of moving into an old people’s home (15.7% among over 65s) and the less likelihood they see of being cared for solely by family members (38%). Personal preferences, moreover, stand ahead of expectations as regards both care in the family (44%) and being accommo-dated in a home (15.7%). Another ques-tion touched on how much the family expected interviewees to contribute to the care of dependent relatives. Although a similar proportion of men and women say their families would expect them to share in caring, the degree of commit-ment expected is far from being the same.

Asked if their families would want them to perform almost all caring tasks, 30% of women responded affirmatively against just 18.7% of men.

The economic cost of caring for dependents

Eighty percent of Spaniards – as table 3 shows – believe caring for dependents will place a burden on the family economy, with only a few saying that it’s impact will be compensated by the authorities (1.7%), other family members (2.8%) or the dependent relative him or herself (4%).

Interviewees estimate the monthly cost of dependent care at over 1,100 euros, rising to over 1,500 euros if the option of choice is an unsubsidized old people’s home. The average prices of residen-tial homes that post their rates on the Internet run from 1,450 euros for pub-licly-owned to 2,250 for private centers, plus the various services billed as extras which include, for instance, changing the posture of a bed-ridden patient. In cases where a family member gives up work to care for a dependent, the authors of the study calculate the annual household income lost at around 20,000 euros on average.

Paying for outside help, often from a for-eign carer, remains a minority option, though one that is gaining popularity, with 5.2% of interviewees reporting that their families had chosen this route. The economic crisis, however, has set back this development, confounding the fore-casts ventured when the Dependency Law was passed to the effect that caring would become a motor of employment.

Dependency insurance finds few takers

Dependency insurance is one way to man-age the economic impact, but it has made little headway in the Spanish market. So although 11.2% of interviewees claimed to have a severe dependence case within their families and a further 14.4% referred to a moderately dependent adult, only 2.4% (and only 0.9% above age 65) had taken out an insurance policy of this kind.

TABLE 2. Personal expectations in the event of becoming dependent, by age

% of responses Total Would hire a carer Would move into an old people’s home

Care shared between family member and

paid helper

Only family member Other

Total 88.9 100 16.6 13.5 23.7 45.9 0.3

18-29 92.1 100 16.1 9.9 22.7 51.0 0.4

30-49 89.1 100 14.7 12.5 26.7 45.6 0.6

50-64 87.3 100 18.8 14.5 24.2 42.5 0.0

65 and over 86.9 100 19.1 18.1 19.1 43.7 0.0


TABLE 3. The economic impact of caring for dependents, by interviewee age

Total 18 to 29 30 to 49 50 to 64 65 and over

Total 1101 254 404 213 229

No impact on expenditure or income

7.2 4.3 5.9 6.1 13.1

Mild impact 39.3 39.4 39.5 42.3 36.2

Severe impact 38.1 37.4 41.7 37.6 33.2

No impact, compensated by dependent

4.0 5.5 2.7 3.3 5.2

No impact, compensated by family

2.8 3.1 3.7 1.4 2.2

No impact, compensated by authorities

1.7 0.8 2.0 1.9 2.2

Don’t know/No answer 6.9 9.4 4.4 7.5 7.9


16 BASIC SCIENCES BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

fter years of study, the first medi-cal uses of nanotechnology, centered on nanoparticles, are

beginning to enter clinical trials, according to speakers at the 29th Summer School organized by the Nicolás Cabrera Institute of Materials Science of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), held in the Residencia de la Cristalera (Miraflores de la Sierra, Madrid) with the support of the BBVA Foundation.

“Nanotechnology is playing an increasingly important role in biology and medicine,” explains Daniel Jaque of the UAM, director of the School. “In recent years, nanoparti-cles have proven themselves to be incred-ibly powerful tools for the detection, diagno-sis and treatment of various diseases.”

One of the first nanoparticles to make the leap into clinical trials is BIND-014, devel-oped in the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at Harvard Medical School (Cambridge, United States) by a team including Nazila Kamali, a speaker at the School. BIND-014 nanoparticles are designed to carry docetaxel, a drug employed against prostate, lung and breast cancer, among others, and deliver it to the site of the disease. The results of phase 1 trials have shown that BIND-014 accumulates in tumors only, not in healthy tissues, and that in various patients the cancer had decreased in size.

For Kamali, BIND-014 is proof that “nano-particles can perform a range of functions with increasing sophistication, to the extent that we can almost think of them as nanorobots able to act selectively on specific tissues or areas of the body.” This specificity means fewer side effects and a more effective treatment, since the rate of drug release can also be controlled.

Soledad Penadés, from the CICbioma-GUNE center in San Sebastián, has opted for a different strategy. A trained chemist and expert in car bohydrates,

i.e., sugars, Penadés uses a technique that draws on cells’ weakness for these compounds – “their sweet tooth,” as she puts it. She coats magnetic nano-particles with different types of sugars according to the target organ: “The cells of each tissue have an affinity for a spe-cific type of carbohydrate,” she explains, and this makes them useful, with the right chemical treatment, as a contrast agent in nuclear magnetic resonance. Especially since “conventional contrast agents traverse the whole body, whereas these nanoparticles make directly for the organ that is being scanned.”

The sugar coating on nanopar ticles can also simulate that of viruses like the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. “HIV is able to infect human immune sys-tem cells because it is covered in carbohy-drates very similar to our own,” Penadés points out. So if it is possible for nano-particles with sugars like those of HIV to reach the cells and occupy the entry routes employed by the virus, the entrance will be blocked and infection prevented. Indeed, in vitro studies carried out in tandem with the Centro Nacional de Microbiología have found that some of these nanoparticles can inhibit HIV infection.

Min Gu, Head of the Center for Micro-Photonics at the Swinburne University of Technology, in Australia, informed the public about his work on the use of gold nanoparticles in photothermal therapies. His experiments – conducted in cell cul-tures only, not yet live animals – involve embedding these nanoparticles in cancer cells, illuminating them then heating them with a laser, so the tissue is destroyed. Min Gu’s group is already developing endoscopic devices to perform this proc-ess locally in different parts of the body.

Kishan Dholaika, of St. Andrews University (United Kingdom), presented his opto-perforation technique – the rupturing of cell membranes with laser beams to facilitate the selective, controlled insertion of drugs or luminescent particles. His team is also looking at samples of different kinds of can-cers to study how the light emitted by cells may be indicative of their state of health.

The gold nanoparticles developed by Luis Liz-Marzán’s team at the University of Vigo are biosensors of such sensitivity that they can detect the presence of a sin-gle molecule, opening up new vistas for the early detection of disease through bio-indicator techniques.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

A

Daniel Jaque, director of the Nicolás Cabrera International Summer School (UAM).

The Nicolás Cabrera School welcomes some of the experts who are bringing nanotechnology to the clinic

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 ECONOMY 17

rnst Fehr, Professor of Microeco-nomics and Experimental Eco-nomic Research at the Uni-

versity of Zurich (Switzerland) whose Department of Economics he also chairs, delivered this year’s JEEA-BBVA Founda-tion Lecture titled “The Nature and Con-sequences of Human Altruism” in the Marqués de Salamanca Palace, Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation. Fehr talked the public through some of his studies on the neuronal origins of altru-ism and its role in the economy, focusing on when it is likeliest for altruistic motives to guide our behavior in the markets, within organizations and in political life.

Although it is traditional in economics to enthrone self-interest or egoism as the primary motor of decision-making, Fehr sees it differently: “Certain key aspects of our origin, social relations and the way society is organized have to do with the tensions existing between altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence suggests that human altruism is an extremely powerful tool. Yet there is so much variety among individuals that the interaction between altruists and egoists is vital for the two groups to arrive at an accommodation.”

Why are some people very selfish and oth-ers quite the opposite? “The use of imag-ing techniques has allowed us to detect differences in brain activity when subjects are faced with decisions entailing a degree of self-sacrifice. The more grey matter we have in a certain part of the brain – the temporoparietal junction – the more capable we are of altruism or generosity,” remarks Fehr, one of the founders of the new discipline of neuroeconomics, a bare decade old, which studies the neuronal mechanisms mediating economic deci-sions. The conclusions of the study were published last June in the journal Neuron.

“In selfish individuals, the tem poroparietal region was activated even when the choice

involved little personal cost. In contrast, altruistic agents only exhibited a high level of activity when the sacrifice was consid-erable. But this is not to say that altruistic behavior is entirely down to biological fac-tors. The volume of grey matter we have is also influenced by social processes. The findings of this study therefore raise the fascinating question of whether it might be possible to promote the development of brain regions that are important for altruistic behavior through appropriate training or social norms.”

In earlier studies, published in Nature Neuroscience in October 2011, Fehr had shown that non-invasive electrical stimu-lation of the prefrontal cortex leads to greater compliance with social norms.

Fehr believes firmly that if we “dissolve the boundaries between neurobiology, psychology and economics, it will be this last discipline that will be wholly transformed, just as spanning the gap between chemistry and biology led to major 20th century discoveries like the structure of DNA and opened the door to the genetic revolution.” His next research challenge is “to construct an

empirically reliable neuronal model for economic behavior.”

Aside from his professorship at Zurich, he has served as Global Distinguished Professor of Economics at New York University since 2011. A former affiliated faculty member of the Department of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and past president of the Economic Science Association and the European Economic Association (EEA), Fehr is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among other learned institutions.

He has published extensively in leading international journals including Science, Nature, Neuron, Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy and Psychological Science.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

E

Professor Ernst Fehr explains a point during the JEEA-BBVA Foundation lecture.

Ernst Fehr talks in the BBVA Foundation about the neuronal origin of altruism and its role in the economy

18 FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE AWARDS BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

n the occasion of the pres-entation ceremony of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of

Knowledge Awards, laureates gathered for a Frontiers Dialogue. Among the topics discussed were the value of investing in science at times of economic uncertainty and the conditions most conducive to the advance of their respective disciplines.

The pages that follow are an extract from this interdisciplinary conversation, moderated by the BBC journalist Juliette Foster.

J. Foster: Towards the end of the 20th cen-tury, advanced societies were known as societies of knowledge and it was believed that resources dedicated to the genera-tion of knowledge and culture in general would continue to grow. But in this first decade of the 21st century we are caught in the grip of a severe economic crisis which is affecting all areas of life including scientific research and cultural creation.

The front page headline of the scientific journal Nature on the 5th of April per-haps captured the mood. That headline said: “What a waste. Boosting efficiency of the research enterprise in tight times.” So now perhaps is a good time to review some of the essential questions on the relationship between science, culture and society.

I would like to first talk to professors Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. You were honored in your field of astrophys-ics, but there were those who would say yes, it is fascinating but it is scientific van-ity if there is no relevance to public life today. What is your response to that?

Michel Mayor: I have some difficulty try-ing to understand man’s curiosity as no more than vanity. I believe it is something that is absolutely essential, and more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philoso-phers were already discussing similar questions. If you suppressed this kind of

curiosity, we would be living on a very bor-ing planet.

J. Foster: But some would say that this is star gazing. It is very nice to exercise that curiosity, but why should public money be used to fund it when there are people dying in this world. Ciro de Quadros has to work with them for example – he has to save lives.

Michel Mayor: Yes, it is a difficult one to answer. The problem I would say is, what is the percentage of astrophysicists in the developing countries? It is something like one astronomer to one hundred thousand people. So the quantity of money this costs society is very small indeed.

J. Foster: Professor Varshavsky, you are a specialist in biomedicine. Do you fear that perhaps given the current economic backdrop the debate might come down to who’s branch of science is more rel-evant than others. You have worked in the

Curiosity and risk-taking are what drives science as a motor of development

O

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE AWARDS 19

field of cell disintegration proteins, which some would say is more relevant because potentially we could find cures for cancer or other diseases.

Alexander Varshavsky: Well the short answer is that one of the beauties of sci-ence is that it is utterly unpredictable, and whether astronomy is more useful than fundamental biology is up to the future to decide... Being immersed in the present makes it hard to predict the future. In fact, one could argue that progress in astro-physical techniques including electron-ics, computer science and other things is, in some tangible ways, as important as astrophysics itself. By the same token, work on fundamental biology is at the foundation of future advances in medi-cine. I would not dare to predict which one is more important and which one is best.

J. Foster: And we also have to ask just how far down the line funding should go. Professor Held, you were honored for your work in the field of climate change. It is controversial, but there are some who would say that your field merits funding because of the changes that we are seeing in our weather systems and the economic consequences that might follow.

Isaac Held: Yes, the pressures in our field to generate fast answers to these press-ing questions about climate change are so great that it is often more difficult to justify the fundamental research which is required... and which takes time.

J. Foster: So for you it’s harder to justify funding than it would be for our profes-sors the astrophysicists.

Isaac Held: It can be, because much of the research is not so directly related to the future projections that people want. It takes time to develop the foundations. And often you can’t predict which piece of fundamental research will be most rel-evant in the future.

Carver Mead: It’s characteristic of all these fields that things that we don’t see as cen-tral in our daily lives today will become the most important in twenty years, and we don’t know which ones they will be. That’s true I think of all of our fields and it’s just not up to us to pick which par-ticular one. We have to follow our sense of where important things are until some-thing comes out.

J. Foster: I suppose the question is do we really have that luxury when we are living

in a very difficult economic backdrop? Angus Deaton, you are an economist, you understand this situation...

Angus Deaton: I’m probably more fortu-nate than the hard scientists here in that my own work doesn’t depend on public funding. And a lot of the best work that has been done in economics has been done by individual scholars without need-ing laboratories.

Daniel Janzen: I would say that the very small amounts of money that are spent on what we are calling here basic sci-ence are trivial compared to what society spends on just plain hedonistic luxury.

If we take sectors that we now consider important, like aeronautics, the cell phone industry, the medical industry; if you trace their roots back 30, 50 or 80 years, what was key research would have been viewed then as luxury, vanity science... somebody just following their curiosity.

In my field of restoration biology, humanity has sort of proceeded willy-nilly destroy-ing the environment. And all of a sudden we hit the end of it, and now the question becomes – “Oops, can we restore some of that biology which we have been trash-

The Frontiers laureates before the start of the interdisciplinary dialogue in the Marqués de Salamanca Palace, Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation.


ing on the whole global surface? I think the answer is yes, but it requires a whole other way of thinking based on this kind of basic science.

J. Foster: What you all appear to be advo-cating is that science and culture should be insulated as exceptional cases.

Isaac Held: No, and here my personal his-tory may be relevant. I started out study-ing theoretical physics and doing what I would now consider rather esoteric research that was very difficult to explain to anyone who wasn’t in the field directly. And I chose very consciously to move to climate science where I saw that society’s demand for new knowledge was just over-whelming. So I think there is a constant give and take between fundamental sci-ence and the way we choose the subjects that we study. I wouldn’t use the word isolation.

Didier Queloz: The public is highly responsive to and curious about the kind of things that we are doing. I don’t share this perception that we are spending money in a vain way. First of all, science does not cost that much if you compare it to any other big issue that society is spending on, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m not asking us to spend more... The health system needs a lot of money and there is much more money in the health insurance system, at least in Europe, than in science and that too is fine. But I also think that humanity has made a lot of progress. Would it have been possible without curiosity, call it science or what-ever? I doubt it, so I think there is at some point a return to society from the curiosity we work with.

J. Foster: Do you feel that there is a dan-ger, Dr. de Quadros, that this curiosity could be stymied?

Ciro de Quadros: That’s an interesting point, because when President Kennedy said “let’s go to the moon” there was also a lot of debate, but I think the effort to go to the moon generated a tremendous amount of research with an impact in many areas of life. Take also the curios-ity of looking at the stars... To do that you need lots of technology, and these tech-nologies are then applied in medicine, in economics, in agriculture… Investments in science are important, but you need to

have the vision to pursue things we now think are impossible to achieve. Only the challenge of the impossible can lead to the research that makes it a reality.

J. Foster: You describe the interrelated-ness of scientific disciplines, but are you concerned that given what is happening with the global economy, those links may be broken?

Ciro de Quadros: I don’t think so. Maybe I am very optimistic, but one way or another the people that have to make the decisions will make the right decisions.

J. Foster: In the long term, yes. But poli-ticians don’t think in the long term, but only as far ahead as the next elections.

Angus Deaton: The general public thinks ahead further than you might think. If you look back 250 years, life expectancy in the rich countries is more than twice what it was in 1800. A much larger fraction of the world’s population is living in demo-cratic or semi-democratic states, where they have some control over their own futures. Living standards are many multi-ples of what they were in 1800. There are different accounts of how we got there, but they all involve an extension of basic knowledge, of basic understanding and a willingness to confront ignorance and try to take things forward.

I don’t think that depends on short-run funding: there have been huge fluc-tuations in the past and will be again in

future. I think it does depend, though, on people understanding the impor-tance of this thing. In the United States, for instance, a huge amount of money is spent by the national institutes of health and politicians are lining up to support that, because life expectancy has been growing 2 or 3 years every decade and they want that to continue or go even faster. So I am not too worried about that.

J. Foster: So you are pretty optimistic on the whole.

Angus Deaton: In the long run I am. In the short run… I think it is very important for scientists not to be insulated from soci-ety: that would be a disaster both ways round. They have to be part of society but also to make people understand the link between what we do and the benefits that it generates. So it is a two way street: we have to give back to science, but we also have to give back an understanding of sci-ence and what it does.

J. Foster: Maestro Sciarrino, you are the creative end of the debate, and it is your creativity as a composer that has won you the award in Contemporary Music. Do you feel that the public has that basic under-standing of what you are trying to achieve as a musician, to share with them?

Salvatore Sciarrino: It is not just about whether the mass of the public under-stand what is new or what is modern. It is very complex. School I think can be the most important instrument, because we

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Economics, Finance and Management laureate Angus Deaton, and Salvatore Sciarrino, awardee in Contemporary

Music, listen to Isaac Held, the 2011 laureate in the Climate Change category.

organize and create future generations through the medium of schooling. And there I think lies the solution to many problems.

Angus Deaton: I think that is something enormously positive for the future. The fraction of the world’s population that now goes to school is far, far higher than it has ever been in human history. There is that enormous amount of brainpower which is a huge resource for the future.

Carver Mead: The technology we have today has evolved over 50 years or so. When people see the applications, which happen really quickly, they say, oh that’s new technology. But no. It’s technology that developed over 50 or 60 years. Now it is so easy to use that you can do new things with it quickly. But that is different from having a new technology; a point that’s not always understood.

Daniel Janzen: I’m going to make what will seem to be a wild prediction. Within five years, everybody in this room will have in their back pockets a cheap piece of plastic that will have a small hole in it. And any-thing that is living – food, a mosquito, a leaf off a tree – you can drop a piece of it in that hole and in a couple of seconds it will take a small DNA signature off it, then come back and say: what you have just stuck in the hole is “x”. Think of that in the pockets of 7 billion people on the planet. Its impact on society will be the equivalent of teaching 11th century peasants how to read and write. Suddenly there will be this enormous living wild world out there that we have just been walking across the top of and not even knowing it’s there.

J. Foster: Still talking about the future, do you think science will continue to be organized into disciplines as we now know them?

Didier Queloz: The study of exoplanets is very interesting in that sense, because you end up crossing over old disciplines like Earth history, Earth geology, atmos-pheric sciences, biology, chemistry... We are already bridging traditional frontiers and opening up new fields such as exo-biology. For me, science is on principle a completely disorganized system.

Angus Deaton: I think some separation makes sense. I can’t do what Alexander

Varshavsky does and he can’t do what I do. Also, we are here to train students to learn what we know. So we need pro-grams, though of course those programs change over time too.

Carver Mead: Our education process is: you have a young person, they have a mind, you open up the top, you pour in knowledge until it’s full and then you close it down, you give them a degree and now they’re fit to go into the world. And I think that is total garbage. If you look at knowl-edge as we see it today, there’s nothing I have ever done professionally that I took a course on in school – nothing!

Children don’t want to do their lessons, they want to figure stuff out. So let them figure stuff out and train teachers to help them with that – to become coaches instead of tape recorders. Students can go on the Web and find out what the standard wisdom is about something, then the teacher can say: look at this, put those together, see what we can do with that. That’s what teaching has to become, and the technology is there to do it, but our culture hasn’t caught up yet.

Salvatore Sciarrino: The humanistic school, for me personally, was very use-ful to open my mind. I don’t think I had the best professor possible but what I did learn was how to learn. And that is more important than just quickly gathering information.

J. Foster: I’d like to ask you all what it was that set you on the track of the discipline that is your life’s work...

Ciro de Quadros: Pure luck in my case. I wanted to be a pilot in the air force and, to matriculate, you had to hand in your papers in Rio de Janeiro. But I lived in the south of Brazil, so this friend of mine went and he forgot to put my name down for the air force. So just by chance, I went to medical school.

Isaac Held: I wanted to be part of some-thing that was bigger than I was; to feel I was contributing to something that accumulated, so if I could contribute to it I could add something that didn’t just disappear with my lifetime.

I started out in theoretical physics, where I felt there was too much ego and insufficient collaboration. Then I found out about climate science mainly by chance, and it appealed to me as an intellectual challenge and an issue that was important for society. Also I was lucky to be in an institute with a com-munity less interested in reputation than in discovery. I found a research environment in which I was comfort-able and where I felt I was contributing something.

J. Foster: I’d like to take that notion of being “part of something much bigger.” Is that one of the things that drives you, Didier?


FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Ecology and Conservation Biology laureate Daniel Janzen addresses the group under the attentive gaze of British

journalist Juliette Foster, who moderated the debate.


Didier Queloz: It is true that when you do science you feel this continu-ity, because you inherit what you learn from the past and you know that you will pass it on to someone. In my case, what first drove me was extreme curiosity. As a child, I was famous in the family for unscrewing all kinds of equipment. And certainly in astrophysics you have that sense of beauty and the feeling of being amazed by nature and being surprised always. So I arrived where I am through a mixture of genes, extreme curiosity, luck and opportunity. We created a field of physics without ever deciding that we were going to search for a planet: I came along this line and just found the planet, and that’s it.

J. Foster: Most of you have used the word “beauty” in terms of what you do, but some people would say you can’t have beauty in science; only art has beauty...

Michel Mayor: I feel very sad if people cannot see the beauty in science. It is not evident to everyone but in the domain of physics you have a huge beauty, and it is fascinating to be able to understand, for instance, cosmology...

Ciro de Quadros: Is there anything more beautiful than the smile of a five year old child? We have all the technology to eliminate the mortality of children under five, but we are not applying that technol-ogy. So my crusade in life, if you will, is to makes sure that the technology we have reaches everyone.

Salvatore Sciarrino: What is beauty and what is not beauty is very relative. I think that the power of experience is the pos-sibility of big emotions; for example when we discover something or when we come another time to something we discovered.

Also, what is beauty for us is not beauty for the people of other countries or another time or age. It’s curious that I had a similar experience when I was young, because I was curious about everything and studied a lot of things before ending up in music.

Angus Deaton: I’m fascinated by the idea of linking economics and beauty, and cer-tainly think there’s a beauty that comes from seeing things in a new way. So if we have some jumble of ideas of things that are paradoxical and confusing and diffi-cult, and all of a sudden there’s an expla-nation of something that makes them fall into a pattern in which suddenly you see this thing in a whole new way and it makes sense and it’s clear and it’s coherent… that is a very beautiful thing. And I think it is very similar to when you hear a piece of music that makes you feel completely different about something; it just brings different emotions and you see things in a different way. Or when you see a painting which again makes you see something in a way that brings a new coherence.

J. Foster: I want now to put the focus on you all as individuals. You have made some phenomenal achievements in your lives. Do you feel you have exerted an

influence, and if so, where would you say your influence is greatest?

Daniel Janzen: In 1985, which is 25 years ago, Winnie, my wife, and I realized that you could in fact regrow a tropical forest. At that time that idea was treated with deri-sion and antagonism by the entire conser-vation community because the mantra then was we have to buy it as forest and save it now because once it’s cut down, it’s gone forever. And we suddenly real-ized that that didn’t have to be the case, because in nature there were many cases of restoration taking place naturally, so we went ahead and applied this. We bought 60,000 hectares of old pasture, I mean garbage, from a conservation standpoint, and let the forest reinvade it. The people said “Oh, you actually can regrow a for-est!” And today it’s very fashionable to talk about forest restoration. But in 1985 I stood up in Washington D.C. and gave a talk to 200 prominent conservationists and the reaction was firmly negative, so I feel that’s one of the areas where we actu-ally had an impact on a worldwide basis.

Carver Mead: I think the work of mine that has had the most influence in the infor-mation revolution was what I did between 40 and 50 years ago. At the time there was enormous resistance; it couldn’t possibly be true, it had to be garbage, I didn’t know what I was talking about and so forth. So now everybody knows and everybody is using it. Meanwhile I’ve gone on to do other things that people think are gar-bage. If one is innovating, one is always up against this wall of disbelief and it’s simply a way of life that we get used to.

J. Foster: From what’s been said here today, there are clearly synergies between your respective fields. Could you see your-selves collaborating in future?

Angus Deaton: I think it’s very fashionable to talk about interdisciplinary work. My experience in interdisciplinary work is that 90% of the time it is a complete waste of time and the other 10% it changes your life. So we all sit through these things in order to get that occasional insight which you then take back to what you’re working on and it changes the way you do things.

How much influence have we had? On the one hand not enough! We all have unfinished work that we think is maybe

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Didier Queloz, co-awardee in the Basic Sciences category; Alexander Varshavsky, Biomedicine laureate; and Daniel

Janzen, awardee in Ecology and Conservation Biology.

happens here is that the politician enters this arena with no particular interest in whether it’s true or not, but whether it fur-thers a particular agenda.

Isaac Held: We have worked hard to set up an assessment process precisely to interface with the world of policy, because our science is so visible and so relevant to policy decisions that are under dis-cussion. And I’m much more comfort-able with that process than with the idea of individual scientists cultivating relationships with individual policymak-ers, because there’s too much chance involved. A particular policymaker has his favorite scientists or non-scientists whom

he talks to about a particular problem... that makes little sense to me.

Angus Deaton: What worries me a lot is when politicians are not representing people any more but representing money. I worry a lot about growing income dis-parities, particularly in the United States, though it is happening throughout the world. Democracy works much less well when there is a very, very well funded set of people who get listened to more clearly than anyone else. Their views may be pro-science or anti-science, but what really matters is that not all of us are properly represented any more.

Ciro de Quadros: Politicians want to do good because they want to be re-elected. I think the problem is that often they are not getting the right advice. Take the example of vaccines. When we manage to demon-strate the economic impact of some dis-eases that can be prevented, politicians take the right decision and introduce new vaccines that are cost effective. So I think what is needed is, on the one hand, real democracy and, on the other, good peo-ple to advise the politicians. Then you get a domino effect, because other countries will try to emulate these solutions.


going against the grain. I certainly have a lot of things that are going against the grain and I would hope that those have as much influence in the future as some of the things I have done in the past.

Alexander Varshavsky: There is relatively little polemic in molecular biology because the standards of proof are pretty high. In fact when people begin arguments it usu-ally means that the quality of the data is insufficient, and in that case they should turn around and go back to the lab. The most important thing, I think, is to be a good craftsmen, to really enter the sub-ject. And then the subject, if you enter it with this much abused word “love”, will pay you back. It will pay you back based partly on your abilities and partly on luck, because luck plays a tremendous role in discoveries, even those of the highest order. This whole notion of being a rebel is slightly overplayed, I think, especially in hard sciences.

J. Foster: And do you see any change in science’s relationship with decision-mak-ers, with the politicians?

Daniel Janzen: A minute ago, you men-tioned “a debate amongst climatolo-gists.” I haven’t seen any debate amongst climatologists. I have seen a set of clima-tologists who, in my opinion, are abso-lutely correct talking about the whole phe-nomenon, and then a set of people who very much don’t want it to be true. What

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Ciro de Quadros, winner in the Development Cooperation category, intervenes in the debate as Isaac Held looks on.

Journalist Juliette Foster in a lively exchange with Carver Mead, awardee in Information and Communication

Technologies.

24 PUBLIC OPINION BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

he BBVA Foundation has pre-sented the second round of results from its International

Study on Scientific Culture, based on a wide-ranging survey as regards both sam-ple size (1,500 interviewees in each of the 11 countries analyzed) and the variety of issues broached. While the first part of the study (see Newsletter no. 31) examined cit-izens’ understanding of and closeness to science in the various countries surveyed, this second part focuses on the evaluative dimension of scientific culture, including views and perceptions about science as a whole, the various technological applica-tions it facilitates, the possible tensions existing between science and religion and people’s expectations for what science might achieve in the mid-term future. Attention also goes to the image of scien-tists and the trust they command as a pro-fessional group in comparison to others.

Citizens in all countries are firmly con-vinced that science is the motor of progress, and acknowledge its positive role in the improvement of health and the elimination of fears and superstitions, as well as its contribution to our under-standing of the natural and social world. However, opinions are divided around the idea that “science has an answer for all the major problems.”

Spaniards stand close to the European average in their appreciation of the strengths of science, reserving particular regard for its role in the improvement of health and its contribution to society’s culture (see figure 1).

One reservation (negative sentiment) has to do with the speed of change that sci-ence and technology impose on our way of life. Specifically, a majority consider

that “science and technology make our way of life change too fast.” Reservations too, albeit less widespread, about the risks posed by science. Countries, in par-ticular, are divided in their views on the following ideas: “science increases the risk of war”, “science has created a world that is full of risks for people in their daily lives”, and “technological advances are among the main reasons for today’s high unemployment.”

Asked to evaluate the effects of science of the natural environment, a major-ity in every country reject the view that “science harms rather than helps the environment.”

But this benign perception of the global effects of science on nature should not be read as a blank check for scientists, for at the same time there is firm agreement

T

Citizens see science and scientists as worthy of support and as a unifying force in times of crisis

Source: Fundación BBVA – International Study on Scientific Culture.

FIGURE 1: Could you please tell me how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. Average on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means you totally disagree and 10 that you totally agree.

6.9

6.9

7.1

7.3

7.3

7.4

7.4

7.5

7.8

7.9

7.9

7.4

0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

Total Europe

Czech Republic

Poland

Germany

Austria

Denmark

Spain

France

Italy

Netherlands

United Kingdom

United States 7.6

7.8

7.3

7.3

7.5

7.9

7.5

7.4

7.2

6.4

7.7

7.4

0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

6.2

6.2

6.6

6.8

6.4

6.5

7.5

6.8

7.1

6.6

6.9

6.7

5

4

4.3

6

4.5

5.3

4.4

5.6

5.1

5.7

5.2

5.1

Science is the motor of progress

Thanks to science, people’s health is improving all the time

Science has reduced the fears and superstitions of the past

Science has an answer for all the major problems

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012 PUBLIC OPINION 25

that “scientists should not change the workings of nature.”

Finally, although the dominant view is that science does not erode people’s moral values, citizens find themselves more divided as to whether or not it might undermine religion.

Within their extremely positive disposition to science, Spaniards appear to have a heightened appreciation of the problems it brings by changing our way of life. They express the strongest agreement with the affirmations that “people would be better off if they lived a simpler life, without so much science and technology,” and that “science makes our way of life change too fast.” They also stand apart from the European pattern in their keener percep-tion of the risks of science, with particu-lar mention of its deleterious effects on employment (see figure 2).

If we pan out from an analysis of specific science facets to an aggregate or synthetic view of the attitudes it evokes by reference to two measures, one dealing with posi-tive views (“promise”) and the other with negative perceptions (“reservations”), we find that the perception of promise clearly outweighs that of reservations. Hence the

promise indicator exceeds the mid-point on the scale (30 on a scale from 0 to 60) in all survey countries, while in the major-ity the average value of the reservations indicator stands at or just below this half-way level.

Variables predisposing to reservations

Poles, Spaniards and Italians score high-est on the reservations indicator, with the lowest values in Denmark and Germany. The data show that the variables most influencing attitudes to science are sci-entific knowledge and educational level. Within each country, the perception of promise increases and reservations diminish in the high knowledge segment and among those with most years of study. Other sociodemographic variables, like gender and age, are more weakly associated with attitudes.

Geographically, as we move along the scale from countries with the lowest to the highest scientific knowledge, the level of reservations declines steadily. At one extreme we have countries like Spain, Poland and Italy, with lower knowledge and higher reservations, and at the other we have Denmark, where high knowl-

edge coincides with an extremely low level of reservations. Next along the axis from this Scandinavian country come the Netherlands and Germany.

Expectations in descending order: from clean energy to cloning

In a framework of globally favorable attitudes, citizens offer nuanced views according to the field of science under consideration. Asked which science and technology applications they think will make our lives better in the next 25 years, they opt clearly for solar energy, comput-ers and the Internet (with 88%, 73% and 67% of Europeans respectively saying they expect them to improve our lives).

Biotechnology and mobile telephony also meet with moderately high expec-tations, while nanotechnology, genetic engineering and space exploration gen-erate high expectations for just under half the European sample. Finally, nuclear power and animal cloning meet with widespread reservations (only 27% and 18% respectively believing they will make our lives better). Nanotechnology is the least known of these applications, especially in Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom.


FIGURE 2: Could you please tell me how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. Average on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means you totally disagree and 10 that you totally agree.

4.7

6.6

5.4

5

5

5.9

6.9

5.9

6.4

6

7.1

6Total Europe

Czech Republic

Germany

Austria

France

Spain

Italy

Denmark

United Kingdom

Netherlands

Poland

United States

0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

4.3

6.3

4.3

4.4

3.8

5

5.4

4.8

4.7

4.1

5.5

4.8

0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

6.7

6.6

5.7

6.6

6.5

7

7.2

7.3

7.4

7.6

7.9

7

3.3

4

3.7

3.2

3.3

4.5

4.3

3.8

4.4

3.4

3.7

3.8

Science makes our way of life change too fast

Science has created a world that is full of risks for people in their daily lives

Scientists should not change the workings of nature

Science destroys people’s moral values


What science may and may not achieve in future

As we can see from figure 3, over 70% of Americans and Europeans (73% in Spain) think science will be able to cure the majority of cancers by 25 years from now, and around 60% (69% in Spain) think it will manage to eliminate the main genetic factors causing serious diseases before a child is born. Respondents, how-ever, express more moderate expecta-tions about the possibility of designing people’s physical characteristics to order before they are born (47% in Europe and 52% in Spain) and, more muted still, about designing their psychological char-acteristics (28% and 31% respectively).

With regard to other areas, such as the environment, a majority of 58% in Europe and 63% in Spain are confident that sci-ence will succeed in getting renewable energies to completely replace oil. Where they are less optimistic is in its power to halt the Earth’s global warming (42% and 55% respectively).

Finally, only a small minority in the European countries surveyed believe that

science will make it possible for us to inhabit the moon or other places in space in the next 25 years (31% on average and 35% in Spain). This conviction, however, extends to almost half of all respondents in the United States.

Inventions that transform a culture

Among the most powerful ways that science acts on our culture and way of life is through technological inventions and innovations of varying scope which together have a deci-sive impact in the medium and long term. Respondents were accordingly asked to evaluate the importance of modern-age inventions in a wide spectrum of areas.

Of the inventions mentioned in the six selected areas (telecommunications, daily life, health, transport, biotechnology and energy), those to do with transport and health were the highest rated, in that order. Biotechnology innovations were those meeting with most reservations, more so in Europe and rather less so in the United States.

More specifically, the inventions attract-ing the highest scores across all six areas

were the washing machine, anesthesia, the bicycle, and electrical energy pro-duced by the sun. At the other extreme, pesticides, genetically modified foods and animal cloning were the most negatively rated (see figure 4).

Spaniards scored most inventions higher than the European average, by a consider-able margin in the case of biotechnology applications.

Architects of wellbeing

Doctors and scientists are regarded as the professional groups contributing most to society’s welfare and progress. In the European countries surveyed, as well as in the United States, medical doctors are considered the group that contributes most to the welfare and progress of soci-ety, followed by the rest of the scientific community, with the teaching commu-nity in third place. Scientists meet with a high level of trust in all countries (7.5 to 8 points on average on a scale from 0 to 10).

As table 1 shows, some way behind come ecologists, businessmen/women, artists,


FIGURE 3: Do you think that 25 years from now science will have made possible each of the things I am going to read out? (Base: all cases. Percentage answering yes)

76.4

66.5

68.7

58.2

63.9

73.4

71.8

73.2

71.6

75.5

75.9

70.2

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

Total Europe

United Kingdom

Poland

Netherlands

Italy

France

Spain

Denmark

Germany

Czech Republic

Austria

United States 61.6

56.5

61.9

59.9

67.6

69.1

66.6

66.5

62.1

64.1

66.9

64.8

0 20 40 60 80 100

29.6

31.1

16.2

24.8

29.6

31.3

22.8

36.9

24.9

29

25

27.7

0 20 40 60 80 100

59

48.6

47.2

49.8

54.2

62.7

70

59.2

63.2

46.7

58.4

57.5

Cure a majority of cancers Eliminate the main genetic factors causing serious diseases before a child is born

Design people’s physical characteristics (height, eye color, etc.) to order before they are born

Design people’s intelligence and psychological characteristics to order before they are born


writers, journalists and philosophers, still on the favorable side of the equa-tion. Politicians and religious personnel are the lowest rated groups in terms of their contribution to society’s welfare and progress.

In comparative terms, Spaniards’ rate the contribution of doctors (8.5) and sci-entists (7.9) equal to or higher than the European average (8.2 and 7.9 respec-tively). Conversely, they rate politicians (3.9) and religious personnel (4.3) lower than most other European nationalities (4.7 on average for both groups).

Asked about how much they trust the scientific information relayed to society by a series of institutions, respondents’ answers locate institutional trust in the medium to high interval. At the high end of the trust map (scores from 6.5 to 7.5 on a scale from 0 to 10), we have the uni-versities, professional medical associa-tions and science museums. Next, occu-pying the upper-middle section, come institutions like consumer organizations,

environmentalist groups, the Ministry of Science (or equivalent in each country) and Greenpeace.

The full text of the survey is available at www.fbbva.es.

TABLE 1. How do you rate each of the following groups and professions in terms of their contribution to the welfare and progress of society? Average on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means that the group does not contribute at all to the welfare and progress of society and 10 means it contributes a great deal.

Total European countries Spain United States

Doctors 8.2 8.5 8.4

Scientists 7.9 7.9 8.1

Teachers 7.6 8.2 8.5

Engineers 7.6 7.6 7.9

Ecologists 6.6 6.4 6.9

Businessmen/women 5.9 6.3 7.0

Artists 6.0 6.4 6.7

Writers 6.0 6.5 6.3

Journalists 5.8 6.3 6.3

Philosophers 5.6 6.0 5.9

Religious personnel 4.7 3.9 5.3

Politicians 4.7 4.3 6.8


FIGURE 4: How do you rate each of the following inventions of the modern age? Average on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means they have been very negative and 10 means they have been very positive. (Base: all cases)

2.9

3.2

3.8

5.4

4.7

5.4

8.5

6

7.3

7.6

7.7

7.7

8.2

7.8

8

8.2

8.3

8.7

8

8.3

8.4

8.6

8.8

0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

Animal cloningGenetically modified foods

PesticidesFertilizers for agriculture

Nuclear powerCoal

The sun

iPod

Mobile phone

InternetTV

Personal computer

Radio

Birth control pills

Genetic testing to detect disease

Chemotherapy

X-rays

Anesthesia

Passenger planes

Car

Train

Bicycle

Washing machine

Daily life

Means of transport

Health

Telecommunications

Electrical energy produced by

Agriculture and biotechnology

4.5

4.3

4.6

5.7

4.6

5.4

8.4

6.3

7.9

8

8.2

7.9

8.5

7.9

8.6

8.3

8.4

8.9

8.6

8.6

8.6

8.3

9.1

3.9

5.5

5.6

7.4

6.6

6.1

8.5

7

7.9

8.1

7.7

8.1

8.3

7.5

8.1

8.5

8.8

8.8

8.6

9

8.4

8.1

9

Total European countries Spain United States



he BBVA Foundation has pre-sented the findings of the eleventh annual Transatlantic

Trends study, drawing on an exhaustive interview-based survey of citizens in the United States, Turkey, Russia (a first-time participant in the study) and 12 European Union Member States: Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Transatlantic Trends is a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and Compagnia di San Paolo, with additional support from the Luso-American Foundation, the BBVA Foundation, Fundación Communitas, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Open Society Foundations.

Within the European Union, 65% of peo-ple report being personally affected by the economic crisis (61% in 2011) compared to 79% in the United States – in Spain’s case the numbers affected summed 80%. A majority of Americans (52%) disapprove of Obama’s handling of economic policy, while 56% of respondents in the EU are critical of their own governments’ actions in response to the crisis. The loudest crit-ics of governments in this respect are the citizens of Europe’s hard-hit peripheral economies: Spain (73%), Italy (66%) and Portugal (65%). Among Spaniards, disapproval was slightly less than in 2011 (78%), with a different party in power. In Russia, finally, views on the government’s handling of economic policy split neatly down the middle, with 46% in favor and 46% against.

As we can see from figure 1, half of Europeans (50%), the same proportion as in 2011, are in favor of reducing govern-ment spending in order to pay down debt. U.S. citizens too come out in support of public spending cuts (58%). Within Europe, support for this option is strong-est in Portugal, France and Italy (above 65% in all three cases), and also wins out

T

A majority of Europeans support EU membership but are less sure about the economic impact of the euro

58

23

14

5

50

31

15

4

70

18

84

65

25

73

65

16

14

5

55

33

66

55

23

19

3

53

31

9

7

47

39

12

2

42

37

11

10

40

36

12

12

39

31

23

7

26

38

29

7

21

56

17

6

28

45

11

16

20

44

18

18

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%U

nite

d St

ates

Tota

l EU

co

untr

ies

Port

ugal

Fran

ce

Ital

y

Slov

akia

Spai

n

Rom

ania

Ger

man

y

Bul

gari

a

Pola

nd

Net

herl

ands

Uni

ted

Kin

gdom

Swed

en

Turk

ey

Rus

sia

Reduce spending Maintain spending at current levels Increase spending DK/NA

Source: Transatlantic Trends 2012.

FIGURE 1: At present some governments are reducing their expenditure in order to pay down debt. Others are maintaining or increasing their expenditure to boost economic growth. What do you think the (NATIONAL) government should do?(Base: all cases)

0

20

40

60

80

100

2011 2012

Tota

l EU

co

untr

ies

Ger

man

y

Fran

ce

Port

ugal

Rom

ania

Pola

nd

Net

herl

ands

Spai

n

Slov

akia

Ital

y

Swed

en

Bul

gari

a

Uni

ted

Kin

gdom

6761

7673

69 69 68 6963

6774

6773

6268

58 56 56

69

5358

5046 47 46

40


FIGURE 2: In general, do you think that European Union membership has been good or bad for (COUNTRY’s) economy?(Base: All EU respondents)


by a smaller margin in Slovakia and Spain (55% in both cases).

The study also finds that, despite what has been a particularly troubled year for European Union economies, almost two third of Europeans think belonging to the EU has been a good thing for their coun-try’s economy. The percentage however was down by six points, from 67% to 61%, compared to the last survey round in 2011.

Support for the EU is marred by negative feelings about the euro

The Germans, with the EU’s strongest economy, are the likeliest (73%) to con-sider EU membership a good thing for their economy. This a significant finding, in view of the lead taken by Germany in organizing the bailout of other member countries facing financial difficulties. Next after the Germans in declaring that the EU has been good for the economy come the French and Portuguese (69% in both cases). Conversely, Bulgarians (47%) and Britons (40%, six points less than in 2011) are the least convinced that being part of the EU has benefitted their economies. In Italy and Spain, the view that EU member-ship has been a bad thing for the economy has garnered considerable support (40%, 17 points more than in 2011; and 38%, 12 points more respectively). In Turkey, meantime, a plurality (44%) believe that belonging to the EU would be good for the national economy (see figure 2).

Despite this still, on balance, favorable perception of EU membership, citizens are less inclined to support the euro. As figure 3 shows, only 37% of respondents in the European Union believe the euro has been (for euro area members) or would be (for non-euro area countries) a good thing for their country’s economy, and a majority (57%, four points more than last year) think it has been or would be detrimental.

Among those taking a negative view of the euro’s influence on their economy, 58% in Germany and 56% in Slovakia would go as far as abandoning the single currency, equating to 26% and 17% respectively of the total national sample. In relative terms, the countries with the most citi-zens critical of the euro and wishing to abandon it are Spain (27%), Germany (26%), Italy (21%) and Portugal (20%).

Although approval ratings remain high, Obama’s popularity in Europe has slipped somewhat since he took office in 2009. Support for his handling of foreign policy among Europeans has dropped by a full 12 points in the interim period (from 83% to 71%) against only a minor decline in the United States (from 57% to 54%).

In Spain, specifically, approval of Obama’s foreign policy record has fallen by 16 points since his first investiture (from 85% in 2009 to 69% in 2012).

President Obama is less popular at home than he is in Europe. Although a major-ity of Americans (57%) continue to rate him positively overall, 40% declare them-selves unhappy with his performance. Romney tends to divide U.S. opinion, with 44% seeing him in a favorable and 49% in an unfavorable light. If Europeans could vote in the American elections, 75% would vote for Obama and only 8% for Romney (figure 4).

Full dossier available at www.fbbva.es.

7 89 1 3

9 84 2 5

14 71 5 10

26 45 12 17

42 35 10 13

41 57 11

42 52 6 1

43 54 1

44 51 2 3

47 45 3 5

53 45 11

54 31 8 7

37 57 3 3

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

United Kingdom

Sweden

Poland

Bulgaria

Romania

Spain (€)

France (€)

Portugal (€)

Italy (€)

Netherlands (€)

Germany (€)

Slovakia (€)

Total EU countries

2

A good thing A bad thing Neither good nor bad (SPONTANEOUS) DK/NA


FIGURE 3: In general, do you think that using the euro in (COUNTRY) has been/would be a good or a bad thing for (COUNTRY’s) economy?(Base: All EU respondents )

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Barack Obama Mitt Romney DK/NA

75

8

17

89

29

87

58

85

7

8

82

5

13

79

4

17

77

11

12

75

9

16

73

9

18

63

6

31

47

10

43

40

8

52

35

16

49

51

5

44

27

12

61

Tota

l EU

cou

ntri

es

Fran

ce

Ger

man

y

Port

ugal

Net

herl

ands

Swed

en

Spai

n

Uni

ted

Kin

gdom Ital

y

Rom

ania

Slov

akia

Bul

gari

a

Pola

nd

Turk

ey

Rus

sia


FIGURE 4: Now thinking about this year’s presidential elections in the United States: if you could vote, who would you vote for?(Base: All respondents in Europe)


any Spanish symphony orches-tras are in danger of disappear-ing through lack of funds. There

have already been cases of temporary layoffs, and in some regions, orchestras have been placed under new control, raising doubts about their long-term sur-vival.” This was the disquieting picture drawn by Ana Mateo, acting president of the Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras (AEOS), during her interven-tion at the 2nd AEOS-Fundación BBVA Conference on “Symphony Orchestras: Their Triumphs and Challenges,” held on November 12-13 in the Marqués de Salamanca Palace, Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation. Present at the event were numerous foreign orchestras and representatives of most of the forma-tions now practicing in Spain.

Robert J. Flanagan, Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and author of a recent, com-prehensive study on the financial per-formance of U.S. symphony orchestras, explained that “orchestras around the world face similar problems: not one of them earns performance revenues large enough to offset expenses, and most face declining concert attendance and aging audiences.”

And the future is uncertain for both big and small: “Even renowned orchestras can be exposed to financial jeopardy. Two years ago, the Philadelphia Orchestra – one of the finest in the United States – declared itself bankrupt, though it has since re-emerged after a reorganization that included changes in its labor con-tracts.” For Flanagan, the key to success is “raising performance revenues, slow-ing the growth of performance expenses, and increasing non-performance income (such as private donations), but none of these approaches alone will eliminate operating deficits. Orchestras have to be good at everything!”

Education for tomorrow’s societies

Joanna Massey, Director of School Programs at the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall, New York, talked the public at the event through the details of Link Up,

a program for third to fifth year primary school pupils which unfolds over the full academic year, and brings together teach-ers, students and orchestras in a shared educational experience. “The campaign culminates,” Massey explains, “with an

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

"M

Ana Mateo, acting president of the Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras (AEOS).

Robert J. Flanagan, Professor of Economics at Stanford University.

Orchestras take stock of their challenges: a shrinking, aging public, and a deficit that cannot be made up from ticket sales


interactive concert in which students play or sing along with the orchestra on the repertoire they’ve studied.” The Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias will be the first Spanish-language formation enlisted in the program.

Music as an agent of social change is the idea behind the Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, through whose ranks have passed more than 1,500 children, according to director Rubén Cova. “The System” as it is known, is a nation-wide training program that uses music as a springboard for personal development. In disadvantaged communities with prob-lems of exclusion, “the spiritual fulfillment that comes with music and the playing of a musical instrument saves the boys and girls in the orchestras from moral poverty and social complexes, while equipping them with the psychological and intellectual tools to conquer material poverty,” Cova explains.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

Joanna Massey, Director of School Programs at the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall.

Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía celebrates the start of its academic yearTrue to recent tradition, on November 4 the BBVA Foundation offered the inaugural concert of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía for the 2012-13 academic year. With Pablo González conducting and Pallavi Mahidhara on solo piano, the School’s Freixenet Symphony Orchestra performed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in C major by Sergei Prokofiev, and Symphony No. 5 in E minor by Pyotr Tchaikovsky before the public at Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional. The BBVA Foundation also supports the school through a Chair of Viola, directed by Professor Diemut Poppen and with Zubin Mehta in an advisory role. This term the Chair will host a series of master lectures by Thomas Riebl, professor at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. Since the start of its first classes in 1991, the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía has earned widespread recognition as a world-class center of musical training. Its educational project, moreover, rests on the principles of academic freedom as practiced by the best teaching professionals in each specialty.

FUN

DA

CIÓ

N B

BVA

n July 4 this year, the scientists running the LHC addressed a crowded press conference,

attended by Prof. Peter Higgs from the University of Edinburgh, to announce the discovery of a new particle with a mass 134 times greater than that of a proton, which might just be the long-sought Higgs boson. The recently inau-gurated LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Hadrons are composite particles composed of quarks, one of which is the proton. The LHC lies in a tunnel 27 kilometers in circumfer-ence at the CERN facility (European Organization for Nuclear Research) near Geneva, where it spans the bor-der between Switzerland and France more than 50 meters underground. Its machinery is capable of accelerat-ing protons (hydrogen nuclei) up to energies 3,700 times higher than their resting energy. The proton beams are made to collide frontally and detectors pick up the products of these clashes, which could be new particles. This scale of energy is necessary to produce large-mass particles. Indeed one of the motives for building this powerful accelerator was to search out the Higgs boson. CERN is a paradigmatic exam-ple of international scientific collabora-tion, in this case primarily European. And the perfection achieved in the building of the accelerating ring and detectors is truly astounding.

For decades no other particle has been so eagerly pursued by scientists as the Higgs boson; hence the media glare that has surrounded its possible detec-tion. Its existence was first predicted in 1964 by six scientists working on phys-ical-mathematical models whose aim was to complete the Standard Model of fundamental particles by identifying through which mechanism they were able to acquire mass. The Standard

Model, now universally accepted among high-energy physicists for its success in explaining the experimen-tal results obtained in the last thirty years, holds that a mere twelve suba-tomic particles, plus four bosons, are responsible for driving the fundamen-tal forces.

But what the model failed to explain was how particles come to have mass. The solution put forward by the afore-mentioned scientists was to suppose that all of space, including the vacuum, is impregnated by a force field, the Higgs field, and that remaining parti-cles acquire their mass on interacting with this field. A particle’s mass, we could say, is the property that expresses its resistance to movement. Hence the particles that interact most strongly with the Higgs field, like a person trudging through thick mud, acquire a greater mass, and those that interact more weakly acquire a smaller one. It bears mention that this discovery calls into question our view of the vacuum as an empty space, since it would in fact be permeated by the Higgs force field.

Now it happens that the laws of phys-ics say that each force or interaction is linked to a given particle which serves as its carrier. This means it would be possible to prove the existence of the Higgs force field if we could detect its messenger, the Higgs particle. Analyzing data from the experiment is a hugely complex business. The Standard Model predicts that a Higgs particle will only be created every thou-sands of millions of collisions. So sci-entists were naturally guarded in mak-ing their announcement. New data will have to be gathered and the particle’s properties examined in minute detail before the truth of the finding can be

confirmed. The collider, moreover, has not yet been run at full power, and will be scaled up progressively going forward.

Much of the public’s interest in the subject is due to the “God particle” label frequently attached to the Higgs boson. It was the American Nobel physics laureate Leon Lederman, author of a magnificent popular sci-ence book of this same name dealing with the elementary components of matter, who proposed that the particle should be named thus. To defend his argument, he quoted a passage drawn from the Old Testament, Genesis 11.1, about the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, which he had trans-formed into the following lines: “And the Lord came down to see the accel-erator, which the children of men built. And the Lord said: Behold the people are un-confounding my confounding. And the Lord sighed and said: Go to, let us go down, and there give them the God Particle so that they may see how beautiful is the universe I have made.”

This discovery is without doubt the most important scientific development to date in the 21st century, and one which will change our understanding of the universe. The result is that this branch of science has plenty of hard work ahead and many exciting chal-lenges. The first step is to confirm the properties of the particle and define in detail how it fits within the Standard Model. Further ahead lies the mystery of the “dark matter” that is necessary to explain astrophysicists’ observations of the movement of the stars and galax-ies, but about which we know almost nothing. And the latest studies made of our cosmos point to the existence of dark energy, an even greater enigma.

O

32 FORUM BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 32 - IV/2012

The finding of the Higgs boson: meaning, implications and what comes next

Prof. Raúl Villar Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

NEWSLETTER No. 32 IV/2012 The BBVA Foundation … · BOLETÍN FUNDACIÓN BBVA N.º 13 FEBRERO 2008...

Documents

Transcript of NEWSLETTER No. 32 IV/2012 The BBVA Foundation … · BOLETÍN FUNDACIÓN BBVA N.º 13 FEBRERO 2008...