Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

3 P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches Laureates. Excerpts The ease with which humans incorporate new findings into their everyday lives is astounding. For many, knowledge is only palpable when reduced to novel technological advances: a new drug, a mobile phone, the Internet, aviation, new diagnostic devices and so on. However, knowledge has another very important role: it provides us with new perspectives with regards to the world we live in; it is part of individual and collective consciousness. Knowledge is like a large expanding sphere; we live inside it, limited by the harsh frontier of the unknown. The scientific and technological progress achieved over the last century overwhelms many young people, who think that there is nothing left for them to discover. My impression is that the best is yet to come; providing, of course, we do not destroy the planet or curb the imagination and creative activity of its peoples first. As for technology, living organisms still outshine us in their capabilities: think of limb regeneration in a salamander; the ocean voyages of the albatross; or a dog’s sense of smell. Nature always reveals to us its amazing technology, in units that self-assemble (as in the enigmatic development of the embryo) and self-recycle to integrate fully into the environment… without leaving a carbon footprint in the atmosphere or piles of waste that endanger the planet. Increasingly, we scorn and annihilate life forms that have a great deal to teach us. As living beings, our future lies with biology. We have so much to learn from other organisms, as well as from ourselves. In this respect, the simple act of enhancing knowledge through the fostering of imagination, exploration and creativity is what makes a people great. The great leap forward that Spain has made as a driver of science, culture and the arts over the last 30 years will hopefully serve as an example to other countries and, in particular, to Latin America. Arturo Álvarez-Buylla — Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2011 Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research on 21/10/2011.