'The Australian Miracle' by Thomas Barlow

Yes the title of the book is The Australian Miracle.

This book is a few years old now but it still deserves a big plug. It is a very readable but factual book on the surprising success of Australia particularly during the 1800s. From a penal colony to one of the wealthiest economies in the world in just over a 100 years. That deserves the title 'miracle'. The book is for a popular audience and is rather polemical but as it is trying to act as a counterweight to the current tendencies in science policy worldwide this has a place in a debate which is surprisingly shallow at the moment.

Barlow rightly emphasises that success has been largely but not completely due to technological adoption and then adaption to Australia's particular environmental conditions has been critical to its success.

While he rightly points out that Australian mining and agriculture have relied on science and technological advance for a very long time, my only criticism is that he does not emphasise this enough. Australian agriculture is invented. It should not exist on one of the harshest environments on the planet. What I used to say when I worked for the Australian government was agriculture was a created advantaged in Australia. Certainly the perception from far away (overseas) and even in Australia is to take success for granted. Well of course we would have succeeded - even with the poorest soils and lowest rainfalls.

The other really strong point of the book is that it emphasises that that economies are very heterogeneous, and becoming more so, and thus require a diverse range of science and technology inputs. He points out that want is 'useful' science and technology is often a matter of time and perspective.

This book is a modern take on the traditional perspective that the best people to judge relevance are scientists themselves and the government should stay out of priority setting. I have some sympathy for this perspective.

I have a few disagreements with the book but they were surprisingly minor. It wasn't the purpose of the book  to grapple with the political problem of justifying basic research to a public that wants to see more immediate relevance. Nor did the book go into the enormous issue of commercialising university research. I would have liked to have read more on both topics. My biggest criticism is that the book focusses on natural sciences, engineering and medicine and ignores completely the social sciences, humanities and the arts. In the heterogeneous economy that Barlow points to, that is a mistake.

It would also have been nice if there had been a few notes for more sources than the quite limited reference list.

Not all readers will accept the premise of the book that there are 10 myths that Australians hold about their science and innovation efforts but if you accept these as at least valid starting point to have a discussion about policy then it is well worth the read.

The book, although very oriented to the Australian market, should also be read by Canadians.