The UK Science minister Jo Johnson has revealed that the National Environment Research Council (NERC) has gone against a public vote on the naming of its new arctic research ship Boaty McBoatface to call it the RRS Sir David Attenborough instead. The move was a clever one. Sir David Attenborough, 90, is an internationally regarded naturalist who also remains popular with the general public. So not many will object to the move against what was, no matter how ill-judged its conception, a public democratic vote.
As a kind of sop to those who liked the joke name of Boaty McBoatface which came first in the public vote on naming alternatives, the yellow unmanned submersible (actually more like a glorified torpedo) carried on board the GBP£200 million research ship, RRS Sir David Attenborough, will now be called Boaty McBoatface instead.
