Category Archives: Public Understanding of Science

Martin Rees addresses the Australian Academy of Science

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Guest post by Guy Micklethwait

Recently Lord Martin Rees, a University of Cambridge professor and president of the Royal Society, gave a talk at the Australian Academy of Science. The Shine Dome was filled to capacity, as he spoke about the role of science in facing the upcoming world challenges over the next 50 years. He made some interesting points about science communication:

First: that research was only one part of the role of scientists; the other part was communicating their research to the public, to other scientists and to politicians. He felt this was important because he wanted policy makers to get the best possible advice – based on high quality science.

Second: “The GM [genetically modified] crops debate went wrong in the UK because scientists came in too late.” Ongoing protests to industry had already polarised the argument and British public opinion had become anti-GM before scientists had joined the discussion. He said that in the UK they didn’t want this to happen with nanotechnology, so they were making sure that scientists were involved in that discussion right from the start.

Third: that it is important to engage with the public at a conceptual level without too much detail, so that they can become aware of the issues. He said that everyone had a right to participate in public debates about controversial scientific developments such as nuclear power and designer babies, but that “citizens all need at least a feel for science and a realistic attitude to risk.”

A member of the audience pointed out that as a member of the House of Lords, he was a politician as well as a scientist, and asked him whether he thought more scientists should become involved in politics. He replied that as a rule, he didn’t think scientists would make good politicians, but rather they should concentrate on communicating their science to the existing politicians.

Scientists: anti-political and arrogant?

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The climate change movement may well be correct in their argument that every year counts in changing global processes. But in past years that has served as an excuse for not building the slow and remorseless mass campaign, deploying all the campaigning skills and rhetoric of older progressive campaigns (much of which, in style anyway, is being used by the anti-climate-change group). It has to abandon the idea that truth somehow communicates itself.

It’s fitting that this argument – by Crikey columnist and person-who-my-wife-accuses-me-of-having-a-man-crush-on Guy Rundle – came almost simultaneously with a recent national policy forum held by Universities Australia at Parliament House. Entitled ‘Climate Change: Bridging Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy‘, the forum was yet another in a series of disappointing events that singularly failed to bridge any gaps between science and society and between science and policy.

There were, of course, excellent speakers talking about excellent science in the forum; skilled presenters who could talk about the evidence for climate change and the great multiplicity of its effects. Anthony Hogan talked of some fascinating work the National Centre for Population Health and Epidemiology at ANU are doing on the mental health impacts of climate change; Jenny McAlister of the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water talked of how action is being taken in NSW government policy; Amanda Lynch of Geography and Environment at Monash University spoke intelligently on the scope for action that is available to us.

Yet despite what was on the whole interesting, excellent science, the forum gave the overall impression of what Rundle described in his eerily synchronous column as ‘elitist arrogance’:

… the great flaw in the climate change movement has been an elitist arrogance that is, at its worst, anti-political. Some of that is due to the asocial political naivete of scientists — ‘I mean, it’s obvious, why are these people being so stupid’ — some of it is due to the technocratic spirit of the age, whereby something is seen as a mere technical problem to be fixed, and some of it is due to the fact that the abstract/systemic nature of climate change ideas are most easily accepted by people trained in abstract-systemic thinking.

In essence, the forum was dominated by the idea of scientists asserting their priorities, devoid of any semblance of listening to the issues faced by politicians, journalists, or the public at large.  It was asserted, for example, that science should take the dominant lead in the policy formation process; that other sectors of society (journalists, politicians, the public) were obliged to accept and respect the knowledge of scientists. It was argued that the most important thing at hand was defending the place of science in society; it was argued that the public should respect the wonders of the peer review system.

Don’t get me wrong – I heard a lot of interesting and useful ideas at the forum. But I’m on the team. If we want to build a solution to the effects of climate change, then we’re going to have to stop preaching to the choir. Indeed, we’re going to have to stop preaching and start listening. We need to be open and transparent about how science is done, and we need to engage with everyone that will be affected by climate change in ways that matter to them.

Have a read Guy Rundle’s column. There’s a lot there we can use.

Images by flickr user Gora Gray and Snap Man, used under a Creative Commons license.

The return of PUS!?

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Guest post by Rod Lamberts

Is the public understanding of science movement is coming back?  More frighteningly, is it making its comeback tour in Australia?  It seems that more and more the cry for “public scientific literacy” is being dusted off and re-asserted.  And in venues that I would never have expected.

At the recent Australian Science Communicators National Conference, a call came from the floor decrying the lack of surveys looking into public science literacy in Australia.  On the ANZAAS website, other such ‘new literacists’ call for the enhancement of science understanding among the Australian public.  They assert – resuscitating  thoroughly debunked, 30 year old UK/European thinking – that a lot of the apparent public aversion to science is just a lack of understanding. The direct implication being that if we somehow teach people more science, they will accept science and scientists more readily.

Well, we don’t need a public literacy survey because we already know what we will find. ‘The public’ will not know whether hot air rises or cold air falls, and they will be unlikely to be able to accurately explain why there are seasons. This is old news, it tells us nothing. And there’s no point in arbitrarily acting to raise public science literacy either, because (a) it doesn’t work, and (b) even if it did, years of evidence demonstrates that understanding does not automagically lead to acceptance or agreement. That’s called the deficit model folks, and it’s been getting kicked to bits in the science communication literature and beyond for decades.

Both these positions privilege science knowledge above other knowledge, and uncritically, if implicitly, suggest science should be a priority for everyone because it is intrinsically valuable.

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