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Science in the media

The ash crisis

Spending cuts to public engagement?

Engagement from on high

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NTS PEOPLE&SCIENCE

Anjana Ahuja

WILL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES PLEASE STAND UP

p18

Deirdre Hutton

THE ASH CRISIS

p21Rikke Schmidt Kjĺrgaard

COLOURING THEMOLECULARWORLD

p22

EDITOR Wendy Barnaby

SHORTS EDITOR Joanna Carpenter

CHAIR OF EDITORIAL COMMITTEENancy Lane

EDITORIAL COMMITTEEAnjana Ahuja, Lloyd Anderson, Sheila Anderson, Martin Bauer, Clive Cookson, Peter Cotgreave, David Fisk, Fiona Fox, William Gosling,Suzanne King, Ken Okona-Mensah, Kathy Sykes, Elizabeth Seward

MULTI-READER SUBSCRIPTIONSUnited Kingdom: £60 Europe outside UK: £70 Outside Europe: £80

People and Science is one of a number offree publications available to individualmembers and supporters of the BritishScience Association. For free subscription, visit www.britishscienceassociation.org orcontact the supporter development team by calling 0870 241 0664 or [email protected].

The magazine is available at its website,www.britishscienceassociation.org/ps

EDITORIAL ADDRESSPeople and Science, The British ScienceAssociation, Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queens Gate, London SW7 5HD

[email protected]

People and Science is published four times a year.

Unless otherwise stated, the British ScienceAssociation retains the copyright ofeverything in People and Science.

The views expressed in this publicationdo not necessarily reflect those of the editorial committee or the British Science Association.

© 2009 British Science Association

The British Science Association is a registered charity No. 212479 and SCO39236

ISSN 2040-3968

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Printed by: Holbrooks

Printed on FSC certified recycled paper

www.britishscienceassociation.org

Cover storyInterview with David Willetts l p8Wendy Barnaby

British Science Association newsOllie Christophers l p4

Government newsDepartment for Business, Innovation and Skills l p5

Shorts Joanna Carpenter l p6

SpatSynthia: do we need another Asilomar conference? l p10Richard Kitney and Tom Wakeford

OpinionDo science centres need more romance? l p12Penny Fidler and Ian Simmons

Two views Public engagement and research priorities | p14Patrick Middleton and Helen Wallace

Exchange Public engagement in Birmingham | p16Julia King, Nick Winterbotham and Peter Reed

Correspondence Food security and the environment;Photoshopping climate change l p25

Review Who am I? l p26Rachel Souhami

Brownie PointsBring on the awkward squad l p27Tracey Brown

SET in ParliamentNew boy in Parliament l p28Julian Huppert

Sounding offHow to climb out of a hole l p29Bob Ward

Tales from the water cooler l p31Barrie Cadshaw

SPENDING CUTS –TO PUBLICENGAGEMENT?

p24Ian Taylor

SEEING SATELLITE DATA

p23Molly Phipps andShawn Rowe

September 2010 | FEATURES

THOUGHTS FROM THE REITH LECTURES Martin Rees

p24

As befits the first issue of People & Science since thegeneral election, our focus is on public engagementunder the coalition government. In an exclusiveinterview (p8), Science Minister David Willetts says hesees part of his job to be one of the many bridgesbetween lay people and the scientific community.He is enthusiastic about building engagement in tonormal operations, so that dialogue can beestablished before contentious issues arise. ‘Buildingup trust before the row breaks out is a lot better thandeciding to have a dialogue after the row hasstarted,’ he says.

Future funding for engagement will, however, have to be scrutinized,along with everything else, before autumn’s comprehensive spendingreview: ‘Money is very tight so across every department we’re all havingto look at our budgets.’

If the new Minister takes the advice of one of his former colleagues, hewill protect the engagement budget. Former Science Minister Ian Tayloragues (p20) that public engagement activities should not fall foul of thespending cuts. ‘An economy and society with high levels of scientificappreciation tends to have a greater capacity for innovation andadaptation,’ he writes. He is pleased that his suggestion for scientificliteracy sessions for new MPs has been adopted. However, newly-elected MP Julian Huppert, who went to a session, recounts (p28) hisdisappointment with it. He is convinced that evidence should form thebasis of all policy decisions, but acknowledges there is a lot of work todo to bring this about.

Meanwhile, Tracey Brown hopes that the new parliament will havemany MPs who will ask awkward questions. ‘The champions of goodscience and evidence are those who will scrutinise and speak out’, she says, ‘not necessarily those who know where to put a light emitting diode.’

The recent dialogue on synthetic biology comes under scrutiny in theSpat (p10). Richard Kitney and Tom Wakeford agree about the need for scientists to have serious dialogue with the public, but disagreeabout whether this was it. In exchanges on the nature of dialogue,Kitney wants to prevent the facts becoming distorted, and advocatespresenting them ‘in a straightforward way, avoiding scientific jargon.’Wakeford objects that ‘this scientific framing excludes wider, long-termsocial, legal and political issues - not least the responsible andtransparent management of undesirable consequences.’

If the dialogue process is contentious, so also is what happens to itsresults. Both Patrick Middleton (p14) and Helen Wallace (p15) want themto influence policy making. Middleton sets out the difficulties faced hereby the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, andsays he is open to suggestions about how the council can ‘harnessexpertise from outside the scientific community to ensure that researchpolicy and funding are able to meet the needs of society.’ Wallacemaintains that decisions about where biological research money goesare anti-democratic, and argues that engagement is meaninglessunless it can influence these decisions.

These issues, and many arising from them, will be discussed at the BritishScience Festival, about to take place in Birmingham. On pp16-17 youcan read about some of the engagement activity going strong there.

PAGE 3 PEOPLE&SCIENCE September 2010

Wendy Barnaby, [email protected]

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Ollie Christophers is the British Science Association’s Communications Officer [email protected]

Ollie Christophers on a smörgasbord of science

British Science Association news

Join the ideas explosion!Do you know any 11-18 year olds whohave completed a project in science,technology, engineering or maths? Didtheir project dazzle you? If so, youshould encourage them to enter theNational Science & EngineeringCompetition! It is very quick and easyto enter online until 31 October, andthe best entries will be invited topresent their projects at The Big Bang:UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’Fair, in London on 10-12 March 2011.

There is over £50,000 of prizes to win forboth teams and individuals in three agecategories. The two individual winnersin the senior category will also gain thetitles of UK Young Scientist of the Yearand UK Young Engineer of the Year.

So, do you know a winner?

For more information about theNational Science & EngineeringCompetition, please visit: www.nationalsciencecompetition.orgor contact Fiona Burford, NationalScience & Engineering CompetitionManager at [email protected] or 01483 826 126.

Regional RoundupThis year’s Regional Big Bang Fairs were a big hit. The 12 events saw over800 projects presented by studentsaged 11-18 to judges, visiting schoolsand VIPs.

CREST (CREativity in Science andTechnology) takes a leading role in theregional and national Big Bang Fairs.Over 70 CREST-specific prizes wereawarded to students at this year’sregionals: many of these projects will go on to next year’s National Science & Engineering Competition.

More information about CREST, the Big Bang and the National Science & Engineering Competition can befound at: www.britishscienceassociation.org/crestevents

Neuromantics This year you can join in two onlinemass participation activities that BritishScience Association is running as weapproach the Festival. Log on towww.neuromantics.co.uk to take partin our working memory test and thenjump into the Adlab and tell us whatyou think about advertising.

People with superior working memorytend to have better jobs, betterrelationships, and lead happier lives.People with poor working memorytend to struggle in their working andpersonal lives and are more likely tohave trouble with the law. A growingnumber of studies link memory withmental health.

The initial study on working memory,the ability to remember and manuallyprocess information, is looking to see ifthere is a link between your workingmemory, your outlook on life and theincidence of depression.

The second part of Neuromantics is the Adlab where we will be investigating what it is about aparticular advertisement that appealsto different types of people. Are somemore influenced by celebrity? Or the

scientific argument? Or the beauty ofthe person seen in the ad?

The experiment aims to discoverwhether advertising is passiveknowledge transfer, allowing individualsto make up their own mind, or whetheradvertisers can manipulate specificelements of commercials to targetindividuals’ ‘buy button’ in the brain.

You can find out the results fromneuromantics.co.uk at the BritishScience Festival in September.

The x-changeThis year the British Science Festivalcomes to Aston University inBirmingham from 14-19 September.With workshops, debates, activities,plays and films, the choice is endless.

To help you out, our team of x-changevolunteers pick and choose the best ofthe fest to round up the day. Jointhem and other festival-goers eachevening in the Student’s Guild Blue Barto hear from a selection of the day’sbest speakers and catch up on whowas most controversial, interesting ordownright hilarious, all for free.

Disagree. Question. Debate. Enjoy adrink and get your teeth into some ofthe hottest science of the day. Weguarantee to make you think.Everything expertly knitted together byBBC journalist Sue Nelson.

Read more at www.britishscienceassociation.org/x-change

NEWS

This year’s Regional Big Bang Fairs were abig hit. The 12 eventssaw over 800 projectspresented by studentsaged 11-18 to judges,visiting schools and VIPs

o


Science for AllA follow-up group has met, and amember of staff recruited to driveforward progress with delivering theaction plan. The group is once againchaired by Roland Jackson and consistsof representatives from across the public engagement spectrum. Progress includes:

sessions at the ScienceCommunication Conference on howdelegates could shape the follow-upactions to the reports

The National Coordinating Centre forPublic Engagement is leading consul-tation on an Attributes Framework forPublic Engagement for use in highereducation institutions

Sciencewise is leading developmentof a tool which can be used by publicengagement intermediaries to talk ina common language about publicengagement activities

The Royal Academy of Engineering,with support from the Department forBusiness, Innovation and Skills (BIS), isdeveloping a research proposal toinvestigate motivations within businessfor public engagement

The British Science Association haslaunched a ‘Collective Memory’ topull together evaluations of publicengagement activities. Seewww.britishscienceassociation.org/forms/scicomm/evaluation/access

The Media and Trust groups also ran workshops at the ScienceCommunication Conference in May andhave also established follow-on groups.

Science and the MediaProgress includes:

A Journalism Training Coordinator,based at the Royal Statistical Society,has been appointed

Funding has been agreed forScience Press Officer Training andIntroduction to the Media Course

The BBC Buddy Scheme is continuingwith several exciting collaborationsand contributions being developed.

Science and TrustScience Communication Conference workshops on evaluation and development ofresource to explore ‘good science’

Aileen Allsop met with business to develop a business ethics working group

Project underway to redevelop theuniversal ethical code for scientistsand assess ethical training needs in government compared with other sectors

Work by the Research InformationNetwork to develop a pilot scheme for discussing science in library spaces

New Sciencewise dialogue on trust in various settings

Paper on proposals for strengtheningevaluation in science and society in progress.

Science for CareersThe Careers group has alsoestablished a follow-on group whose actions include:

A pilot project to raise awarenessof the important contributionparents make to careers choices

Research into raising the visibility of small and medium enterprises as employers

Widening the range of role modelsavailable and research into theportrayal of STEM skills

Developing a STEM volunteeringstrand to work alongside leading,existing volunteering andmentoring projects

Research into the demand and delivery of science andengineering work experience andsandwich year placements, andthe barriers to their supply

‘Hidden Scientist’ event to highlightthe amount of science used in‘non-science’ jobs.

Science and LearningThe Science and Learning ExpertGroup was fundamentally differentfrom the others, reporting to both BIS and the Department forEducation Ministers. Many of therecommendations in the report alignwith policy intentions in the CoalitionAgreement, such as ‘attracting moretop science and maths graduatesinto teaching’. The findings are beingtaken into account as part of policydevelopment work for the new government.

Karen Folkes is Deputy Head ofthe Science and Society teamat the Department for Business,Innovation and Skills (BIS)[email protected]

GOVERNMENTNEWS

Science andSociety –

moving forward

The Big Society! What does that really mean? The Science and

Society strategy expert groups have been thinking about science’s

relationship with society in coming up with their reports and action

plans. David Willetts, the new Science Minister, tells us what he thinks

on pp8-9. And here’s a brief update on what’s happened since the

reports were published in the spring.

David Willetts meets STEM Ambassadors from Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation Systems,BMT, Magnox North and GCHQ at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

SHORTSN

EWS

INBR

IEF

Stop at the lightsThe European Parliament hasvoted to require the energy,sugar, salt and fat content offood products to be labelled,but against mandatory ‘trafficlight’ labels indicating howhealthy those amounts are.‘[There will be] furtherdiscussions… before the FoodInformation Regulation isfinalized,’ according to the UKFood Standards Agency.

New science centreA new Science DiscoveryCentre is being developed atthe Jodrell Bank Observatoryin Manchester, thanks to£3.1million from developmentfunds and £600,000 from theUniversity of Manchester. Itaims to inspire youngscientists and showcasecutting-edge research ‘as ithappens’. You can check thelatest developments at

www.jb.man.ac.uk/visitorcentre

Exactly 26,671 people aged 15 or overacross 32 European countriesresponded to the 2010 Eurobarometersurvey on science and technology.Altogether, 79 per cent of them saidthat they were interested in scientificand technological developments, but57 per cent agreed that scientists donot put enough effort into informingthe public about new developments.

So what?Brian Johnson is the independent chairof the recent synthetic biology publicdialogue, initiated by the Engineeringand Physical Sciences ResearchCouncil and Biotechnology andBiological Sciences Research Council.1

‘It matters hugely [that people feeluninformed]… because whensomething controversial pops upthere’s a wide range of organisations,each with their own agendas, thatcan have a field day because ofpeople’s ignorance... they can tellpeople whatever they like and people will believe it,’ he toldPeople & Science.

More effort from scientists?Paul Benneworth was commissionedby the government’s Science for Allgroup2 to review the evidence basesurrounding the value of publicengagement by scientists. ‘There’salready a huge amount of ‘informingthe public’ work that goes on inscience,’ he told People & Science.‘[A survey has shown] 45 per cent ofscientists working in universitiesengaged with the public in theprevious 12 months, in terms of [for example] giving a public lecture, giving an interview to anewspaper, [or] doing work with a community group.’

Johnson is unimpressed. ‘Scientistsneed to put much more effort intoestablishing proper public dialoguebetween their institutions and labs andthe lay public out there,’ he says. ‘It isunwise to make assumptions aboutthe relevance of your work, the publicinterest in your work and perhapsdangerous to make assumptionsabout what the societal and ethicalissues might be.’

A more active publicBenneworth blames systems thatexclude the public from decision-making. ‘If you look, for example, atthe land use planning system, a hugeamount of effort has been taken toexclude the public from decisionmaking so that a few elite actors can take decisions,’ he told People & Science.

Johnson says: ‘At the moment… thereare very few research institutions thathave an interactive part of theirwebsite where interested members ofthe public can talk to researchersabout what they do and give theirviews on what is being done. I wouldlike to see that kind of capacity builtinto the way in which institutions run.’

1 D Battachary, J Pascall Calitz and A Hunter(TNS-BMRB, 2010). Synthetic Biology Dialogue:BBSRC/EPSRC/Sciencewise-ERC. Seewww.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Reviews/1006-synthetic-biology-dialogue.pdf

2 http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/scienceandsociety/site/all

More information, please

Journalist competitionThe STEM partnership is running a student journalistcompetition, open to allstudents aged 11-22 in full-time education. Written,audio or film reports should be submitted by 4pm on 6October for the chance to win an iPod or Flickrcamcorder. More informationis available at

www.emstempartnership.org.uk/Students/Student+Journalists/Competition/


A survey has found a majority of Europeans want more

information about scientific developments.

Scientists need to putmuch more effort intoestablishing properpublic dialoguebetween theirinstitutions and labsand the lay public out there

Science Books longlistThe Royal Society has announcedthe longlist for its Science Booksprize. Maggie Philbin, Chair of thejudges, said: ‘There were somefascinating books in this year’sentries..[this is] a wonderful,diverse longlist.’ The winner of the£10,000 prize will be announcedon 21 October.

SHORTS

Follow that story!The Guardian announced it is triallinga ‘story tracker’ for selected sciencestories. Readers are encouraged toprovide details when they seespecified news items in other outlets,so that coverage can be comparedand contrasted. See Alok Jha’sintroduction to the concepthttp://tiny.cc/gpa6k and the storytrackers themselves at

http://tiny.cc/jq3a1

British ScienceAssociation AwardLecturesFive outstanding young communicators have been askedto present Award Lectures at theBritish Science Festival. They are:Nick Lee (Can marketers controlyour mind?); Jessica Grahn (Music, movement and the brain);Mark Young (Are weoverautomating our lives?); Sarah Bell (Watering thirsty cities);and Suzie Sheehy (the Big Bang dilemma).

Following speculation about the future of the Food StandardsAgency (FSA), the government has announced that it will focuson its core remit of food safety policy and enforcement.

The Department of Health assumesresponsibility for nutrition policy, andthe Department for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs for non-safety-related food labelling andfood composition policies in Englandonly. The FSA retains its currentresponsibility for nutrition andlabelling policy in Scotland, Walesand Northern Ireland.

The old FSA went out amidstcontroversy after Professor BrianWynne, the Vice-chair of a groupadvising it on public dialogue ongenetically modified (GM) food,resigned. He said that the planneddialogue was ‘more likely toincrease public mistrust thanconfidence about [food] policy.’

However, it seemed likely that theconsultation itself would go ahead.Following the resignation, Minister ofState for Universities and ScienceDavid Willetts told People & Sciencethat he was ‘discussing … withcolleagues because I do think we need some kind of exercise like that.’

Pro-GM bias?Brian Wynne, from LancasterUniversity, an acknowledgedauthority on the relations betweenexpert and public knowledge inscience, cited diverse concerns withthe planned dialogue, including apro-GM institutional culture in theFSA. ‘[Jeff Rooker, Chair of the FSA] said that “the public is anti-science”,’ he wrote. ‘We onlyhave to add [Rooker’s] relatedconvictions... that the GM issue is “a scientific issue” and that FSApolicy is determined only by soundscience, for a pro-GM policy stanceto be seen implicitly in FSA’s deepinstitutional culture,’ he continued.

‘No dialogue’Wynne also expressed fears that the‘dialogue’ process would serve onlyto extract the public’s views:‘Dialogue requires two parties.Despite my request, [governmentofficials] have basically declined topresent themselves as dialoguepartners. If it’s going to be thenormal kind of social scienceresearch on attitudes... then don’t call that a dialogue!’

Food Standards Agency responseJeff Rooker has since stated:‘Neither I nor the Agency believethat the British public are “anti-science”... It is, however, mypersonal view that there remains ananti-science and technology culturein the media and public life.’ Hecontinued, ‘While natural scienceunderpins our food safetyassessments, other factors includingsocial and economic factors arealso very relevant. The socialsciences are particularlyimportant…[and] a key part of thepicture when we are consideringissues in relation to GM food.’

Dr Joanna Carpenter is the Shorts [email protected]

Commons and LordsAndrew Miller MP has beenelected the new chair of theHouse of Commons Scienceand Technology SelectCommittee. ‘I would like to seethe Committee focussing itsattention on... improvingpublic understanding of someof the challenging scientificissues facing us today,’ hesaid. The equivalent Lords’committee is chaired by Lord Krebs.


Awarding biomedicalengagementThe Wellcome Trust is invitingproposals by 12 October for creativeprojects that engage people withdevelopments in biomedicalscience. They must stimulate interestor examine impacts of research, orencourage new ways of thinking.Projects must be on the topic GreyMatters: brain, mind & culture. Seehttp://tiny.cc/c9id6 for details.

All change at the Food Standards Agency

Despite my request,[government officials]have basicallydeclined to presentthemselves as dialoguepartners. If it’s going to be the normal kindof social scienceresearch on attitudes...then don’t call that a dialogue!

COVERSTORY

He wants me to know, however,that he’s looking forward to comingto the British Science Festival inBirmingham: ‘I come fromBirmingham and it’s great that theFestival is going there this year.’

He’s all for the public taking part inpolicy making on science-relatedissues. ‘I think it’s very important wehave the general public involved,’he says. ‘We have seen in painfulepisodes like the GM debate whathappens when the scientificcommunity and high-level policymaking gets detached frompeople’s day-to-day concerns. Andyou could argue similarly the MMRepisode. I see part of my job as alayman – I don’t claim to be ascientist – to be just one of the manybridges between lay people andthe scientific community.’

Science and SocietyHe labels the outputs of the Scienceand Society initiative as ‘very useful’citing, first, Mark Walport’s‘excellent’ report for the Scienceand Learning expert group.1 TheWalport report ‘brings across veryclearly that, in order to get moreyoung people to study science, we have to balance the inputs of scientifically-trained teachers’ability for students at secondaryschool to do individual scienceGCSEs, and also the demand of the students themselves.’

He also commends Fiona Fox’sgroup on Science and the Media,2

and the work of the Science MediaCentre, adding, ‘I think we’re alltrying to learn the importance ofbetter engagement betweenscientists and the media.’

Taking the outputs forward,however, comes with an ‘inevitable’caveat: a reminder about thegovernment’s comprehensivespending review. ‘Money is verytight so across every departmentwe’re all having to look at ourbudgets,’ he says.

State of dialoguesDoes the Minister have any thoughts about the state ofdialogues between scientists andthe public? ‘I think the SyntheticBiology Dialogue has been veryhelpful and people had some quiteinteresting questions about whyscientists were doing it, which is aquestion that scientists sometimestake for granted. Are they just doingit for publicity, or to make money?Are they just doing it becausepotentially it’s something they cando and as soon as the technologybecomes possible they feel obligedto do it? Some of those really simplelayman’s questions put scientists onthe spot and they have to thinkthrough why they’re doing it.’


‘The scientificcommunity ischanging,’ he says.‘There’s a lot of work todo but I think especiallythe younger scientistsdo understand thatthey all operate withinone shared society andone shared community

Engagement from on highWendy Barnaby interviews the new Universities and Science Minister

David Willetts doesn’t sit still for long. In his departmental eyrie, withits stunning view of the façade of Westminster Abbey, heoccasionally drapes one leg over the arm of his chair, or turnsround quickly when something particularly catches his attention.You get the feeling that his mind is just as restless. This bodes wellfor the public engagement community even if, as yet, he’s notfocusing on its issues with the eagle-eyed intensity it might wish for.

Wendy Barnaby is Editor ofPeople & [email protected]


More to politics than evidenceSo what about the feeling that, inspite of all the rhetoric aboutdialogue, scientists are still setting theagenda? Willetts summarises theargument succinctly: ‘Scratchbeneath the surface and underneaththe language of dialogue there’s thesame old assumption that there’s agroup of people who are custodiansof the truth and the rest of us theignorant masses who need to be told what’s what.’ His own gaze, now fixed on Westminster Abbey,bypasses the specifics of the issue, settling instead over the broad contours of the engagement landscape.

‘The scientific community ischanging,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot ofwork to do but I think especially theyounger scientists do understand thatthey all operate within one sharedsociety and one shared community. Iknow this as a politician. There’s moreto politics than evidence. There arebeliefs, there are commitments andthere are promises, and all thesethings that make life so complicatedalso make life meaningful andworthwhile. You can’t simply sayyou’re looking at the evidence. Ineverything you do, you operatewithin a moral framework.’

Build up trustThe trouble with some dialogue, Isuggest, is that the issues are alreadycontentious. People have alreadytaken up their positions. Would it bebetter to do as the Alzheimer’sSociety does, and build dialogue in tonormal working? The societyhabitually consults people withdementia to help set their researchpriorities and, unlikely as it may sound,it works.

This elicits a swivel-round and fullattention. ‘Very interesting! I think weought to find out more about how theAlzheimer’s Society does it! Buildingup trust before the row breaks out is alot better than deciding to have adialogue after the row has started.Very good advice!’

No credit to government I quote from one of the paperscommissioned as part of the Scienceand Society initiative: ‘Publicengagement remains counter-culturalto the ethos of most public andeducational institutions, scientificresearch and the civil service…Government has powers that could beused to promote public engagement, ifit wishes to use them.’3

The Minister protests. ‘I think that is toopessimistic an assessment. I agree thereare problems and we need to domore, but my view is that the level ofpublic engagement in science hasimproved. I don’t actually think thatsuccessive governments deserve thecredit for it. I think that the transfor-mation of science journalism, theaccessibility of good books on science,the BBC’s fantastic openness onscience, especially this year with the350th anniversary of the Royal Society –all those events mean that there ismuch more dialogue than there has been.’

If citizens want to become engaged inscientific issues, then, how should theydo it? Willetts cites events such asscience festivals, public events at theRoyal Society, the Reith lecturequestion times and public hearings ofthe Parliamentary committees onscience and technology.

Dialogue and democracy He sees dialogue, not in terms of theconversations in the publicengagement community, but assomething built in to the system ofgovernment. He cites the MinisterialCode,4 and the new Guidelines on theUse of Scientific and EngineeringAdvice in Policy Making,5 as examplesof a two-way process of links betweendemocratic politicians and thescientific community. ‘People shouldnot forget’, he says, ‘that every MPthrough their mailbag and constituencysurgeries, whenever there is a scientificissue coming before the House ofCommons – take stem cell research –you have the local religious groups inyour constituency wanting to comeand see you. Actually they are by andlarge more active in coming to see youthan the local doctors working in theNHS, which is an issue for the medicaland scientific community to thinkabout. But we are ourselves asdemocratic politicians aware of

people’s anxieties and their concernsabout some of these scientific issues –so that’s why there has to be a two-way street between politicians and scientists.’

Future uncertainThe morning after I saw David Willettshe gave his first big speech on science,concentrating on the economic casefor investment in science and research.It’s obvious, and hardly surprising, thatpublic engagement has not yet foundits way to the top of his Inbox. How totake the Science and Society initiativeforward; how to encourage dialoguein the practitioners’ context; how toensure that the outcomes of dialoguesare considered by policy makers; howthe government can look to its ownprocedures to build up public trust inthose who make and carry out policy:these questions will have to wait. The spending review, which will be published soon, will give someindication of how he will handle the community.

Literally. One of the Minister’s cufflinks reads, ‘Ayes’. The other, ‘Noes’. It remains to be seen how thismost alert of the political flock,perched high on his roost, will scan hisportfolio, and where he will locatepublic engagement. Let’s hope thatthe ayes will have it.

1 February 2010, Science and MathematicsSecondary Education for the 21st Century:Report of the Science and Learning ExpertGroup, for the Department of Business, Industryand Skills (BIS) Science and Society initiativehttp://tinyurl.com/3xwavuo

2 January 2010, Science and the Media: securingthe Future: Report of the Science and theMedia Expert Group, for the BIS Science andSociety initiativewww.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/corporate/docs/s/science-and-the-media.pdf

3 Lindsey Colbourne Associates (January 2010),Organisational Learning and Change for PublicEngagement; prepared for the Science for Allreport – part of the Science and Societyinitiative for the Department of Business,Industry and Skills

4 May 2010, Ministerial Code, Cabinet Office.www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/409215/ministerialcodemay2010.pdf

5 The Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser (July2010), Guidelines on the Use of Scientific andEngineering Advice in Policy Makingwww.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/goscience/docs/g/10-669-gcsa-guidelines-scientific-engineering-advice-policy-making.pdf

SPAT

Dear Richard,

‘Upstream engagement’ has beentouted as the solution to publicopposition to new technologies. Itwas meant to make the public feelthey had been part of shaping newareas of science and thus more easilyaccept them. But the application ofthis logic in the early development ofnanotechnologies was fundamentallyweak. With the complicity ofgovernments, big businesses nowdecide the pathway they wish atechnology to take. Thistechnological path is virtually immuneto wider debate about society’s bestinterests. The weaknesses of nano-dialogues have now been repeatedin the recent research councilconsultation on synbio.1

Most of the world’s investment insynbio comes from privatecorporations, and most innovationhappens under the cloak ofcommercial confidentiality. The futureis then imposed as a patented geneor a product in the marketplace. This profoundly undemocraticapproach flies in the face of theopenness and transparency thatunderlies good science.

We need ‘strong’ dialogue that allows the re-examination of stateand corporate agendas. In responseto Synthia, why not have a short-termmoratorium on synbio research,similar to the pause in recombinantDNA research that followed theAsilomar Conference of scientists and other concerned groups in theUS 35 years ago?

Yours, Tom

1 D Battachary, J Pascall Calitz and A Hunter(TNS-BMRB, 2010). Synthetic Biology Dialogue:BBSRC/EPSRC/Sciencewise-ERC. Seewww.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Reviews/1006-synthetic-biology-dialogue.pdf

Dear Tom,

Whilst it may have been true that inthe past ‘upstream engagement’ hasbeen used as a way of offsettingpublic opposition to newtechnologies, I do not believe thatthis is the case in relation to asignificant number of people workingin synthetic biology. An important aimof the academic synthetic biologycommunity is to engage with thepublic via serious dialogue. Theobject of this exercise is not to makethe public ‘feel better’ – except inthe sense of being properly engaged.

With regard to big business beinginvolved in deciding which way thetechnology should go, where majorcommercial investment is involved,companies do dictate a particulardirection in terms of the developmentof the technology. This is true inalmost any industrial field.

The international academic syntheticbiology community has a strongtradition of openness in relation totheir research. For example, one ofthe conditions of the InternationalGenetically Engineered Machinecompetition (iGEM)1 is that the fulllaboratory record is placed on anopen wiki. The academic communityis also pushing very hard for ‘opensource’ to try to avoid a largenumber of patented genes and/orproducts in the market place.

A moratorium in response to Synthiawould be highly counterproductive.There are many important projects inhealthcare and so on which couldbe seriously affected.

Yours, Richard

1 iGEM is the most prestigious synthetic biologycompetition for undergraduates. Student teamsare given a kit of biological parts. They usethese, and new parts of their own design, tobuild biological systems and operate them inliving cells.

Dear Richard,

I agree that many in the academiccommunity want ‘serious dialogue’.However, the recent Synthetic BiologyDialogue, to which we were bothadvisors, suggested that its researchcouncil sponsors do not yetunderstand what this really means.

The entire process was closer tocommercial market research thangenuine public dialogue. Contrary toestablished good practice in thisarea, the councils decided that theworkshops should be held in private,saying it was too soon for anydiscussions to take place in public.

One of your colleagues, commentingat a workshop to design the process,expressed a desire to avoid beingcaught unprepared by another MMR.In his mind and those of otherresearchers, the MMR and GMscares, and even the BSE disaster, getlumped together as examples of theignorant mob versus scientific truth.The problem is that in the cases ofGM and BSE, the mob was partiallycorrect.

In both cases, not only were officialscientific predictions flawed, but thekey experts were reluctant to befrank about the uncertainties andgaps in knowledge underlying theiradvice.

Isn’t it vital that the lessons learnedfrom this seriously flawed pilot areapplied to the fuller dialogue that isto take place later this year?

Yours, Tom

Synthia: do we need another Asilomarconference?Richard Kitney and Tom Wakeford disagree


In the mid-1970s, scientists beginning to work with recombinant DNAwere worried about the potential dangers of this new field of research.They called colleagues to a conference at the Asilomar conferencecentre, California, to address their fears and decide how they couldcontinue their work safely. Might a similar pause be wise after CraigVenter’s production of the first synthetic life-form, Synthia?


Richard Kitney is Professor of BioMedical SystemsEngineering in the Department of Bioengineeringat Imperial College, [email protected]

Dr Tom Wakeford is a Director of the PEALSResearch Centre, Newcastle University and ofSPEAKS, the Society for Participation, Engagement,Action and Knowledge Sharing [email protected]

Dear Tom,

I agree with much of what you say.There is a need for serious public dialogue.

I believe that public dialogue breaksdown into two categories (perhapsmore). The first is where socialscientists carry out detailed research.The second is where the researchersin synthetic biology really do enterinto a dialogue with the public -explaining what they are doing andwhat they believe are the potentialbenefits to society. It is important thatthe public understands that we arenot isolated geeks, but normalpeople with wives, partners, children,mortgages and so on. There isanother aspect of this: listeningcarefully to what the public has tosay. It is not too soon for opendebate – we had an excellentdebate at the London School ofEconomics earlier this year, whichwas totally open.

There is a danger with issues such asGM, BSE and MMR that the facts canbecome distorted in order to sellnewspapers. In my view, the way tohandle this is to present the facts is astraightforward way, avoidingscientific jargon. Lay people aren’tstupid, but they are often not trainedin science. Hence it is important thatthe scientists and engineers involvedin the research are clear about theuncertainties and gaps in knowledge– which is the reality of many areas of science.

Yours, Richard

Dear Richard,

Like you, I am in favour of social andethical research into synbio. However,there are lessons from the HumanGenome Project. Here, five per cent of a multi-billion pound budget supportedsuch work, but the questions addressedwere tightly controlled by the scientists. It took the tiny and poorly-funded UKnon-governmental organisation (NGO)GeneWatch to expose the history ofsome of the commercial interests andmisleading claims made about theproject, as its director, Helen Wallace,explained at a recent Wellcome Trustconference to mark the tenthanniversary of the sequencing of thehuman genome.1

You suggest that public dialogue shouldbe approached by scientists presenting‘the facts in a straightforward way’, by‘explaining what they are doing’ anddescribing ‘the potential benefits tosociety’. But this scientific framingexcludes wider, long-term social, legaland political issues – not least theresponsible and transparentmanagement of undesirableconsequences.

In our complex, contemporary world,people are good at finding out whatthey need to know, and want a say inhow technological developments willimpinge on their daily lives: their health,employment, environment, security,education, community. A narrowapproach to public engagement risksalienating the very people we wish toinvolve in open dialogue, as it fails toaddress their concerns.

Yours, Tom

1 H Wallace (2010) History of the Human Genome,Genewatch UK Briefing Series.www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/HGPhistory_2.pdf

Dear Tom,

Many of the comments that aremade about synthetic biology, andthe issues raised, are common tomany other areas of scientificdevelopment. I have no doubt thatthe work of many NGOs is worthwhile.However, science is based on doubt,on questioning. To quote JohnMaynard Keynes: ‘When the factschange, I change my opinion.’ Thedifficulty which many scientists havewith some NGOs is that they are setup to oppose, no matter what.

Public dialogue in areas like syntheticbiology is always going to be difficult.The issues are often complex andrequire many years of study to fullyunderstand. This is why I say that it isthe job of scientists to present thefacts in a straightforward way. As yousay, we live in a complex world – I donot expect to understand other fieldsin any depth, but I do value expertsproviding a clear view upon which Ican base an opinion. Significantdevelopments frequently takedecades. It is all very well saying that people ‘want a say in howtechnological developments willimpinge on their lives,’ but 20 yearsago how many people knew aboutthe world wide web – let alone hadany inkling of the profound socialimpact it has today?

Yours, Richard

Do science centres need more romance?

Dr Penny Fidler is the CEO of theUK’s Association for Science andDiscovery Centres (ASDC)http://sciencecentres.org.uk/

[email protected]

OPINION

Tim Smit, founder of the Eden Project,1 said recently that ‘science centres need moreromance and adventure’. We asked Penny Fidler and Ian Simmons whether he’s right.

Each year, 20 million people visit a UK science and discovery centre orscience museum. About three-quarters visit in their leisure time withfamily or friends. The remaining fivemillion are school students andteachers participating in organisedschool groups to enhance school-based science learning.

One of the key goals of science anddiscovery centres is to offer schoolchildren, families and adults unusualopportunities to explore, discover,question, delve, test and experiment.The aim is not simply to fill people withfacts, but to take them on a journeyto spark their curiosity; to encouragethem to continue asking questionsabout the world long after they leaveour centres. Science and discoverycentres aim to achieve this sense ofwonder and excitement throughhands-on interactive experiences,encouraging visitors to try things outfor themselves.

Romance and adventureSo do science and discovery centres need more romance and adventure?

My response is: are there any areas oflife that would not benefit from a littlemore romance and adventure?

However, romance and adventureare not enough. Science centresgenerally have story-telling, art, familyshows, theatre, and immersiveenvironments which aim to inspire abroad range of people in a variety ofsubject areas. We, like all culturalsectors, fully acknowledge there isscope to improve, grow and find newways of inspiring people.

Different inspirationsWe should however remember that,in the context of science, inspirationcomes from different places fordifferent people. For some people it ishaving their natural curiosity nurturedas they are encouraged to askquestions, or perhaps talking quietlywith a scientist with whom they relatebecause of a shared local accent.For others it might be seeing their ownDNA in a molecular biology workshop,being part of an ‘explodingchemistry’ workshop or seeing thebeauty of a spider’s web.

Sometimes people mistakenly seescience and discovery centres as justscience exhibitions. This is merely thetip of the iceberg. Taking a singleexample, last year one of our 50science centres attracted around260,000 people, of whom 78,000 wereschool students and teachers. Of theremaining 182,000 leisure visitors,70,000 people participated in scienceevents such as family science shows,lab workshops, sleepovers, story-telling, object handling sessions, meetthe scientist events and community-based events. Over 62,000 visited theplanetarium to sit back and enjoy the stars.

Meeting challengesIt is hard to ignore people voting withtheir feet. Tens of thousands ofteachers nationally feel these out-of-school science experiences aresufficiently inspirational andworthwhile to warrant the effort oftaking students on trips to centres.Millions of families and leisure visitorsfeel the experience is sufficientlyenjoyable to spend their valuablefree time visiting. This is all the moreimpressive given there is no

government subsidy, so the vastmajority of the UK’s science anddiscovery centres must charge an entryfee. Would people really pay to go ifthey didn’t enjoy it?

As a nation, and as a global society wehave some huge challenges ahead.We need our young people to beconfident to experiment, to explore andto try to change the future. We needour adults and aging population tobetter understand the sciences and tolobby for the policy changes neededfor a low carbon future. We need tonurture the brightest young minds andbring back the adventure and delightof exploring and discovering the worldaround us. As the only UK network ofyear-round publicly-accessible sciencevenues, the UK’s charitable scienceand discovery centres have both theinfrastructure and the desire to worktowards this.

1 http://www.edenproject.com/


Sometimes peoplemistakenly see scienceand discovery centresas just scienceexhibitions. This is merelythe tip of the iceberg

Penny Fidler reflects on satisfied visitors

Ian Simmons is Director ofScience Communications atthe Centre for Life, Newcastleupon [email protected]

OPINION

As somebody who has been in the science centre businessnow for over 20 years, I have to agree with Tim Smit.


Ian Simmons prods the weak spots

If we were to pretend that at least a few centres weren’t up to scratch, we’d probably be deluding ourselves.After all, Sturgeon’s Law (coined byscience fiction writer TheodoreSturgeon) states that ‘Ninety percent of everything is crud’. But a lot morethan 10 per cent of science centres are any good, so they’re probablyahead of the averages.

Lack of public criticismStill, that’s not to say that there are notweak spots. One of the things that welack in the science communication fieldis a robust culture of criticism. There isnowhere that routinely reviews sciencecentre activities in the high profile waythat broadsheet culture sections reviewart exhibitions, or theatre or othercultural forms, so we get away lightly.

Without a strong tradition of that kind,there is little that really forces us to lookat what we are doing and up ourgame. Sure, people evaluate, but that’snot what I’m talking about. Where arethe Michael Billingtons and Brian Sewellsof science communication?

Abolish learning goalsThe UK has about the strongest andmost innovative science centrecommunity in Europe, but still we havesome centres that have stagnated intheir mid-90s prime. There are still one ortwo with no professional scientists on thestaff, and a good number with clunky,narrow and unsatisfying exhibitionsbased on the idea that interactivesshould have ‘learning goals’, whichmisunderstands what the whole business is about.

Learning goals are brilliant for classrooms– and increasingly science centres arealso offering excellent taught activitiesto complement the exhibitions. But theactual exhibitions, whose audience ismainly families on leisure visits, shouldnever have been about learning goals.They are about inspiring, exciting,enthusing the visitors, capturing theircuriosity and imagination so that theywant to learn more using the things thatare best at formal learning – books,classes and so on.

It’s the same with museums too – notgreat at delivering learning throughcasual exhibition visits, but superb atinspiring people. Ask anyone who visitedmuseums or science centres as a childwhat they remember, and I guarantee it won’t be a fact, it’ll be an experiencethat stayed with them. We should playto this strength.

Romance returningTim Smit called for more mystery,romance and drama in science centresand he’s right. His own Eden Projectdoes this supremely well, attractingpeople in droves and sending themaway enthused about the natural world.That is our job too, to create theenthusiasm for science that can bechannelled into learning.

Fortunately he’s not the only person tohave noticed this. The idea that sciencecentres should contain either a randomscatter of surprise/resolution-basedinteractives, or a rather conservative,text/interactive/object storyline, isincreasingly being challenged bycentres that are looking to create open-ended, intriguing exhibits that visitorscan investigate for themselves and useto develop their innate scientific skills.

This started with the San FranciscoExploratorium’s Active ProlongedEngagement project, which influencedthe latest version of Launchpad at theScience Museum and is steadilyspreading further. My own centre is nowbuilding an exhibition based on the ideaof curiosity, and other centres in the UKare following similar paths. They are likelyto emerge as world leaders in thisapproach, bringing back the mystery,romance and excitement of science tothe UK’s science centres.

The UK has aboutthe strongest andmost innovativescience centrecommunity inEurope, but still wehave some centresthat havestagnated in theirmid-90s prime

TWOVIEWS

Patrick Middleton wants views from outside the scientific community

Dr Patrick Middleton is Head of PublicEngagement at the [email protected]

One recent report has examined how research funding is allocated in the biosciences.1 Another touches on public views on research council funding, in the context of a public dialogue on synthetic biology.2

How useful is public engagementin deciding research priorities?

There are few who argue thattaxpayer-funded science should notaim to enhance our quality of life. But with a limited pot of money, howcan funds be spent most effectively?In recent years, public engagementhas been held up as one route by which this conundrum might be solved.

In its broadest definition, publicengagement is about more thanpolicy setting. It includes helpingfunders to be accountable to taxpayers, letting researchers view theirwork in a broader context, andchallenging our assumptions.However, when it is about informingpolicy, then we need to answer: How can expertise from outside of the scientific community beharnessed to ensure that researchpolicy and funding are able to meet the needs of society?

BBSRC activityOver the last 15 years or more, the Biotechnology and BiologicalSciences Research Council (BBSRC)has, with others, tried to answer thesequestions and to bring widerperspectives into its strategy setting.The 1994 consensus conference onbiotechnology was the first of its kindin the UK. Since then, BBSRC hasworked at a number of levels toaddress individual issues around theresearch it funds. Some examplesinclude: large scale dialogues onstem cells (with MRC: the MedicalResearch Council) and syntheticbiology (with the Engineering andPhysical Sciences Research Council).Other examples: online tools todiscuss food science; UK-wide

attitudinal studies to look at researchpriorities around ageing (with MRC);consultations on strategic plans; and the involvement of interestedorganisations in drafting funding calls in areas such as crop science or insect pollinators (under the Living with Environmental Change programme1).

But all this activity is meaninglessunless it is asking the right questions,and the answers have a route toinfluence the research agenda.BBSRC tries to do both these thingswith the aid of its Bioscience forSociety Strategy Panel, one of sevenhigh-level panels that report directlyto BBSRC’s Strategy Advisory Board.Part of the Panel’s role is to highlightto BBSRC what questions it should be asking, and what issues need attention.

Varied successNeedless to say, the success of thesevarious attempts to engage withperspectives outside of the sciencecommunity has varied. Some, forexample, have just identified a list of generic issues. However, we havelearnt from past experience. We arecurrently working hard to ensure therecently published synthetic biologydialogue report2 has an impactbeyond the research councils.

But we still struggle with someaspects, like involving all thosepeople and organisations who havea stake in the research we fund. An invitation to take part in an open consultation often fails to illicit a response, yet policy made inresponse to the consultation maysubsequently be criticised by the

‘non-respondents’. We do not want a blame game but clearly there is adisconnect here. Indeed, involving all voices in a discussion is often alimiting factor on how successful apublic engagement activity can be.So how can we make publicengagement as effective as possible?

Suggestions pleaseThis is not a question we can answeralone. Our plans for future publicengagement on bioenergy and foodsecurity are still in development. One proposal is that, rather than runone large dialogue, we might use a range of different events that use different techniques to discussdifferent aspects of issues withdifferent audiences, and then use outputs to distil key issues.

No doubt you can see as manyproblems with this approach as with others. But we are open tosuggestions about how we cananswer the question: How can weharness expertise from outside thescientific community to ensure thatresearch policy and funding are ableto meet the needs of society?

1. See www.lwec.org.uk/

2. D Battachary, J Pascall Calitz and A Hunter(TNS-BMRB, 2010). Synthetic Biology Dialogue:BBSRC/EPSRC/Sciencewise-ERC. Seewww.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Reviews/1006-synthetic-biology-dialogue.pdf


Here, Helen Wallace and Patrick Middleton focus on the practice of public engagement as a way of determining priorities in research funding.

Who decides what the prioritiesshould be for investment inresearch, in terms of the big picturetrends that will influence our futurequality of life and our economy?These are political decisions that arelargely unaccountable but whichhave profound effects on all of us.

GeneWatch recently published a major investigation of theresearch funding system for thebiosciences.1 We found that theentire system is now shaped bypolitical commitments to the‘knowledge-based bio-economy’.This is deeply embedded in thesystem of incentives designed to measure and reward the output of researchers, as well as in the institutions that exist, including the BBSRC (Biotechnologyand Biological Sciences Research Council).

This has a significant influence onwho gets funded to do what. Forexample, a major shift of agriculturalresearch efforts off farms and intolaboratories has meant the loss ofagricultural extension services, andshortages of skills in areas from soilscience to plant pathology.Similarly, a political commitment toa future in which everyone will havetheir genome sequenced andstored in the NHS drove significantpublic investment in humangenomics, as well as Blair’s £12billion decision to build a centralised system of electronicmedical records.

Anti-democraticThese decisions have been made in a manner best described as anti-democratic. Parliament was sidelinedand billions of pounds of taxpayers’money were committed to visions ofthe future which were neithertransparent nor accountable. Critics ofGM crops and large-scale geneticdatabases were smeared as ‘anti-science’ and policy makers becamedeaf to real concerns about thevested interests promoting theseapproaches. The damage to publictrust has been significant, as have theopportunity costs associated with theloss of investment in other areas and the failure to build a competitive economy.

Scientists have been left promotingand defending claims that are basedon outdated views about biology,ignorance about social andeconomic realities, and mired invested interests. For example,screening everybody’s genome willnot be of benefit to health becausethere are no genetic tests – eithersingly or in combination – that meetmedical screening criteria for thegeneral population. This ideaoriginates with false claims bytobacco-funded scientists whowanted smoking cessation efforts tobe targeted at a supposed‘genetically susceptible’ minority ofsmokers. It is now driven bycommercial attempts to use personalgenomes as a way to marketfunctional foods, drugs and skincreams to the healthy population.

Limits of publicengagement Public engagement cannot replacethe democratic accountability ofgovernments for decisions abouthow taxpayers’ money is investedfor the future. But it can help toopen up debate, improve publicscrutiny, and help technologicalenthusiasts for particularapproaches see the bigger picture,such as the implications ofpatenting seeds on the livelihoodsof poor smallholder farmers.

However, public engagement ismeaningless unless it is allowed toinfluence research priorities, with theaim of helping to direct researchinvestments in a way that meetssocietal needs. It is also critical thatparticipants are not fed emptypromises or extravagant claimsabout feeding the world or curingcancer. This means alternatives mustbe on the table: for example,options for stricter regulation of theoil industry must be consideredalongside Craig Venter’s speculativeclaims that new synthetic bugs willone day clean up oil spills.

Research priorities would shift as aresult of genuine engagement, andsome pet theories and approacheswould have to be abandoned. Thisneed not harm blue skies research:but protecting it implies a return tovaluing science for science’s sakeand for its role in policy decisions,not purely as a driver to bring newproducts to the marketplace.

Dr Helen Wallace is Director of GeneWatch [email protected]

www.genewatch.org


1. H Wallace (2010). Bioscience for Life? Whodecides what research is done in health andagriculture? GeneWatch. Seehttp://tinyurl.com/24lzocr

2. D Battachary, J Pascall Calitz and A Hunter(TNS-BMRB, 2010). Synthetic Biology Dialogue:BBSRC/EPSRC/Sciencewise-ERC. See www.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Reviews/1006-synthetic-biology-dialogue.pdf

Public engagement must influence research priorities, argues Helen Wallace

EXCHANGE

Professor Julia King is the Vice-Chancellor ofAston [email protected]

At Aston we are serious aboutengaging the public – particularlythe younger generation – in scienceand technology. We are committedto the STEM ambassador scheme;1

we participate in BirminghamScience City2 and have a busypublic events programme.

Aston University EngineeringAcademyThe new development we are mostexcited about is the creation of theAston University Engineering Academy.It is a new school for 14-19 year olds,on a site adjacent to the University,teaching the Engineering Diploma(with a modern language). It willprepare Birmingham’s young peoplefor global engineering careers throughboth apprenticeships and degrees.

Engineering is about delivering real-lifesolutions through applying knowledge.In the early stages of the Diplomacourse the Academy will emphasiselearning through doing, giving studentshands-on experience, working closelywith our industrial partners. As students’confidence and interest builds,research shows that motivation tomaster the more abstract and

mathematical tools required byprofessional engineers increases,giving students the best chance tolearn subjects sometimes regarded as difficult.

Widening participationUniversities can, and should, bepowerful enablers of social mobility. Noother top 20 UK university has a betterrecord than Aston of wideningparticipation. Over 90 per cent of ourstudents come from state schools, withalmost 40 per cent from the lowestsocioeconomic groups. Amongst ourBritish first degree students, 53 per centare from ethnic minorities and, withoverseas students from more than 120countries, we can claim one of themost diverse student populations in theUK. Since diversity drives innovation,that makes Aston an exciting place forlearning and research.

This has not happened by accident.For many years, we have taken ourrole in the community very seriously.We have a successful, longstandingoutreach programme whichencourages young people to enterHigher Education (HE) and to beambitious for their futures.

This year, the British ScienceFestival visits Birmingham. People& Science previews some of thepublic engagement in the city.

Public engagement in science: what’s on in Birmingham

Julia King is excited by the university’s offerings

Gifted and talentedWe have around 40 mentors/associatesand 100 student tutors working in schoolsaround Birmingham, the largestcontribution from any HE institution in thecity. Aston is also the regional hub for theWest Midlands Gifted and Talentedscheme, providing additionalmasterclasses and workshops for childrenwith outstanding ability, to enable them tolearn at a pace that stretches and excitesthem, and to sample university life.

We are excited to be hosting the BritishScience Festival in September 2010,together with our other partners in the Cityof Birmingham. It is a number of years sincethe event was last held here, and rightacross the region there is great enthusiasmfor the Festival.


1. See www.stemnet.org.uk

2. See www.birminghamsciencecity.co.uk

Accessible excellence at Aston Photo: Thinktank

Ferment of activity in the West MidlandsPeter Reed arranges a busy scheduleThe British Science Associationbranches play an important rolein advancing the publicunderstanding, accessibility andaccountability of the sciences andengineering in the UK.

The West Midlands Branch caters for thewide spread of members andsupporters from Herefordshire toWarwickshire. Over the last few yearswe have tried to expand our activitiesthrough talks, visits and practical events,while at the same time providing someof these activities outside Birmingham.

LecturesEvery October, we hold the PrestigeLecture on an evening to coincide withour AGM. We have been very fortunateto attract some high-profile speakersincluding Lord May, Frances Cairncross,Baroness Susan Greenfield andProfessor Steve Jones. Members,supporters, the general public, students,other groups and organisations: allcome, enabling us to attract newmembers. We thank Thinktank inBirmingham for making its lecturetheatres available for these and other evenings.

Other recent talks in the programmehave focussed on developments suchas the Large Hadron Collider or onspecial commemorations such as theInternational Year of Darwin.

U3A collaborationWe have forged a particularlysuccessful collaboration with theUniversity of the Third Age, especiallythe Dorridge Branch (near Solihull). Overthe last three years, joint meetings haveaddressed issues related to forensicscience and presentation of forensicevidence in courts of law, and earlierthis year on nutrition and health.Although these meetings are held in avillage hall, they attract audiences ofover 120. In the future the branch iskeen to increase these joint events with a number of other organisationsand sees them as a fruitful way ofexpanding its activities across the West Midlands.

Visits and demonstrationsThe region provides limitless opportunities for visits. Over the last fewyears we have arranged outings to theBBC at Mailbox to see the use of newtechnology in the gathering and

presentation of news on TV and theradio, The Birmingham Assay Office,Soho House (the home of MatthewBoulton), Stourbridge (a glass studyday), Shrewsbury (guided walk on theDarwin associations) and to Taylor’s BellFoundry in Loughborough.

We have not neglected NationalScience and Engineering Week. In thelast few years the branch has workedwith the superconductivity team at theUniversity of Birmingham todemonstrate at a community centrewhat happens to everyday objectswhen they get cold, and with Dr ClaireDavis of the University of Birmingham onan event at a school in Solihull on howtechnology helps sports performance.This latter event was based on theAward Lecture Dr Davis gave at theBritish Science Festival.

Peter Reed is the Chair of theWest Midlands Branch of the British Science Association

[email protected]


Nick Winterbothamextols the Digbeth Age of Reason

Opened in 2001, Thinktank is the21st century’s iteration of the 19thcentury science museum.

The new enlightenment stems from avery modern approach to allocatingpublic money to attend to need.

In the late 1990s, Birmingham CityCouncil and Birmingham Universitycollaborated to persuade theMillennium Commission and theEuropean Union to invest £114m in anew building (Millennium Point) on aderelict site in the Digbeth area ofBirmingham. It would house the oldscience and technology museumwhich was in need of a new home. Itwould provide a dynamic new settingfor the Technology Innovation facultyof the university. It would be a beaconbuilding to kick-start the regenerationof what was now to be dubbed‘Eastside – a new piece of city centre’.

However, the fourth agenda is whatultimately fired the imagination andquickened the pulse.

The New EnlightenmentBirmingham, city of a thousandtrades, workshop of the world, home of the Lunar men, has alwayshad a gift for entrepreneurship and ingenuity.

In 1776, Matthew Boulton of theLunar Society boasted to writerJames Boswell when he visited hisBirmingham steam engine works: ‘I sell here, Sir, what all the worlddesires to have — power…’. The neworder focuses on empowerment.

Thus the new museum, displayingBirmingham’s world-class collectionsfrom the Industrial Revolution to thepresent, set out on the road ofrelevance, inspiration and learning.Our 21st century focus is on the user.

Armed with the scientific legacy of300 years, the new task is togenerate the technologicalenthusiasm and scientific genius ofthe next 300.

The outcomeOur galleries, like good science,answer the queries of the curiousand pose new questions thatpromote further curiosity.

The enquiring mind is seldom content withclosed loops. The thousand open-endedjourneys of Thinktank are available to allin a hands-on and minds-on up-to-datelearning environment. Interactivity isalternated with the contemplative, withsocial learning opportunities, and withdirect contact with gallery staff.

The result of this approach is that whereteachers need an ‘enthusiasm shot in thearm’ they progressively reach for the visit-booking team at Thinktank. 75,000 school-children now attend Thinktank each year,amongst the museum’s 250,000 visitors.We are also hosting the Young People’sProgramme (for schools) at the 2010 BritishScience Festival.

Our belief is that if our society is truly toattend to the environmental, economicand technological challenges of thefuture, Thinktank must play its inspirationalpart in empowering future generationswho are at ease with wielding science.

From power to empowerment

Nick Winterbotham is CEO at [email protected]

FEATURE

There was standing room only asDavid Willetts – then an oppositionMP but now Science Minister –applauded social scientists for theircontribution to public policy, such asdiscovering that children whoregularly see their grandparentshave better life outcomes thanthose who don’t. The gathering,which also saw contributions fromelected politicians, peers, think-tankrepresentatives, academics, policy-makers and journalists, was anattempt on the part of ProfessorCary Cooper, the academy’s Chair,to push this shy science out from theshadows and into the spotlight.

The momentum is continuing withregular conferences to flag upfindings in different areas; one in Julyconcentrated on ageing and, forexample, highlighted evidence thatstaying active staves off dementia.

Failure to engageThis new strategy is a tacit admissionthat social scientists have largelyfailed in the field of publicengagement. ‘I think we have failedin the past to promote what socialscientists really contribute tosociety,’ admits Cooper, theDistinguished Professor of

Organisational Psychology andHealth at Lancaster University. ‘It’shad no single body to systematicallypromote it. Sure, we’ve had theBritish Psychological Society andsmaller organizations such as those,but we’ve had no unified front. Sohere we are, and we’re the newkids on the block. Unlike the RoyalSociety, the Academy has onlybeen around for a dozen years. Theold organisations get money andpremises but the social sciences arecrucial to our future.’

The Academy of Social Sciences isnow the matriarch of 38 learnedsocieties – with the Association ofSocial Anthropologists, the BritishSociety of Criminology and theRoyal Town Planning Institute amongher diverse brood – numbering86,000 scientists, among themeconomists, psychologists, statis-ticians and linguists.

Capitalising on STEMBut, as well as the lack of a singlechampion, there has also been alingering image problem. ProfessorCooper says: ‘For a long time, thesocial sciences have felt themselvesto be a poor cousin of the othersciences. The government is

obsessed with STEM (science,technology, engineering andmedicine), and there’s nothingwrong with that, because we needa strong science base in thiscountry. But if you leave socialscience out of the picture, you can’t capitalize on your otherscientific findings.

‘For example, take all the workbeing done on climate change.There’s a lot being done on carbonemissions, but the crucial question ishow you change people’s attitudesand behaviour. You can have all thescience in the world but if you can’t get people to change their behaviour you don’t get any benefits.’

He is at pains to point out he is nottaking issue with STEM scientists forhogging the limelight: ‘Do I want to talk the STEM subjects down?Absolutely not. It’s not an “us”against “them” situation. But it’s thesocial sciences that can tell usabout people’s attitudes andbehaviour, and whether certaininterventions work or not.’ He isfurther sharpening up theAcademy’s act by encouraging it to respond swiftly to issues in themedia, and to strengthen itsadvocacy of the social sciences.

Hitting the headlinesWhile he agrees that social scientistshave sometimes been backward incoming forward, that also applies toother scientists, who sometimes feeluncomfortable in the public glare.But – as I know all too well as aformer newspaper journalist – itactually tends to be social scienceresearch that hits the headlines,


Will the socialsciences pleasestand up

Anjana Ahuja is ready to clap

While the Royal Society celebrates its 350th anniversary thisyear with well-planned pomp and glittering ceremony – notforgetting the gigantic models of flying dinosaurs tethered tothe Royal Festival Hall – a rather younger academic collectiveis conducting its own, more modest trumpet-blowingcampaign. Earlier this year, the Academy of Social Sciencesheld a one-day conference in Whitehall, entitled ‘Making thecase for the social sciences’.

on issues such as parenting (does nursery damage children?),poverty (does the Child Trust Fundwork?) and health behaviours (will taxing chocolate bars reduce consumption?).

Ageing, he says, is another major issuein which the social science dimensionis often overlooked. First, the facts:looking a half-century ahead bringsus to a frightening demographicvision filled with wrinkles, frailty andworse. By 2071, a quarter of thepopulation is expected to be over 65.Among them will be around 9.5mover-80s. We also know that just underhalf of over-75s suffer somelongstanding illness; with many, thiswill be dementia or some other typeof neurodegenerative disorder, suchas Alzheimer’s Disease or Parkinson’s.

Says Professor Cooper: ‘The medicalscience tells us about the impact ofageing on the brain, so we canexpect more dementia and otherneurodegenerative diseases as thepopulation ages. But social sciencetells us that the more active peopleare, the less likely they are to sufferdementia. So it’s the social sciencesthat are going to help us here, byasking how are we going toencourage people to stay workinglonger, perhaps in less stressful jobs, orto volunteer, to keep them active andreduce dementia. It’s the economistswho have to calculate whatdementia costs, and who will give usthe cost-benefit analysis of gettingolder people to work longer. So herewe have psychology, economics,sociology and statistics all workingtogether on this issue.’

Defence neededDavid Willetts, the famously cerebralpolitician whose intellect has earnedhim the nickname Two Brains, haswarned that the UK’s science base will not be immune from budget cuts.Cary Cooper realises that this makes itmore crucial than ever for hiscolleagues to come together tochampion and defend their contri-bution to public life. The new scienceminister, though, could be regarded asan ally, rather than a foe. He has awell-known fondness for the socialsciences, and recently published anacclaimed book drawing on socialscience research.1 He has alsoconfessed to liking New Scientist, notjust for covering the usual explodingstars and fancy gizmos but for its serioustreatment of the social sciences.

Finally, if Professor Cooper were giventhe chance to convince just onepubgoer of how social science fits intohis everyday life, what would he say?

The bottom line‘I would say this: that we know whathappens to kids early on, such as abad home life or learning difficulties,affects their job prospects and mentalhealth later on; that when people fallinto debt, they become ill, and so wemust try to protect the vulnerable whentimes are hard; and the way thathuman beings are managed at work,from shop floor to top floor, can beeither damaging to their health or verymotivating. We know, for example, thatworking long hours is not good for eitherpeople or UK plc, so why do we havethe longest working hours in Europe?Why on earth do people packthemselves on to trains, in order to sit inoffices and answer emails? Why don’t

managers trust people to workwherever it’s convenient? People arestressed even before they come towork, and that’s not even counting thecost of pollution and energy from dailycommuting.

‘I’m so proud of being a social scientist,and as an occupational healthpsychologist I know what social sciencehas to offer. And it can dramaticallyaffect the bottom line.’

As a reason for fiscally aware politiciansand policymakers to engage with thesocial sciences, you can’t get morecompelling than that.

1 D Willetts (2010) The Pinch: How the Baby

Boomers Stole Their Children’s Future – and How

They Can Give It Back. Atlantic Books

The Academy of SocialSciences is now thematriarch of 38 learnedsocieties – with theAssociation of SocialAnthropologists, theBritish Society ofCriminology and theRoyal Town PlanningInstitute among herdiverse brood


Anjana Ahuja is former featurewriter and science columnist forthe Times. Her first book,Selected, co-authored withMark van Vugt and about theevolution of leadership, waspublished by Profile in [email protected]

Scientists and engagement‘Today’s scientists, like their forbears, probe nature and nature’slaws by observation and experiment. But they should alsoengage broadly with society and with public affairs.

FEATURE

Extracts from the Reith LecturesIn his Reith lectures, Scientific Horizons,Martin Rees considered the public face of science

Lord Rees is President of the Royal Society

[email protected]

‘Indeed, their engagement is neededmore than ever before. Science isn’tjust for scientists. We should all have avoice in ensuring that it’s appliedethically, and to the benefit of boththe developing and developedworld. We must confront widely-heldanxieties that genetics, brain scienceand artificial intelligence may “runaway” too fast. As citizens, we allneed a feel for how muchconfidence can be placed inscience’s claims.

‘The imperative for openness anddebate ensures that any scientificconsensus that emerges is robust andfirmly grounded.

‘Even wider discussion is neededwhen what’s in contention is not thescience itself, but how new findingsshould be applied. Such discussionsshould engage all of us, as citizens,and of course our electedrepresentatives.

‘Sometimes this has happened, andconstructively too. In the UK, ongoingdialogue with parliamentarians led toa generally-admired legal frameworkon embryos and stem cells – acontrast to what happened in the US.But we’ve had failures too. The GMcrop debate was left too late, to atime when opinion was alreadypolarised between eco-campaignerson the one side and commercialinterests on the other.

‘But what about ideas “beyond thefringe”: the illusory comfort andassurance of the pseudosciences?Here there’s less scope for debate.Both sides don’t share the samemethods or play by the sameevidence-based rules. I’ve not foundit fruitful to have much dialogue withastrologers or creationists.’

Protesting too much?‘A word now about communicatingscience. Back in 1860, Darwin’s bookThe Origin of Species was a bestseller: readily accessible – even fineliterature – as well as an epochalcontribution to science. Whatscientists today call “the literature”isn’t accessible in this way. But itsessence can generally be conveyed,free of jargon and mathematics, byskilled communicators. The UK isfortunate in its cadre of sciencewriters and journalists.

‘We scientists habitually bemoan themeagre public grasp of our subject –and of course all citizens need someunderstanding, if policy debates areto get beyond tabloid slogans. Butmaybe we protest too much. On thecontrary, we should be gratified andsurprised that there’s wide interest insuch remote topics as dinosaurs, theLarge Hadron Collider in Geneva, oralien life. We should just as muchdeplore public ignorance of history orgeography. It’s indeed sad if somecitizens can’t distinguish a protonfrom a protein; but equally so if theycan’t find Korea or Syria on a map -and many can’t.’

Media scrutiny‘Misperceptions about Darwin ordinosaurs are an intellectual loss, but nomore. In the medical arena, however,they could be a matter of life anddeath. Hope can be cruelly raised byclaims of miracle cures; exaggeratedscares can distort healthcare choices(as happened over the MMR vaccine).

‘When reporting a particular viewpoint,journalists should clarify whether it iswidely supported, or whether it iscontested by 99 per cent of specialists.Noisy controversy need not signifyevenly-balanced arguments.

We scientists habituallybemoan the meagrepublic grasp of oursubject – and: ofcourse all citizens needsome understanding, if policy debates are to get beyond tabloid slogans

Of course the establishment is sometimesrouted and a maverick vindicated. Weall enjoy seeing this happen – but suchinstances are rarer than is commonlysupposed.

‘Scientists should expect media scrutiny.Their expertise is crucial in areas thatfascinate us, and matter to us all. Andthey shouldn’t be bashful in proclaimingthe overall promise that science offers –it’s an unending quest to understandnature, and essential for our survival.’

The lectures are available athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9


Although Eyjafjallajökull first began to erupt on 20 March 2010, itwas not until 14 April that the Icelandic volcano hit the headlines.Being a glacial volcano, the interaction of magma with ice andwater created an intense plume of ash and gas over 33,000 feethigh which was then carried by north-westerly winds towardsScotland and Scandinavia.

The extraordinary biochemicalreaction caused by the volcanocreated very fine particles of ash withhigh concentrations of silica, the rawmaterial of glass, which made it evenmore hazardous to aircraft thannormal ash. By early morning on 15April the ash cloud had moved downthe length of the UK where itsubsequently lingered in some of theworld’s most congested airspace.

This had never occurred in the modernera so there was no template foraviation to draw on. The UK found itselfin the frontline of this extraordinarysituation. With volcanic ash being aknown safety hazard to aircraft, theexisting guidance from the InternationalCivil Aviation Organisation was foraviation to simply AVOID, AVOID,AVOID. The air traffic control provider,NATS, had no alternative but to excludeall aircraft from ‘controlled’ airspace.This, however, was not a permanentsolution. The challenge was to findsomething that was.

The taskWe quickly co-ordinated activity withthe Met Office, NATS and theDepartment for Transport, principallythrough activating the NationalAirspace Crisis ManagementExecutive. However, it was abundantlyclear that the airlines and aircraftmanufacturers would have to workwith us in finding a solution.

We had to discover two things: howto map the movement of ash cloudsand assess their density; and also toevaluate just what the safe ashtolerance levels were for each engineon each aircraft type (something that

no one had bothered to do before).We had to do it in hours, not monthsand all under the anxious gaze of an aviation industry already sufferingfrom a prolonged recession.

New limitsData gathering was clearly the key,and we relied on the Met Officedispersion model and test flights intothe ash clouds to provide vitalinformation on the ash concentrationlevels. We crunched the numbers fedback to us before setting up international conference callsinvolving dozens of aircraft andengine manufacturers, airlines,scientific agencies and regulators. We put our data on the table andasked the aero engine manufacturersto come up with safe limits on theatmospheric ash density their engines could cope with.

By the afternoon of Tuesday, 20 April, only six days after thevolcanic ash arrived in UK airspace,key manufacturers had provided the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) withrevised guidelines, which would notcompromise safety. The new limit, setat 0.002g/ash per cubic metre of air,meant that while no-fly zones wouldstill exist in concentrations above thislevel, flights could take place in lessdense clouds. A strict groundinspection regime was put in place to ensure any serious damage toengines was discovered quickly.

The ash crisis Deirdre Hutton recounts evidence-based policy

under pressure

Dame Deirdre Hutton is the Chair of the Civil Aviation [email protected]

FEATURE

It was abundantlyclear that the airlines and aircraft manufacturers wouldhave to work with usin finding a solution


Public dutyAs a regulator we have to stickscrupulously to the principle ofevidence-based decision-making.The leadership of the CAA has beenwidely recognised across Europeand our actions have led to agreatly enhanced knowledge of therisks from volcanic ash. This will standus in good stead when – probablynot if – volcanic activity resumes.

We knew there was a risk, weidentified the nature of that risk andwe came up with a solution to thatrisk. To do anything else would havebeen a dereliction of ourfundamental duty to takejudgements in the public interest.


FEATURE

There is as yet no general consensuson what makes a good image.Consequently, there is no obvious and necessary correlation betweenthe images made for pragmatic and educational purposes in thelaboratory, those chosen for postersand conference presentations, those accompanying articlesubmissions, and those to be selected for public engagement.

By comparing structural representationsof macromolecules, we are able totrace differences and similarities inshape and colour. For example, thestructure of the sodium-potassiumpump, a membrane-bound ion pumpbelonging to the family of P-typeATPases, was published on the frontcover of Nature in December 2007.1

Since then, 118 articles have cited theoriginal paper. In these articles, 50images refer directly to the originalvisual representation of the structure.However, there is very little consensus in their choice of form and colour.Consequently, it is not easy tocompare the structures, and chancesfor misinterpretation of important data increase.

We need to improve our skills in visual communication, so that ourcolleagues can understand howimages are supposed to beinterpreted, and so that the generalpublic can more easily understand the most vital structures of life.

Engaging the publicWorking together with designersRachel Wingfield and MathiasGmachl, we explored new ways ofrepresenting the molecular world byengaging a general audience at theScience Festival in Cambridge.

We invited people to colour a 2.20 x 6metre mural of a mitochondrialnetwork. Children of all ages andadults engaged in this mitochondrialpaint-by-numbers event. The first stepwas, via a computer test, to find outwhich colour each visitor preferred.The mural was divided into 300hexagons. The areas in eachhexagonal were coloured accordingto shades and numbers, leaving thefinal image of the mitochondrialnetwork represented by a multi-coloured structure.

The aim was to engage the public inour research and get them to explorethe science through colours. Themitochondrial mural demonstratedgreat potential in exploring commonground for science communication, in this case because scientists andparticipants shared the challenge of finding appropriate colours for the network.

This event was part of a two-yearproject analysing structuralrepresentations of macromolecules in different academic and popularsettings. The conclusions of thesedifferent approaches to colouring our molecular world will be furtherdeveloped over the next year bylooking at structural representations ofother macromolecules essential for life.

Colouring themolecular worldRikke Schmidt Kjaergaard argues for consistency

When we see nano-scale images representing the molecularworld, non-specialists may well assume that this is what it reallylooks like. The shape, the particular elements of the molecule, and the colours often draw and captivate the eye of theobserver. But what is it exactly that decides whether a certain part of a protein should be green, red or purple? Does naturereally look like this? As the short answer is no, scientists need totake seriously how a simple question of shape and colour canimprove the communication of structural biology.

We need to improve our skills in visual communication,so that our colleagues canunderstand how images aresupposed to be interpreted,and so that the generalpublic can more easilyunderstand the most vitalstructures of life

Towards a consensusWe would like to suggest a consensus for the choice of colours in structuralrepresentation. This would need to takeinto consideration the limits of technicaltools, existing colour practices withinparticular scientific fields, the effects ofcolour blindness, as well as which resultsto communicate and to whom.Consistency would not only save time inthe process of making scientific imagesfor various purposes. It would alsominimize use of unsuitable colours andoptimize visual communication ofmolecular structures. An agreedrepresentation would also make itsimpler to understand the image, andbring us a step closer to engaging ageneral public.

1 JP Morth, BP Pedersen, MS Toustrup-Jensen,TL-M Sorensen, J Petersen, JP Andersen, BVilsen, P Nissen, (2007), “Crystal structure ofthe sodium-potassium pump”. Nature 450(7172), p. 1043-1049.

Rikke Schmidt Kjaergaard is aPostdoctoral Research Associateat the MRC Mitochondrial BiologyUnit, Cambridge. She is also affiliated to Centre for MembranePumps in Cells and Disease (PUMPKIN), Aarhus [email protected]


FEATURE

Scientists in the USA are increasingly required to give somethingback to the public who funded their work. Oceanographers needto be able to show their results so that people can understandthem; but the way they currently present data is confusing to laypeople. We have devised a better way.

The use of satellites has revolutionizedthe study of the oceans. Only aboutfive per cent of the world’s ocean hasbeen explored by ship, and this work isexpensive, time consuming, and verylocalised. However, satellite-deriveddata is free to use, collectedautomatically, and regional in nature.Oceanographic satellites have a suiteof instruments sensitive to specific bandsof electro-magnetic radiation. Thesehighly-sensitive cameras each takedigital pictures at a differentwavelength that communicatesinformation about the ocean below.Just like a digital camera, these sensorsassign numerical values to each pixel.Scientists and technicians transform thisarray of numerical values into a coloursystem for visual interpretation.

Hard to interpretBy convention, most scientists who studythese visualisations like to display themin a rainbow spectrum where purplerepresents the lowest values and redrepresents the highest (grading throughblue, green, yellow, and orange).1

While there are advantages to this type of representation, includingenhancing detail and building ontradition, there are also some significantdrawbacks. The visualisations aredifficult for people with colour deficientvision. The middle values (yellow) areover emphasized, and these colourshave no inherent meaning.

These images are making their way intothe public domain. Although they arevisually impressive, we found that mostpeople could not see the data inherentin these beautiful pictures.

Intuitive coloursWe were looking for ways to make theseimages immediately understandablewithout oversimplifying them. We decidedto experiment with different colourschemes to try to make the data moreobvious. We focused on two oceanproperties: sea surface temperature andconcentration of algae in the surfacewater as measured by satellite. Aninfrared sensor (like night vision goggles) isused to determine temperature, and asensor attuned to sense chlorophyll isused to determine the amount of algaein the surface waters.

To start, we had to identify colour scalesthat would signify hot or cold water andconcentration of algae. We settled ontwo colour schemes that drew onpeople’s everyday knowledge andassumptions of colours. For temperaturewe created a two-colour scale with bluesignifying cold water and red signifyinghot waters, with a small band of white inthe transition. For algae concentration wechose a monochromatic scale of green,ranging from light green signifying lowlevels to dark green signifying highconcentrations.

Public reactions We took these visualisations, along withthe rainbow spectrum ones preferred bythe scientists, and showed them tomuseum visitors. We asked them: ‘Whatdo you see in this image?’ With therainbow spectrum versions, visitors wereunsure of what, or even where they werelooking. This was not so with our newversions. Both of our more culturallyrelevant schemes were immediatelyunderstandable. Visitors were even ableto use these versions of the images tomake scientific claims about the ocean.For example, off the Pacific Coast,seasonal upwelling of nutrient-rich coldwater drives fisheries. In the originalcolour schemes, no visitor talked aboutupwelling when making sense of the

Seeing satellite data

Molly Phipps and Shawn Rowe find that intuitive assumptions are best

image; in ours, visitors were able totalk about changes in coastal oceantemperatures as well as upwelling.

The scientists preferred their originalrainbow spectrum for visualisingtemperature data, but when it cameto the green representation of thealgae data we heard murmurs of‘why didn’t we think of that?’throughout presentations.

1 See the images here:http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/visitor/free-choice-learning/satellite-data-images.

This is a shortened version of a paper which first appeared inPublic Understanding of Science (May 2010) 19: 311-321

Dr Molly Phipps is at theScience Museum of Minnesota

[email protected]

Dr Shawn Rowe is MarineLearning Specialist at OregonState University

[email protected]

The use of satelliteshas revolutionized thestudy of the oceans.Only about five percent of the world’socean has beenexplored by ship, andthis work is expensive,time consuming, andvery localised


FEATURE

So in this time of austerity in publicexpenditure, not only should there be a ring-fencing of the scientific budget,but also no letup in efforts to improvepublic appreciation of andengagement in science. As part of thisprocess, we should as a nation ceaseundervaluing the efforts of scientists and engineers, as well as raising theesteem of those who engage inexploitation of discovery.

Good signsScientific advice underpins a widerange of policies. How governmentsdeal with these issues has an impacton public opinion of the scienceinvolved. There can be no clearerjustification for improving the scientificliteracy and appreciation of scienceacross the board.

My proposal to the then ConservativeShadow Cabinet,1 for voluntaryscientific literacy sessions for new MPs,has been taken up by theParliamentary Office for Science andTechnology. I hope that this will helpdevelop an interest in science amongthe new intake of MPs. In turn, thenew Science Minister, David Willetts,has made a positive start by urging hisministerial colleagues to observe thePrinciples of Scientific Advice toGovernment2 and to strengthenevidence-based policy making.

Trust means anticipationMany of the problems with pooroutputs in science education derivefrom cultural barriers that discourageyoung people from studying STEMsubjects. This is recognised by the keyministers in the coalition governmentand tackling it is a high priority.

But the wider challenge is to improvepublic trust in what scientists say anddo. As Lord Jenkin of Roding admittedin a recent article for this publication,3

we have greatly underestimated thedifficulties of doing it.

It was often frustrating during myParliamentary career that colleagueschose too often to avoid speaking upon science subjects which they saw asinside a walled garden to which theydid not have the key. But it is asimportant for scientists to listen to thepublic as it is to talk to them.

We need to try to anticipate subjectswhere the public becomes alarmedbefore a proper debate has beenundertaken. Broader acceptance ofnovel technologies requires an opendialogue. Where possible ‘upstream’debate should anticipate issues orreact quickly and ministers should look ahead as to what regulatoryframeworks might enhance public confidence.

Measure success with GMPublic (and ministerial) appreciation of risk is deficient. Debates aboutrisk/reward and taking some cautionout of the precautionary principle are still urgent. Social/ethical/environmental risks need to be put incontext. We do not want a furthercase of damaging confusion arisingfrom MMR fears.

So from time to time, scientists andpoliticians should go on the front foot.The new Secretary of State for theEnvironment, Caroline Spelman, hasbravely indicated a more open mindon the trials of GM crops. Before theelection, I chaired the Parliamentary &Scientific Committee session in the

An economy and society with high levels of scientific appreciationtends to have a greater capacity for innovation and adaptation. Thecorollary to this is that scientific expenditure stimulates growth in arange of sectors of the economy, although not always predictably.

Spending cuts – to public engagement?

Ian Taylor hopes not

House entitled ‘Come back GM – all is forgiven’. The debate wasremarkably constructive. Perhaps thispoints to a renewed maturity and lessfear of being shouted down by thescaremongers.

Overwhelmingly, the science pointsnot only to the safety of GM foods,but to the fact that the technology isessential if we are to feed the ninebillion people that will be on ourplanet by 2050. So there are positivemerits to GM, not just commercialadvantages for the companiesinvolved. Getting this widelyaccepted is a crucial challenge ofhow we engage with the public onquestions of scientific assessment.

1 Ian Taylor MP (Chairman) (2007), AnInnovative Society: Capturing thePotential of Science and Engineering.Submission to the Shadow Cabinet.Science, Technology, Engineering &Mathematics (STEM) Task Force, p37.Available atwww.conservatives.com/pdf/stemreportfinal.pdf

2 www.bis.gov.uk/go-science/principles-of-scientific-advice-to-government

3 Patrick Jenkin (June 2010), Ten years on.People & Science p8

Ian Taylor was a Conservative MPfrom 1987-2010 and ScienceMinister 1994-97. He most recentlychaired the Parliamentary &Scientific [email protected]

We need to try toanticipate subjectswhere the publicbecomes alarmedbefore a properdebate has beenundertaken


CORRESPONDENCE

Dear Editor,In the June 2010 issue of People &Science there was a debate entitled,‘Should we eat less meat to increasefood security?’

The drive to eat less meat hasattracted a host of celebrities overthe past year. From Sir PaulMcCartney to Gwyneth Paltrow,green-minded pop stars and actorshave been urging us to save theplanet by reducing the amounts ofbeef, chicken and lamb weconsume. But even if a world withoutroast beef was one in which we allwanted to live, we need to think alittle harder about our future foodsecurity and what will really work toarrest global warming.

Surely the best way to safeguard ourfood security in the 21st century isthrough strong, productive andsustainable British agriculture, while at

the same time impacting less on theenvironment - a key message at theheart of the National Farmers Union’sWhy Farming Matters report.1

We know the challenges faced bythe world in securing food supplies inthe future are vast. Available land islimited; natural resources such aswater and soils are being depleted inmany parts of the world and climatechange will place a strain onattempts to increase productivity. Butwe should also remember that meatand poultry should form part of ahealthy balanced diet – as the oldadage goes ‘everything inmoderation’. Indeed for some,reducing or cutting out meat fromtheir diet could have an adverseaffect on their health particularly for those at risk of having a poor iron intake.

New management practices and technologies will emerge thatenable agriculture around the worldto satisfy the very real growing globaldemand for food while reducing itsenvironmental impact. In livestockproduction genetic improvements,changing feeding regimes, increasingfeed conversion ratios and reducingthe impact of disease will help tolower emissions. Given our world-classscience base, surely this is where the UK can really excel anddemonstrate to everyone whyfarming truly matters.

1 Available at http://www.whyfarmingmatters.co.uk/

Food security and the environmentWe need strong British agriculture, says Terry Jones

Terry Jones is acting directorof communications at the [email protected]

Bob Ward is Policy andCommunications Director at theGrantham Research Institute onClimate Change and the Environment,London School of Economics andPolitical Science http://www.lse.ac.uk/[email protected]

Photoshopping climate change

Dear Editor,I was surprised to discover that the March2010 edition of People and Scienceillustrated an opinion piece by ProfessorJudith Curry about the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change with a pictureof a polar bear apparently stranded onan isolated ice floe. This image wasobtained from a photo agency,istockphoto. It notes that the image,described on the agency’s website as‘the last polar bear’, is ‘a photoshopdesign. Polarbear [sic], ice floe, oceanand sky are real, they were just nottogether in the way they are now’(http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4095333-the-last-polar-bear.php).

The same image was used in the 7 Mayedition of the journal Science toaccompany a letter by 255 members ofthe United States National Academy ofSciences who were protesting at ‘therecent escalation of political assaults onscientists in general and on climatescientists in particular’. A number of so-called climate change ‘sceptics’ seizedupon the image, which had been usedwithout the knowledge of the authors ofthe letter, as an example of exaggerationby climate scientists. The journal soonadmitted that the use of the image was‘a mistake’ and replaced it in the onlineversion of the journal.

Of course, Professor Curry may not mindthat her article was accompanied by thisimage, but given the recent controversysurrounding it, People & Science may find itself subject to the same criticisms as Science.

Bob Ward sounds a warning


REVIEW

The Science Museum may feel it hasto champion science, but by takingthat approach to this subject it doesitself and science a disservice. Theareas of science presented here arehighly complex and have someprofound implications which mustbe thoroughly debated. Speakingat the launch event for the newexhibition three eminent scientists, Sir John Sulston, Dr Francis Collinsand Proffessor Mike Stratton,eloquently wove together thescientific, social, political, ethicaland legal factors of geneticscience, highlighting the nuancesand limitations of their research. That is the kind of debate that thissubject needs and deserves. Who Am I? might be fun, but that isnot the right kind of engagement.

Rachel Souhami is a freelancecurator and lecturer in ScienceCommunications at ImperialCollege [email protected]

The exhibition poses the question:‘What makes you uniquely you?’ Itexplores how genetics andneuroscience may help to provideanswers. But it is not just the sciencethat is complex: these areas ofresearch have wider implicationswhich must be discussed if people areto be fully engaged. Unfortunately theScience Museum over simplifies thescience and side-steps many of these issues.

Bite the bulletWho Am I? first opened in 2000, andhas been redeveloped to ensure thatthe science is up to date. In the centreof the exhibition large cases of objectspresent science relating to subjectssuch as ageing, intelligence, genderand appearance. The themes arecontinued in computer-basedinteractive exhibits positioned nearby inlarge silver pods.

The fact that there are any objects atall is impressive: the equipment used bymodern biomedical science doesn’tlend itself easily to display and theconcepts it investigates are oftenabstract. The Science Museum hasovercome this by using objects asillustrations rather than as the mainfocus. For example a case on phobiascontains jars of things people might beafraid of, such as string, spiders andballoons. Another case on physicalappearance includes a 7-toed cat anda white peacock. All exhibits areaccompanied by a wealth of labels –there is an unusual amount of text inthis exhibition, no chance that visitorswill not get the message.

But that message is confused. On onehand it is highly celebratory: science,particularly genetics, will provide ananswer to everything. But then it has toacknowledge that actually our genesaren’t deterministic. A label on phobiasis typical: they are ‘shaped by yourgenetic inheritance, your experienceand by your environment’ – whichseems to be pretty much everything to me. So where does that leave us? Why not bite the bullet and say franklythat genes are only part of a verycomplex story and we don’t have the whole picture?

Social contexts missingThere is almost no mention of thewider social contexts of the sciencepresented, or of controversies withinscience. A case that presentsaverage body size, IVF, sexualattraction and gender identity (whyare these considered together?) hasvery little mention of the differencebetween sex and gender and the roleof society in defining the latter. Anexhibit on intelligence mentions pastcontroversies about racial and socialbiases in measuring intelligence, butdoes not acknowledge current similarcontroversies or question the need forsuch measurements. None of theinteractive exhibits takes up theseissues. Attentive visitors may want toread the books located at the end ofsome cases, or use the two nicelypresented but out-of-the-way ethicsexhibits, but on my visit few visitors hadchosen to look at either of these.

How should one communicate a complex field of science to a

museum audience? This is the question that the Science Museum

had to address when redeveloping its Who Am I? exhibition,

which re-opened in June.

Who Am I?The Science Museum’s newexhibition is disappointing, says Rachel Souhami

The areas of sciencepresented here are highly complexand have someprofound implicationswhich must bethoroughly debated


BROWNIEPOINTS

Let’s face it, many ofus don’t raise a crywhen we should. Weall want quiet dayswhen we wouldrather assume thatsomeone else,somewhere else mustbe having a criticallook at the science inthis regulatoryproposal or that newhealth advice

An air of uncertainty has been hanging over the science andpolicy arena since the election. A new government and anew batch of MPs in parliament had many in the sciencecommunity frantically counting up the science andengineering degrees among their number, for want of someother way to assess the future prospects for science in policy.

The Times and others estimated thatthere had been a fall in parliamen-tarians with a scientific training ofaround 10, from eighty-something toseventy-something. It’s not what youwould call a wipe-out. So why domany of us have this nagging anxietythat science might have lost?

It is because much more valuable tothe cause of sound evidence inpublic life than the twenty-year oldscience degrees of MPs is a trackrecord in asking awkward questions.When the last government proposedspecial regulation for hybrid andchimera embryos, those scientists andpoliticians who troubled themselvesto interrogate the proposals did farmore for evidence in policy makingthan others wielding a third yearundergraduate course inhistopathology. When a EuropeanDirective introduced limits to MRIscans with no scientific foundation,the basis of the policy waschallenged by the medically trainedMP Evan Harris but it was also pursuedas far as Brussels by a Science andTechnology Committee under thechairmanship of a former teacher.The champions of good science andevidence are those who will scrutiniseand speak out, not necessarily thosewho know where to put a lightemitting diode.

Expediency over evidenceAnd this is a problem, in parliament,because we lost some fearless andexperienced hands in the lastelection, through retirement and lostseats. This may still be the newgovernment’s honeymoon period,

when networking is at a premiumand scrutiny isn’t, but we all knowthat ministers, and MPs, will comeunder the same pressures todisregard evidence for politicalexpediency. We know that on issueslike embryo research, genetics andenergy, they will encountermisleading claims from campaignsor industry; we know that someresearch will run into the ‘yuk’ factoror media frenzies and somepoliticians will run a mile. So we mustwonder who will stand up then andask the awkward questions ordefend research.

Let’s face it, many of us don’t raise acry when we should. We all wantquiet days when we would ratherassume that someone else,somewhere else must be having acritical look at the science in thisregulatory proposal or that newhealth advice.

PenaltiesThere are other things, beyondwanting a peaceful time, thatmilitate against raising awkwardquestions about the use of evidencein policy. Calling out poor evidenceor misleading claims is anuncomfortable business. Individualswho have criticised the arbitrarydrug classification system have beendeemed irresponsible or evenpromoters of illicit drugs. Those whohave questioned the licensing andprescription of homeopathy havebeen accused of being in the pay ofindustry. For politicians suchaccusations can be incrediblydamaging, even disastrous.

For scientists, raising a critical voicehas occasionally led to attacks onresearch, isolation, lost grants andeven libel action.

We need to confront these pressuresto stay silent. Scrutinising evidence hasgot to be encouraged, supported andrewarded sufficiently to make it worthbeing politically difficult when,inevitably, it will be. The best thing wecan do in these post-election monthsis to see that – in the absence of someestablished champions of evidence,not some one-time science graduates– we need to set out what scientificevidence is and why we’ll make a fussabout it, to all in government andparliament, whether trained in poetryor plumbing.

Bring on the awkward squad

Tracey Brown wantsfearless MPs

Tracey Brown is the Managing Director of SenseAbout Science

[email protected]


SET INPARLIAMENT

New boy in ParliamentJulian Huppert

Dr Julian Huppert is MP for [email protected]

However, there are also those who aredriven far more byideology than byscience and evidence,and the House is notalways good atidentifying themquickly, and treatingtheir contributionsappropriately

And we need better sciencejournalism. I don’t mean that there isanything wrong with the existingscience journalists. I pay tribute to thelikes of Mark Henderson, Pallab Ghoshand Ben Goldacre, but all too oftenthe ‘science’ stories in papers arewritten by non-scientists, fitting storiesinto either the wonder-drug categoryor the Frankenstein/cancer-killercategory, with no room for nuance.

I believe it is essential that evidenceforms the basis of all policy decisions,and that scientists and the scientificmethod have a key role to play in this– but there’s work to do!

How wrong I was! It’s an altogetherbizarre place, with hidden corridors,many levels to all discussions and astrange sense of both urgency andlethargy. Some things can change inthe time it takes for a minister toanswer an oral question. Others takeyears of reviews, committees, debatesand divisions.

But one thing the House does seem torecognise and value is expertise. This isincreasingly a good thing, even as itseems to become rarer in members. Inthe case of scientists, there are fewerof us as MPs than in the lastparliament, or for some time before. Ifone counts only PhDs, then I believethere are precisely two of us; myselfand Dr Thérese Coffey from SuffolkCoastal. If the net is drawn wider, thenthere are around 70 names. TheCampaign for Science andEngineering has a list athttp://blog.sciencecampaign.org.uk/?p=1451. There are also non-scientistswith an interest in and understandingof science and technology.

However, there are also those who are driven far more by ideology than by science and evidence, and the House is not always good at identifying them quickly, and treating their contributionsappropriately.

Science inductionsOne scheme which I particularlywelcomed was a manifestocommitment from the Conservatives,driven by Adam Afriye, the thenShadow Minister for Science, that allnew Conservative MPs would be

required to go on a science awarenesscourse. This was a truly excellent idea,and when I saw it I wished we’dthought of it first for our manifesto.Unfortunately, this course ended upbeing a one-hour seminar, with adivision in the middle of David Willetts’(the new Minister for Science andUniversities) speech. Only a handful ofMPs showed up – around 10. This wasvery disappointing.

A rather better attended event was theRoyal Society for Chemistry’s annualParliamentary Links day, whichdelivered a crowded room including anumber of MPs. This was sadly cutsomewhat short by the BudgetStatement, which had been broughtforward, but was a good showcase forwhat can be done. However, eventhen I fear that those MPs who camewere largely the usual suspects.

Improving scrutinySo what can be done to make thingsbetter? I think scientists and thevarious learned societies need tocontinue to improve their ability tomake arguments digestible to thosewho are ultimately not interested inscience, and may even be scared ofit. The scientific community needs tobe able to support those of us tryingto make evidence-based arguments.I’m very fortunate that, through thepower of Twitter, I can access manyexperts who will pull together andanalyse information for me.

It’s been quite an experience for me to move from my previous life

as a research scientist at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of

Cambridge, to becoming an MP. I had thought that if I could

understand the intricacies of quantum chemistry, and cope with the

Byzantine ways of the University, Colleges and Research Councils,

then I would have no problems with adapting to Westminster life.

SOUNDING OFF

It has been a bad few months for the public profile of climate science.

In November 2009, emails hacked from the Climatic ResearchUnit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) were posted on theinternet, prompting accusations of misconduct by some of theworld’s leading researchers. Three separate investigations werelaunched, and although no evidence of fraud was found, theresearchers were heavily criticised for a lack of transparency.

In addition, the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC)admitted in January 2010 that itslast report in 2007 was wrong topredict that Himalayan glacierscould disappear by 2035. Itsubsequently faced allegations offurther errors in its report and anindependent review of itsoperations and processes.

Both controversies sparked hostileand negative media coverage inthe UK and across the world, andraised questions about the generalintegrity and competence ofclimate researchers.

But climate researchers havehelped to turn these academiccontroversies into crises ofconfidence by failing tocommunicate effectively.

Flawed strategiesSome have decided that the beststrategy is to keep quiet, hoping theproblems will all blow over and thatthere will be no lasting impact onpublic opinion. But they haveoverlooked the fact that this looksto many in the outside world likeguilty silence.

Some have blamed journalists forhysterical coverage, believing thatenvironment reporters have sidedwith so-called ‘sceptics’ who rejectsome or most of climate science.But correspondents have insteadbeen trying defend the science toeditors who have accused them of‘going native’ and ignoring thealleged wrongdoings of researchers.

And the institutions at the centre of the controversies have beenperceived to be slow in respondingto the allegations and reluctant totake appropriate action.

More confusionIt is not yet clear to what extent trust in climate researchers hassuffered lasting damage from thesecontroversies. But it is clear thatmore of the UK public are nowconfused about the causes andconsequences of climate change.

A Populus opinion poll in February2010 found that 25 per cent of thepublic believe that climate changeis not happening, and a further 10per cent think that man-madeglobal warming is ‘environmentalistpropaganda for which there is littleor no real evidence’.

Only 26 per cent felt that the risks of climate change and its possibleconsequences have beenpresented proportionately,compared with 38 per cent in earlyNovember 2009, prior to controversyenveloping UEA and the IPCC.

The survey in February found that 57per cent had recently heard storiesabout ‘flaws or weaknesses in thescience of climate change’.

Communicate!It is not just the reputations of thefew scientists at the centre of thestorm that is at stake, but of theprofession as a whole. If the climateresearch community wants to repairthe damage of the past few

How to climb out of a holeBob Ward has some advice

for climate scientists

It is not yet clear towhat extent trust inclimate researchers hassuffered lastingdamage from thesecontroversies


Bob Ward is Policy andCommunications Director at theGrantham Research Institute onClimate Change and theEnvironment, London School ofEconomics and Political [email protected]

months, it must devote the time andeffort required for a sustainedcommunications campaign.

This means engaging with the public,the media and their critics, anddemonstrating not only the highquality of their research, but also thehigh standards of their professionalconduct. They must be prepared toacknowledge where mistakes havebeen made and where improvementsare needed. And they have to showopenness and a willingness to allowoutside scrutiny to regain trust.

Senior researchers must lead byexample. They should polish theircommunication skills and incorporatemore public engagement activitiesinto their busy schedules. Suchinvestments should not be regarded asresearch resources that are wasted,but instead as new opportunities thatare created to earn the greaterconfidence that is needed forcontinued public funding and support.

WATERCOOLER

Tales from thewater coolerBarrie Cadshaw reveals the moversand shakers in public engagement

Mover John Holman is stepping downafter six years in his role as ChiefExecutive of Myscience where hehas been responsible for theNational Science Learning Centrein York. He will continue lecturing inChemistry at the University of Yorkand pursue his interests ineducation and science. He will bereplaced by Yvonne Baker, thecurrent Chief Executive ofSTEMNET. Since the coalitiongovernment came into powerthere has been much speculationamongst the educationcommunity that STEMNET will be axed.

Hema Teji and Toby Shannonhave joined the British ScienceAssociation as RegionalProgrammmes Manager andScience in Society Officerrespectively.

On the eve of the highlyanticipated budget in June Fiona Godlee, Editor of the BritishMedical Journal, gave Senseabout Science’s annual lecture onchallenging medical myths. Shewas extremely critical of thepharmaceutical industry – much to the annoyance of a formeremployee of a well-knownpharmaceutical company who was seen to be spitting tacks at what he saw as themisrepresentation of the industry’s position.

Later that evening, the Chair ofSense about Science, DickTaverne, openly contradicted theorganisation’s Chief Executive,Tracey Brown. She envisaged thepossibility that Sense aboutScience would not need to exist in5 years’ time, once its mission hadbeen achieved.

Since the last issue of People &Science, the must-attend event ofthe public engagement calendar– the Science CommunicationConference – has taken place. This year’s keynote address, givenby Tim Smit, Chief Executive andco-founder of the Eden Project,was particularly colourful. His viewof science centres: ‘I think most ofthem are crap, really, I meanprofoundly crap and then there’sthe dominance of the middle-aged male who believes ininteractivity, they believe in it butthey’ve not actually done itthemselves.’ This was tweeted and retweeted, causing theConference to appear in the top10 ‘Top Tweets’ rankings on Twitterthat day.

In fact the air of the Conferencewas filled with the flutter of tinytweets from start to finish, much tothe annoyance of the Director ofthe Science Museum, Chris Rapley,who would have preferredChatham House rules to keep hisopinions within the four walls. Hisfellow speaker Bob Ward, fromLSE’s Grantham Centre, generatedperhaps the most poetic tweet ofthe conference when he said,‘The talk about uncertainties inclimate change has become thelanguage of inaction.’

The ‘scientific literacy lessons for allnew Conservative MPs’ previewedby Adam Afriyie MP, the thenConservative Party’s Minister forScience, in the March 2010 issue of People & Science, turns out tohave been voluntary, notcompulsory, and in the form ofone session of a panel with David Willetts and science Lordsincluding Robert Winston. Only 11 MPs went and they weren’t all Conservatives.

The latest murmurings at thewatercooler suggest that thatthere are many professionalscientists who are hopping mad at the news of Prince William (2:1 honours MA degree inGeography) being made anhonorary Fellow of the RoyalSociety this summer. Who’dhave thunk it.

Finally, how not to do it: a lessonfrom Monsanto. One of our finestrang them to ask about the Courtof Justice’s ruling against them.The firm had sued Dutch importersof soybean cattle feed made inArgentina from its Roundup Readyherbicide-resistant soybeans. TheArgentine Government hasn’t yetallowed Monsanto to chargefarmers for the GM crops; so thefirm pounced at the border onimports of cattle feed made withthe crop on the grounds that theimports infringed Europeanpatents. The highest court inEurope disagreed. And what didMonsanto do to answer thejournalist? Nothing. Never returned the call.

Do get in touch if you hear any

tales at the water cooler that

you’d like us to include in the next

edition of People & Science.


Barrie Cadshaw is at the British Science [email protected]

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