Department of Science and Technology Studies Science in Public Conference 2012
University College London
20 & 21 July 2012
Book of abstracts
Final version
19th July 2012
Table of Contents
Abstracts are arranged in alphabetical order by the lead author’s surname.
In the case of panel sessions, the abstracts are listed under the name of the
panel organiser and are marked with a (*).
Alison Adam ..................................................................................................... 1 Adam Bencard ................................................................................................. 2
Victoria Blake (* panel organiser) .................................................................... 3 Tim Boon (* panel organiser) ........................................................................... 6 Robert Bud ....................................................................................................... 9 Karen Bultitude (* panel organiser) ................................................................ 10 Neil Calver ..................................................................................................... 11 Angela Cassidy .............................................................................................. 12 Yvonne Cunningham ..................................................................................... 13 Oliver Feeney ................................................................................................. 14 Clara Florensa ............................................................................................... 15 Beverley Gibbs ............................................................................................... 16 Ann Grand ...................................................................................................... 17 Hsiang-Fu Huang ........................................................................................... 18 Rusi Jaspal .................................................................................................... 19 Blanka Jergović .............................................................................................. 20 Supara Kamolpattana .................................................................................... 21 Emma King .................................................................................................... 22 David A. Kirby ................................................................................................ 23 Andreas Jackie Klaura ................................................................................... 24
Melanie Smallman & Kajsa-Stina Magnusson…………………………………. 25 Felicity Mellor ................................................................................................. 26 Paul Merchant ................................................................................................ 27 Andreea Moldovan ......................................................................................... 28 Norma Morris ................................................................................................. 29 Lisa Nock ....................................................................................................... 30 Aletta J. Norval and Elpida Prasopoulou ....................................................... 31 Cliodhna O’Connor ........................................................................................ 32 Helen Pallett ................................................................................................... 33 Boris O. Popov ............................................................................................... 34 Thomas Rose ................................................................................................. 35 Lorna Ryan .................................................................................................... 36 Sadriyeh Sharifi .............................................................................................. 37 Fred Steward ................................................................................................. 38 Mahsa Taheran Vernoosfaderani .................................................................. 39 Meg Turville-Heitz .......................................................................................... 40 Richard Watermeyer ...................................................................................... 41 Emma Weitkamp ............................................................................................ 42 Alper Yalcinkaya ............................................................................................ 44 Xiaomin Zhu ................................................................................................... 45 3
Looking for Life in the Mummy’s Tomb: Vitalism, Mummy Wheat and
Bacteriology
Alison Adam
CRS Salford, Sociology and Criminology, University of Salford
‘Even in the life of a bacteriologist there are romantic moments.’ Thus spoke
Henry Bunker assistant bacteriologist to the UK’s Royal Naval Cordite Factory
in 1925. He was referring to his barely concealed excitement at the arrival of
six tubes of dust collected from Tutankhamun’s inner tomb by Alfred Lucas,
Chemist to Egyptian Antiquities Department, immediately upon the tomb’s first
opening. The contents of the tube were analysed by Dr Thaysen, Head of the
Bacteriological Laboratory. All the tubes were sterile, save one which
contained two micro-organisms. Proof that that bacteria had survived
thousands of years in the tomb? No. If bacteria had survived in the tomb, the
tubes would have contained millions of them. The single mould spore and the
micrococcus must have been blown in upon the draft when the tomb was
opened. If bacteria could not survive, Bunker concluded, it was most unlikely
that any seeds found in the tomb would still be capable of germination. The
‘mummy wheat’ myth had been in circulation for at least a century before.
Nevertheless, after a century of botanical and bacteriological advances, belief
in the myth of ‘mummy wheat’, capable of germination still persisted after the
opening of the Tutankhamun tomb. ‘Mummy wheat’ provides an interesting
historical science and the public case study. There was enormous public
interest in the Tutankhamun excavation and much of that interest centred on
its scientific findings. Some forty or more years after the discrediting of ideas
on ‘spontaneous generation’ the interest in life in the tomb can be read as
continuing concerns over vitalism and the limits of life. This manifests itself in
the persistence of myths about the generation of life, here in the form of the
‘mummy wheat’ myth.
Re-materializing science communication – object-orientation and the
new embedded reality
Adam Bencard
Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen
In the past 3 decades, several models have come and gone in science
communication. Roughly sketched, the development has been from
dissemination over dialogue to participation, with various national differences.
But these models for science communication all share a similar bias on how
they understand the both communication, science and the public. Their focus
has, despite their theoretical and practical differences, primarily been on the
exchange of verbal arguments and, as such, on individuals as they are
involved in discourse and manifesting a conscious appropriation of the world.
But this seems to be a narrow conception of the individual, a conception that
has increasingly been challenged in the past decade. As it has been pointed
out in a variety of different theoretical movements – presence theory,
post-phenomenology, non-representational theory, ANT, affect theory and
object-oriented ontology and more – humans are, first and foremost, embodied
actors that inhabit and enfold their material environment.
These movements point to a shift in our understanding of the individual, and
thereby of communication. If science communication was predicated on a
specific and narrow understanding of the individual, where does that leave
science communication? These developments suggest that there is good
reason to attempt to rework science communication away from its heavy bias
towards reasoned discourse. In this paper, I will argue for a set of theoretical
tools with which to rework science communication, taken from a recent
movement in philosophy, the so-called object-oriented ontology. Specifically, I
will use the writings of philosophers Timothy Morten and Graham Harman to
argue for the need of a material reorientation of science communication.
2
Panel Session
Learning from science communication's past: a historically informed
approach to reciprocity, citizenship and diversity in a new social contract
for science
Victoria Blake (* panel organiser)
University of Leeds
This panel consists of three linked papers from key participants in an AHRC
Science in Culture exploratory award project of the same name. This
multi-partner, multi-institutional, international project explores how approaches
from the history of science, especially the history of its communication, can
benefit and feed into to a freshly enhanced and more inclusive approach to
science communication. Drawing upon past lessons concerning effective and
ineffective modes of science communication, it explores more creative,
open-ended ways of engaging with communities beyond those typically reached
by such initiatives, with an emphasis on routes to accomplishing effective
two-way reciprocal interactions between science and society.
The project will facilitate the contribution of UK and international academics and
practitioners from a range of disciplines to the thematic development of and
participation in an open innovation style workshop (June 2012). Two exploratory
workshops are key to the project, as is the development of a sustainable
multidisciplinary network and collaboratively developed public-facing digital
activities and face-to-face public focus groups. These seek to draw useful
lessons from past successes and failures in science communication to
understand how a deep understanding of cultural contexts for science is crucial
to its effective communication. We also seek to use historical lessons from
science communication to creative new, creative and open-ended approaches
to science communication involving reciprocal dialogue with diverse
communities to enhance public understanding and inform policy debate about
science.
Thus, the papers forming this panel presentation consider how far philosophical
and historical insights regarding successful past forms of science
communication can be used as model for a new social-contract based approach
to public engagement with science, and explores how engagement with diverse
communities might lead to a genuinely reciprocal engagement with science to
bring about a more productive mode of science communication.
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We would welcome a discursive feedback and questions session at the end of
this panel to enable the audience to constructively input into the research team’s
project development.
Paper 1: Taking a historical approach to audience engagement in science
communication
Graeme Gooday, University of Leeds (Professor)
Since the 'Bodmer Report' in 1986 rejected the traditional ‘deficit’ view, a central
issue in science communication has been public (dis)trust in science and or
cultural estrangement from it. Yet the subversive force of this has still not been
fully addressed by the science communication community: handbooks for
scientists still do not offer practical proposals for how to overcome the ‘crisis of
trust’ (for example: Bennett & Jennings eds. Successful Science
Communication: Telling It Like It Is, 2011). Hence Jane Gregory has recently
argued that much work by science communicators has simply failed: they have
not won interest or sympathy from large parts of the population, nor have they
been sufficiently self-critical about their public relations role for science.
Following Gregory's insight requires a radical rethink of science communication,
abandoning its science-centred approach and focusing instead upon the
audiences with which science communicators seek to engage. To undertake
this approach, this paper explores how science communicators can learn from
past case studies of how successful communication of science required a much
deeper and subtler understanding of their audiences’ concerns and priorities
than is now apparent. It thus also considers the need for new kinds of forum to
mediate revised understandings of science in culture to minority and
marginalized audiences hitherto unmoved by science communication.
Paper 2: Future thinking on the contribution of history and philosophy of
science to science communication
Victoria Blake, University of Leeds (RA to Project)
This paper will report on outcomes and dialogue emerging from the project’s
open innovation workshops, digital and face-to-face focus groups and the
multi-disciplinary/multi-sector international network established by the project to
focus on ‘global science communication’ across diverse cultural and faith
contexts. It will also reflect on the lessons we have drawn from the project in
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seeking to harness the historical expertise of participants and members of the
network for the delivery of the project’s focus group work: these will provide
case studies for exploring links between historical cases and engagement with
present day scientific controversies in relations community cohesion/identity
issues from the project’s UK based Focus group events.
I will present and discuss the recommendations for future research made in light
of these workshops and engagement exercises to examine how far a
historically-sensitive understanding of science communication could play a role
in enhancing science communication across culture and faith contexts today. In
so doing I will consider how the project work has informed us about which
particular forms of past and present scientific discourse have been most
significant in moulding how diverse groups have engaged with or rejected forms
of science. I will discuss the lessons we may draw from the project about
engaging with diverse communities to establish whether forms of science
communication have provided a usable model for cross-cultural engagement on
science, and will also examine candidates for more effective alternatives.
Paper 3: Cross-cultural perspectives on the science and belief debate
Fern Elsdon-Baker, British Council (Dr)
Building on work undertaken in the British Council international projects Darwin
Now and Belief in Dialogue, this paper will explore the relationship between the
clash narratives that surround the way in which evolutionary theory is
communicated and the impact on its reception with culturally diverse audiences.
Using data from a international poll conducted in 10 countries worldwide on
perceptions of a necessary clash between evolutionary science and personal
belief and drawing on focus group research as part of the AHRC project, this
paper will ask: does the clash narrative that has become a media touchstone
really reflect public opinion, what are the risks associated with perpetuating
such clash narratives and how could this impact on diverse communities in the
UK and globally, perception of wider scientific agendas, communication and
education.
5
Panel Session
Current work in the Public History of Science at the Science Museum
Tim Boon (* panel organiser)
Research and Public History, The Science Museum
The Science Museum has established a new department of Research and
Public History to promote greater academic activity by the Museum and on its
collections and concerns. Uniquely among museums, this endeavour is
connected to an investigation and promotion of effective public communication
of history of science, an activity that incorporates historical studies of science
communication. In this session we present three aspects of the Museum’s
activity in this area.
Paper 1: ‘A View of the Inside of the Capsule will be Had from the Small
Window through which Col. Glenn Saw Four Sunsets’. Making Space
Exploration Public.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, Science Museum, London
How audiences are addressed cannot be divorced from the larger political and
cultural context. This paper examines one type of audience addresses, namely
those meant to convey knowledge. It engages with media as producers of
knowledge, and is concerned with understanding their use of scientific and
technological knowledge so as to obtain audiences’ trust. The means involved
in supporting claims to cognitive authority are revelatory of the culture of
science in which they are deployed. On 20th February 1962, US astronaut
John Glenn orbited the Earth three times, aboard the US Mercury capsule
Friendship 7. The event was the topic of several television programmes, and in
May 1962, the actual capsule was exhibited during three days at the Science
Museum in London. The BBC’s Panorama programme covered this exhibition.
Focusing on this well circumscribed and highly visible event, the paper will
present the preliminary results of a project conducted at the Science Museum.
It aims at comparing the visual display of science and technology in museum
exhibitions and in TV programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, relating both to the
culture of science of the period. Of particular interest here is the museum’s
relationship with TV in relation to science. The case of the public showing of
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Friendship 7, at the same time in the Science Museum and on the BBC, offers
the possibility to compare two different modes of address of audiences, two
different logics of display, based on distinct scenographies and different
relations to time, place, and space.
Paper 2: The Public History Project: Public Engagement and the Politics
of Display
Laurie Waller, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
During the late 1980s and 1990s the UK's Science Museum played a central
role in the Public Understanding of Science (PUS) movement. The Museum
was also instrumental in bringing about the subsequent shift within PUS to a
focus on public engagement. The Museum's current Public History Project is
its most recent engagement with the legacy of PUS. The first exhibition to
result from the Public History Project, called 'Oramics to Electronica: Revealing
Histories of Electronic Music', opened in 2011and foregrounds the work of
electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram within the history of electronic music.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with a series of external groups
including musicians, performers, and writers. While in PUS the exhibition was
a format for the diffusion of scientific knowledge to a passive recipient public,
the Public History Project uses the exhibition as a way to organise and display
public engagements. This paper will present a sociological account of the
range of contributions made by the groups that collaborated on the 'Oramics to
Electronica' exhibition. It will look at how these contributions – including written
works, performance, and the curation of case exhibits – are put on display in
the gallery. The paper will compare the public engagement model of PUS,
which focuses on decision-making, with the range of engagements on display
in 'Oramics to Electronica'. It will highlight where some of the group
contributions to 'Oramics to Electronica' deviate from the PUS model of
engagement and, in doing so, the ways in which they challenge it. If the PUS
model of engagement fails to account for the politics of display in this exhibition,
the paper will ask how the politics of display might be rethought through the
contributions of the groups that collaborated on this exhibition.
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Paper 3: Lay Consumers of Science and its History in the Past and the
Present: Sketch for an Investigation
Tim Boon, Head of Research and Public History, The Science Museum
We have struggled in studies of science and the public with a set of
overlapping, and historically contingent, categories. In this presentation I seek
to map in broad outline this territory in its largest extent by unpacking the key
elements of a slightly complex question:
What are the relationships [1] between the lay consumers [2] of science
[3] and its history [4] in the past and the present [5]?
1. I propose to proceed using a comparative method; by showing
what is similar and what is different between important categories
that we may often take for granted.
2. Many studies in the broad area of science and the public are
descriptive of the vehicles (books, newspapers, films, etc) of
hierarchical communication from science to an undifferentiated
public. I propose, starting with Michel de Certeau’s model of active
cultural consumption, to examine what it would mean to try and look
from the other end; to look at science as though its consumption
were the main point, rather than its production and dissemination.
3. I mean, whilst using the portmanteau term ‘science’, to be
sensitive to the very different meanings in culture of science,
technology, engineering, medicine, and the rest.
4. I intend to trouble the still waters running deep of the different
cultural location of science and history as modes of thought and
enquiry.
5. Following the mores of history of science, my discipline, I
anticipate that all the relations described above will be different in
different periods.
By the end of this brief presentation, I expect to have outlined a deconstruction
of the territory. Reconstruction will, inevitably, be a much longer task.
8
Putting science in the 19th century public sphere: the case study of
applied science
Robert Bud
Department of STS, UCL; Science and Medicine, The Science Museum
This paper will explore how we can study science in the public sphere in the
past by analysing the huge wealth of digitised newspapers and periodicals
published for instance in the 19th century. There has been much discussion
encouraged by such pioneers as Jim Secord of scientific concepts and books.
Here I want to reflect on ideas about science and its conception. By focusing
on the use of the phrase “applied science”, I will look at the variety of ways new
concepts were presented to the public through the press, including
advertisements, reports of lectures and exhibitions, editorials and letters.
By focussing on two contexts, South Kensington and Birmingham, the paper
will reflect on the care with which such politicians of science as Lyon Playfair
allied themselves with key newspaper editors and proprietors to ensure their
lectures were published in extenso, and how ideas were then represented
through subsequent quotation and reuse. These lectures and articles could
then become important contributions to local institutional politics, helping the
assembly of political capital. I shall explore how campaigns by Playfair and by
George Gore led to colleges in both London and Birmingham, supported by a
carefully nurtured public zeal for “applied science”.
This paper is an output of an ongoing AHRC funded research fellowship.
9
Panel Session
Key issues facing Science in Public
Karen Bultitude (* panel organiser)
University College London
Session Description:
Join us for a stimulating and energetic overview of the main challenges facing
science in public research discussions in the current day. The session will
consist of a series of short provocative talks (Pecha-Kucha style) on the 'big
issues' in the field at present. Each speaker will have 20 slides that
automatically progress, one slide every 20 seconds. The intention is to provide
a thoughtful and provocative starting point for discussions to continue
throughout the conference.
Speakers:
•
•
•
•
Sai Pathmanathan – Science Education Consultant
Martin Bauer – London School of Economics
Charlotte Sleigh – University of Kent
Angela Cassidy – Imperial College London
10
A P(r)opper Public Image for Scientists
Neil Calver
University of Kent
Sir Peter Medawar was respected by scientists and literati alike. It was
perhaps not surprising, then, that he would choose to involve himself in the
‘two cultures’ debate of 1959 and beyond. The focus of his intervention was
the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper. However, Medawar’s Popper was not the
guru of falsification familiar from philosopher textbooks. Medawar’s unique
interpretation of Popper treated him instead as the source of insights into the
role of creativity and imagination in scientific inquiry. This paper will trace the
contextual setting for Medawar’s adoption of Popperian philosophy, together
with their applications pre-dating the debate. It then examines, within the
context of the debate itself, the mode within which Medawar attempted to
reconcile scientific inquiry with literary practice. Medawar became increasingly
convinced that induction was not only epistemologically unsound, but that it
was also damaging to the public role of the scientist. His construction of
Popperianism would, he envisaged, provide a worthy alternative for scientists’
self-image.
11
Sexual Natures? (Re)Presenting Sexuality in the Museum
Angela Cassidy
Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Imperial College
Simon Lock
Science and Technology Studies Department, University College London
Georgina Voss
Faculty of Arts, Brighton University
Science museums and exhibitions offer a very public and often explicit
example of how science, publics and political ideas are constructed and
mobilised in the public domain. This paper presents an analysis of the 2011
‘Sexual Natures’ exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, as a site in
which to explore distinctions between scientific knowledge, public knowledge
and the social construction of science and sexuality. Historians investigating
the relationship between the science of animal behaviour and the human
societies that produce those studies (eg. Crist 1998) have shown how
arguments about animals can function as stories about humans. These stories
play a central role in constructing the science of animal behaviour and human
origins, and show how appeals to ‘nature’ supports arguments about how
people, society and politics should be.
Drawing on site visits, visual ethnography and interviews with curators and
experts, we ask what this public exhibition tells us about the scientific
construction of sexuality in relation to animals and humans; what norms of
human sexuality are imposed on animal behaviour; and how the exhibition
reflects (or not) changes in scientific knowledge and the construction of
non-reproductive sexualities. As Macdonald (1998) states the display of
science in museums is not a neutral process and representation, set in formal
displays, offers both formal ways of ‘seeing’ science and culture, and have
broader political implications than simply our understanding of science. We
find that ‘Sexual Natures’ both challenges and reinforces (hetero)normative
assumptions about human sexuality around gender roles, reproduction,
relationship structures, queerness, and behaviours in terms of both its content
and presentation.
12
Scientific citizens: using science television programmes to inform their
everyday actions and choices
Yvonne Cunningham
School of Communications, Dublin City University
This research attempts to show how the meanings that users make of science
content on television contribute to their scientific citizenship. In a scientific
world, citizens need to be able to participate in decision making about scientific
issues to fully participate in society. The concept of the scientific citizen is the
idea that citizens can engage with and participate in informed debate over
complex ethical, legal, economic or health issues brought about by scientific
and technological development. Many factors influence the shaping of the
scientific citizen, for example, education, workplace experience, personal
circumstances or political views. This research proposes an ideal of scientific
citizenship as an open and critical discussion between researchers,
policymakers and publics.
This paper examines scientific citizenship by looking at how publics use
science on television as part of an ethno-epistemic assemblage to inform their
everyday actions. The term ethno-epistemic assemblage has been used to
refer to the mixing up or hybridisation of heterogeneous resources, practices,
things, techniques and sets of relations as differently located people engage
with science and make knowledge claims. Television fits into this assemblage
as television viewing practices are embedded in everyday life; this means that
local contexts of text/reader interaction are a salient part of ethno-epistemic
assemblages. Focus groups were used to examine the science on television
element of the science ethno-epistemic assemblage. These groups encourage
the kind of acting out that goes on among peers where they provide an
audience for each other. When focus group participants expressed opinions
they backed them up with examples from other fields of science or everyday
life, making meaning of their scientific citizenship by putting what they saw in
the television programme alongside other elements of the ‘science’
ethno-epistemic assemblage; for example, what they know from personal and
family experiences, other media, education, work experience and
conversations with their peers.
13
Normalising the Enhancement Discourse: Genetics, Social Structures
and Moral Generalisations
Oliver Feeney
Institute of Philosophy
Moral generalisations are alive and problematic in assessments of genetic
enhancements. They allow critics of enhancement technology to identify some,
for argument’s sake, genuinely morally problematic enhancements and use
this, without further argument, to arrive at the generalised, and unwarranted,
conclusion that enhancements per se are morally problematic. This
phenomenon is evident in arguments from critics, such as Sandel (2007) and
Kass (2003). Conversely, looking to proponents such as Harris (2007), one
can also see the opposite but equally problematic phenomenon. As an
alternative source of moral guidance, I look to the social sciences as an
underexplored and traditionally unlikely ally to the proponent of enhancements
(or non-opponent of enhancements). Recently signalled in the special issue of
the American Journal of Sociology on ‘Exploring Genetics and Social Structure
(2008) there has been a very measured rapprochement between genetic
science and sociology. Although this rapprochement is certainly not a
unification of genetic enhancement proponents and sociologists, this paper
argues for a combination of these perspectives. Specifically, I offer a
philosophically-based framework to better morally assess genetic
enhancements equally incorporating insight from the genetic and social
sciences on our understanding of the evolved and socialised human being and
its socio-genetic traits and capabilities. Although much has been rhetorically
made of comparisons between genetic enhancements and the traditional
social equivalent, such as education and socialisation, little has been done to
seriously explore how genetic enhancements, such as cognitive and moral
interventions, may compare to those traditional enhancements and vice versa.
Using such a model, morally problematic and unproblematic enhancements
can be better identified and it will entail a further normalisation, and
improvement, of the current genetic enhancement discourse, possibly
encouraging further dialogue between hitherto antagonistic disciplines.
14
Communicating science in Francoist Spain. The case of Darwinism in La
Vanguardia Española (1939-1978)
Clara Florensa
CEHIC - UAB
Communicating science is a complex issue and historical examples can help
us analyze, with perspective, how it takes place: the roles of communicators
and receptors and their epistemological activity, the directionality of the
circulation of knowledge and the reception or appropriation of this knowledge
are key concepts in science communication that emerge in every case study of
new knowledge being “imported” from center (where the knowledge is
“created”) to periphery. The reception of Darwinism in Spain is a good example:
far from being a simple transmission of a scientific aseptic knowledge,
evolutionary theory is adopted by some segments of the society and used both
as a symbol for their own ideals and as instrument to back a host of often very
different arguments. Such a process of communication is ongoing and hardly
ever “finished”: the theory in question can be used for different propagandistic
purposes when the political and social environment changes. This paper
analyses the treatment in the communication of evolutionary theory in La
Vanguardia, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers in Spain, from
1939 to 1978, period (that corresponds exactly with Franco’s regime and the
political transition thereafter) when the paper changed its name into La
Vanguardia Española. Darwinism was seen as a dangerous knowledge that
should be managed carefully while Neo-Darwinism, characterized by a genetic
“more scientific” jargon, might have benefitted from a phase of openness of the
dictatorship, eager to develop a discourse of modernity and opening to outside,
using the press and science communication in a propagandistic effort.
15
Scientific Celebration: an account of Scotland’s science festivals and
their place in culture.
Beverley Gibbs
Institute for Science in Society, Department of Sociology, University of
Nottingham
In a landscape exhibiting extraordinary growth in informal science
communication, science festivals occupy an indeterminate space. Scotland home of the world’s first annual science festival – is home to a number of
local/regional festivals alongside the high-profile Edinburgh International
Science Festival, and this year Aberdeen will host the national British Science
Festival.
This research brings together semi-structured interviews, participant
observation and document analysis to describe the current status of science
festivals in Scotland, explore what makes them more than ‘the sum of their
parts’, consider the consequences of the festival format as a tool of science
engagement and consider what role they play both in wider science
engagement networks as well as the broader cultural landscape of the
localities in which they are held and the country as a whole.
This research seeks to contribute to a broader literature on informal science
engagement by building on the small body of work focussed on science
festivals. As a qualitative study, I shall aim to locate these findings alongside
more quantitative studies such as Bultitude, McDonald & Custead’s
international survey of science festivals (2011) and make some reflexive
comment on methodology in this area.
16
Seeing the strangeness of science
Ann Grand
Science Communication Unit, University of the West of England
Clare Wilkinson
Science Communication Unit, University of the West of England
Karen Bultitude
Department of Science and Technology Studies, UCL
Alan Winfield
Science Communication Unit, University of the West of England
Committing to practising ‘open science’ (an approach in which the entirety of
an investigation is made available online, as it happens) commits researchers
to doing more than revealing and sharing their data, methodologies, results
and models. At its fullest, practising open science involves sharing the
complete record of the process of science: the funding applications,
innumerable drafts of papers and endless minutes of meetings, the day to day
work at the lab bench. Open science makes transparent not only the way
science is done but also the ambiguities and uncertainties in what is revealed.
Science is rarely a successful progress down a single track; being transparent,
honest and authentic in sharing the full process means sharing failure as well
as success. Are researchers ready to admit to failure? Are members of the
public ready to understand that being wrong isn’t always the wrong thing to be?
This presentation will use an analysis of published and ongoing research to
probe these issues more fully.
17
Hitch Your Stage to Stars: the evolution of astronomical displays from
orrery shows to modern planetariums, 1704-1923
Hsiang-Fu Huang
Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London
Today planetariums using optical projection are common to visitors to science
centres or museums, yet the history of astronomical displays far predates the
invention of optical projection planetariums. Since the rise of public
philosophical lecturing in the eighteenth century, lecturers had used orreries,
the machinery of solar system model, as visual aids for demonstrating celestial
phenomena. Orreries evolved into various types along with the development of
public lecturing ventures; eventually came a large, transparent, entertaining
stage setting. The nineteenth-century’s theatricalised scientific lecturing was
influenced by contemporary popular culture, especially the exhibitions and
shows in London. Popular astronomy lecturing was then a competitive
marketplace where popularisers had different levels, means, and purposes. In
addition to the development of instruments, astronomy popularisation can also
be put in the context of professionalisation and institutionalisation of scientific
communities in the nineteenth century. Such processes led to a growing
distinction between ‘serious scientific lectures’ and ‘entertaining celestial
shows’. Nevertheless, successful professional astronomers who engaged in
popularisation, such as Robert Ball (1840-1913), would use showmanship
when delivering popular lectures. In this presentation, I will show a broad
spectrum of popular astronomy lecturing prior to the establishment of modern
planetariums, and make a connection among varied astronomical displays.
The historical case of planetariums indicates that it is not simply ‘two cultures’
between scientific instruction and entertainment.
18
Resisting social representations of climate science in online reader
comments
Rusi Jaspal
Brigitte Nerlich
Nelya Koteyko
Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham
Debates around climate science are embedded within a contested social
representational field, characterised by multiple images and interpretations.
Given the abundance of social representations of climate change circulating in
the traditional and new social media, these spaces have transformed
themselves into major sites for conflict and negotiation between stakeholders
and ‘publics’ involved in the climate change debate. Accordingly, this study
examines the discourse of climate change in reader comments on articles
concerning climate change which were published in The Daily Mail in the year
following ‘Climategate’. Data were analysed using critical discourse analysis,
which aims to integrate discourse, cognition and power, and the analysis was
informed by Moscovici’s Social Representations Theory. The following
discursive themes are reported: (i) “Denigration of climate scientists to contest
hegemonic representations”; (ii) “Delegitimisation of pro-climate individuals by
disassociation from ‘science’”; (iii) “Outright denial: rejecting hegemonic social
representations of climate change”. In this paper, we argue that the contested
social representational field of climate change has given rise to a critical
moment for science and we show how representations of science are being
challenged, contested and re-constructed in order to serve particular
socio-particular goals. More specifically, the paper shows how ‘Climategate’ is
deployed in order to challenge dominant representations of climate change
with wide-ranging implications for public understanding of climate change and
science communication, more generally. Theoretical and practical implications
of the study are discussed.
19
An examination of science reporting in Croatian newspapers
Blanka Jergović
Croatian Radio Television and University of Zagreb
In 2011, the year of its 150th anniversary, the Croatian Academy of Sciences
and Arts organized more than 150 public events in an attempt to present its
work to the broader audience. However, not many of the events attracted
media attention. Many other sources also competed for the media attention,
and the Croatian dailies published on average no more than 1,32 articles
about science and technology per day between 2009 and 2011.This short
presentation examines what type of science stories make it to the Croatian
newspapers. We analysed four main daily newspapers in a period of three
years starting from 2009, and found 994 articles in the randomly selected
sample. For the most part, newspaper coverage was positive, and journalists
seemed to appreciate scientific progress and expressed enthusiasm about
science and technology. Apart from good news, they selected novelty,
unexpectedness and relevance as the most frequent news values.
International news was more often reported than that from Croatian
institutions. Science was reported in a more descriptive manner, with fewer
interviews and even fewer commentaries.
20
Science and Superstition: A study of the perceptions and beliefs of
visitors at the National Science Museum, Thailand.
Supara Kamolpattana
Science Communication Unit, University of the West of England
Science museums and centres have the potential to influence, alter and
increase the views of science held by members of the public. However,
superstitious beliefs are still widespread amongst the people of Thailand and
potentially this may obstruct Thai people in considering scientific issues and
utilising scientific knowledge. Similarly, it may lead to barriers in
communication between scientists, science communicators and Thai people,
should they ignore or neglect the significant cultural context that exists. This
study examined how the views of those attending a science museum were
affected by their beliefs in superstition. 600 science museum visitors
completed a questionnaire at the National Science Museum, Thailand in June
2011. The results considered in this paper will present both quantitative and
qualitative data on this issue and make suggestions as to how science
museum and other science communication practitioners can provide museum
activities around scientific thinking in the context of visitors' belief in
superstition.
21
A Case Study of Public Outreach During the Development of a Novel
Stem Cell Therapy
Emma King
ESRC Innogen Centre, University of Edinburgh.
The Wellcome Trust BloodPharma project is seeking to overcome the
challenges associated with human blood donation by developing cultured red
blood cells, grown from stem cells. My research has followed this scientific
team and draws on a mixture of formal interviews, laboratory ethnography and
public outreach work.
In contrast to previous chemically based blood substitutes this scientific project
aims to produce ‘real’ red blood cells in the laboratory, identical in both look
and function to donated blood. Questions are raised as to the identity of such
cells, especially in light of earlier literature which found chemically based
‘synthetic’ blood substitutes to be unpopular with the public.
Throughout the project the scientific team have been involved with public
outreach work through an exhibition stand which has been displayed at local
and national science festivals. I was able to join the team at these events and
engage with the public visitors who came to find out more about the cultured
blood project.
The BloodPharma project combines two highly emotive issues, blood donation
and embryonic stem cell research, and is therefore a fascinating case study to
anybody interested in the role of public outreach. Of equal interest to me has
been the role of the scientists themselves in the outreach, something which
many of them have never had the opportunity to do in the past.
My presentation will explore this case study in more detail, from the scientists
attempting to restore realism in a world of media hype, to the public who are
very attached to current blood donation. Through all the outreach work runs a
feeling of how important it is that cultured red blood cells are not just safe and
affordable but also publicly acceptable.
22
Indecent Science: Science, Film Censorship, and the Hays Code
David A. Kirby
Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of
Manchester
Movies represent the sum of decisions made by filmmakers during production.
Sometimes, however, organizations and individuals external to the production
process can make determinations about what can and cannot be included in a
film. In particular, censor boards often dictated what scientific subjects were
considered appropriate for films and which were considered indecent. This
paper will utilize new work on the “cultural meanings of film censorship” to
investigate the censorship of scientific topics in American fiction films. By
examining the negotiations between censors, the entertainment industry and
filmmakers this paper reveals society’s changing ideas about cinema’s and
science’s role in influencing morality. For example, several early films ran afoul
of censor boards for their inclusion of Darwinism such as A Scream in the
Night (1919) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). This paper will explore
how scientific themes also fell victim to the Motion Picture Production Code –
commonly called the “Hays Code” – of the Production Code Administration
(PCA) Office that was in effect from 1934-1968. The code was established due
to the lobbying of religious organizations that were unhappy with the level of
amoral themes in movies. The PCA’s conception of amoral themes extended
to scientific topics. For example, the PCA censored a number of films where
scientific progress justified immoral actions as in The Crime of Dr. Hallett
(1938) and Shining Victory (1941). This paper will also examine the National
Legion of Decency who censured many films whose scientific content they
considered contrary to the Catholic Church’s teachings including overt
scientism in Madame Curie (1943) and scientific ideas about soul migration in
The Man With Two Lives (1942).
23
Participatory design and feminist interventions. Emancipatory potentials
of public engagement.
Andreas Jackie Klaura
Department of Social Studies of Science, University of Vienna
ICTs pervade our everyday lives. How we work, live, share, engage and
communicate is shaped by products forged in big ICT companies, small nerdy
start-ups, academic spin-offs or even in presumably egalitarian Free Software
projects. In any of these cases the development is usually mainly driven by
economic decisions on the macro level or developer assumptions and
experiences on the micro level. Sometimes development includes usability
studies, yet the intended use(r) is preconfigured. A rather different approach
was developed in the context of Participatory Design. Inspired by a thrive for
democratisation of technology and feminist interventions, Participatory Design
projects integrate different publics into design and development of ICTs. There
we find concrete technoscientific practices which embrace feminist
epistemologies' demands for strong objectivity (Harding), situated knowledges
(Haraway), agential realism (Barad) or process ontologies (Braidotti). In a
Situational Analysis (Clarke) of Participatory Design researchers' views and
reports, I relate concepts of participation, publics and interdisciplinarity. For the
Science in Public 2012 conference I would like to focus my presentation on the
modes of participation found in Participatory Design projects and the
implications of public engagement at the design/development stage of
technosciences. While in STS, public engagement in technosciences is mostly
framed at a policy level, I will present participatory processes at the level of
concrete technoscientific practices. This might inspire further work and
stimulate important reflections regarding STS and its relation to public
engagement. Furthermore it highlights the importance of feminist theory not
only for STS but also for computer science and the technosciences in general.
24
Is non-policy related public engagement useful? The challenge of
symmetry of learning for scientists.
Melanie Smallman & Kajsa-Stina Magnusson (co-authors)
Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London
This study is concerned with the potential value of non-policy related
engagement events and the impact of attitudes and behaviour of participating
scientists. Building on current literature, practice and a series of
semi-structured interviews held with UK scientists working on
nanotechnologies, we look at a live public event hosted by the Guardian
newspaper on nanotechnologies and aging as a detailed case study. The
article argues that there is often a lack of symmetry in learning and a tendency
to focus on the technical details of the issue on the part of scientists in such
events, stopping such engagement exercises being true dialogues. While one
party may achieve something by participating in the exercise, the other party or
parties may leave with little but a checked box. We discuss the possible
causes of this lack of two-way communication and what it might mean for
science and public engagement practitioners.
Key words: public
nanotechnologies
engagement,
scientists,
25
media,
social
media,
Gendered representations of physics on the BBC
Felicity Mellor
Science Communication Group, Imperial College London
In the last few years, physicist Brian Cox has reached millions of viewers with
his appearances on the BBC. This paper will look beyond the so-called ‘Brian
Cox effect’ to explore the ways in which the representation of physics on
television is gendered, both through the under-representation of women and in
more subtle ways, from the narratives adopted to the composition of shots.
Drawing on five years of BBC Horizon films and building on the findings of a
content analysis of the BBC’s science coverage conducted for the BBC Trust,
the paper will examine absences, alienation and re-gendering in television
discourse about physics.
26
Past climates and scientific selves in public
Paul Merchant
Oral history interviewer, An Oral History of British Science, National Life
Stories, the British Library and Honorary Research Associate, UCL
This paper draws on extended life story interviews with Earth scientists,
collected recently for An Oral History of British Science, led by National Life
Stories, at the British Library. It focuses on scientists involved in the study of
past climates through fieldwork in quarries, pits, motorway cuttings, fields and
building sites. Stories of encounters with ‘members of the public’ in such
places disturb simple distinctions between scientific and public understandings
of environment and climate. They also take us beyond a simple model of
earnest scientists’ ‘constructing’ their identities as scientists or ‘policing
boundaries’ between science and non-science. Field science in public triggers
complicated moments of surprised self-recognition, self-doubt and comedy.
The paper includes clips from audio and video interviews.
27
Broadsheet readership, science knowledge and attitudes to genetic
testing and research in the UK: a structural equation model
Andreea Moldovan
University of Essex
Advances in human genetics and its use in medical research offer great
promise but also raise fundamental questions about ethics, deployment of
information, public policy and public participation. Operating at the boundary
between science/scientists and the public sphere, it is the media which present
the debates to the general public. In particular, broadsheet newspapers have
been found to proffer a dialectic of hype and hope. Understanding of scientific
processes and methods, or scientific literacy, is quintessentially associated
with generating an acceptance of the use of genetics, and newspaper readers
have also been shown to have higher levels of science knowledge. Using the
2009 Wellcome Trust Monitor Survey Dataset, I examine the relationship
between broadsheet readership and attitudes to genetics amongst the British
public. In particular, I test the hypothesis that broadsheet readership is
positively associated with attitudes to medical genetics, and that science
knowledge/scientific literacy acts as a mediator of that relationship by fitting a
structural equation model in Amos and conducting a Bayesian analysis.
28
Research participants: a potential ‘public’ for two-way dialogue on
science? (work in progress)
Norma Morris
Science & Technology Studies, UCL
Though much has been written about the ethical, social and political issues
around experiments involving humans - and particular issues concerning
recruitment, management, rights and expectations of medical research
participants - little attention has been paid to participation in experimental
medical research as a form of public engagement with science. Some recent
empirical studies on how research participants describe their participation and
their role do however suggest that elements of ‘engagement’ and dialogue are
present in this enforced companionship.
A potential problem of the medical research setting is the traditional (though I
would argue out-dated) view of research participants as passive
‘subjects’. This might be assumed to debar them from constituting a ‘public’
capable of effectively engaging with science. Alternatively the ways public
engagement is currently defined and understood may divert attention from
recognising engagement or the potential for engagement in everyday
practice. In medical research for example the best-recognised form of public
engagement in the UK is Public and Patient Involvement (PPI), which is a
specific, government-backed initiative.
This differs from participant
involvement, in that it operates at a strategic level (rather than that of individual
experience), usually through patients or patient advocates sitting on advisory
or management committees with opportunities to influence research priorities
and study design, and with reportedly positive results for research (Tarpey
2011). A recent Workshop of diverse stakeholders in health care research
recommended extending PPI to cover participants’ needs and views (RVW
Report 2011). While this may well realise additional benefits for health care, I
raise for discussion and advice the question of whether such an approach
does sufficient justice to the opportunities for communication and mutual
learning in this sphere in the context of Science in Public?
29
What’s the Big Idea? Humanoids, Science Fiction, and Public Perception
Lisa Nock
NJ Institute of Technology; Federated Department of History, NJIT/Rutgers
Newark
What is it that has sustained the “big ideas” of science over many centuries?
Once considered wildly audacious, such concepts as creating synthetic life,
colonizing other planets, and producing humanoid robots are now the focus of
multi-billion dollar research initiatives. The history, value, and future of these
research programs in biotechnology, space exploration, and robotics are the
subject of my current research project. Numerous scientists and engineers,
from Freeman Dyson and Joseph Engelberger to young AI and robotics
researchers have acknowledged a debt to science fiction. The engineers of our
future may share the same visions that inspired their career paths with the
public and with policy makers and CEOs. I propose that mutual reinforcement
of the critical importance of these big ideas that were born in the imagination of
our ancestors, now mediated by popular science and science fiction writers,
filmmakers, and science bloggers may be what is leading us to become--to
paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut--what we have imagined ourselves to be.
In this presentation I focus on one aspect of my book - the worldwide diffusion
of the humanoid robot initiative through Japanese researcher migration,
robotics expos, competitions such as Robocup, the international expansion of
corporate humanoid projects such as the Honda ASIMO initiative, and popular
science publishing. Japanese researchers freely acknowledge the influence of
science fiction on what is in fact a very practical goal – providing for the
long-term needs of a society with a low birth rate and a growing population of
elderly in need of assistance. I will show how the logic for and language of
the humanoid solution has made its way into the worldwide vocabulary of
robotics.
30
The scientification of identity: Examining new practices of citizenship in
the biometric state
Aletta J. Norval and Elpida Prasopoulou
Department of Government, University of Essex
In this paper we explore the way the scientification of identity is gradually
reshaping the content of the ‘normal’ biopolitical relationship with the state.
Identification is currently integrated into an assemblage of various
heterogeneous elements including technological artifacts (i.e. CCTVs,
bodyscanners), scientific methods (i.e. DNA analysis), biometric technologies
(i.e. iris recognition), computational methods (i.e. algorithms for transforming
DNA into serial numbers), administrative techniques (i.e. profiling,
standardizing and classifying) and human bodies and their representation by
technological devices. How are these assemblages shaping the public’s
understanding of identity? How are these new scientific methods for
identification, potentially, challenge dominant perceptions of citizenship? Most
importantly, do they rearrange existing categorizations of citizens and
noncitizens? In order to explore these questions, we study practices of
citizenship ranging from those that seek to problematize some aspects of the
extant ‘rules of the game’ (e.g. mainstream privacy activism) to those that
contest the rules of the games themselves (e.g. hacker activities). Our analysis
is informed by the work of James Tully (2008) and what he calls ‘practices of
citizenship’. This allows us to think about citizenship as something claimed in
and through practices and processes in which one engages. Such a
practice-based perspective, when supplemented with the ‘all affected principle’,
allows one to consider a wider range of practices than those normally
associated with citizens. Most importantly, it also allows technological artifacts
and accompanying material practices to be incorporated into the analysis of
‘citizenization’ as a form of active engagement with one’s citizenship. In
conclusion our approach contributes to the existing literature by: (1) making
explicit some of the limitations of that literature (e.g. who counts as a citizen);
(2) providing a schema for the classification of practices of citizenship; (3)
consider specific cases and (4) discuss issues of citizenship in the context of
emerging ICTs that have the potential to reconfigure relations between citizens
and the state, as well as between citizens themselves.
31
Neuroscience and group difference: the construction of the ‘natural
other’ in media coverage of brain research
Cliodhna O’Connor
Division of Psychology & Language Sciences, UCL
The public profile of neuroscience has expanded dramatically in recent years,
with the brain increasingly appearing as a point of reference in public
discourse. This paper examines how neuroscience manifests in the public
sphere, drawing on a content analysis of representations of brain research in
the UK print media between 2000 and 2010. 2931 articles that made reference
to brain research were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data
demonstrated that as neuroscience has assimilated into the public sphere, it
has been drafted into cultural projects and agendas. Neuroscientific
information was particularly drawn upon within articulations of social
categories and identities. The brain operated as an index of difference
between social categories, with social groups reconstituted into biological
‘kinds’. Media coverage of neurobiological difference was particularly oriented
towards delineating boundaries between the normal and the pathological. The
brains typical of certain categories - particularly the criminal, overweight,
homosexual and mentally ill populations - were repeatedly contrasted with the
brains of ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ people. Emphasising neurobiological deviance
seemed to serve the function of symbolically distancing the ‘normal’ majority
from the pathological (and often morally contaminated) ‘other’. Neuroscience’s
contribution towards maintaining self/other distinctions was supported by its
allusion to the principle of ‘naturalness’: brain science was seen to facilitate a
unique insight into the natural order of human society. Neuroscience was
employed to naturalize and thereby legitimize patterns of belief, opinion,
behaviour and social relations. The paper aims to illustrate how the
assimilation of neuroscience into everyday common sense is premised on the
dimensions of self/other and natural/unnatural, and to explore how these two
dimensions intersect with each other in popular accounts of neuroscientific
ideas.
32
A decade of learning about public participation and climate change:
institutionalising reflexivity?
Helen Pallett
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
Public participation processes have been increasingly adopted within formal
structures of science policy-making in North America and Western Europe.
Despite this apparent ‘democratisation’ of the machineries of science
policy-making, it has been suggested that key organisations involved in
commissioning, designing and responding to such processes have failed to
learn about or reflect on them, or to unpack their own visions of ‘the public’.
Thus approaches to citizen engagement and involvement have been labelled
as superficial and ritualistic by STS scholars. Academic study of these
technologies of participation has generally been limited to a focus on discrete
case-studies – single processes occurring in a clearly bounded time and place.
However, this approach fails to capture longer term, diffuse processes of
learning around public participation or to constructively address its
organisational contexts.
This talk will present a novel research project, which has attempted to address
neglected institutional and long-term dimensions of learning related to public
participation. The project explored learning processes around the UK
Government-related body Sciencewise, which carries out public ‘dialogues’
directly related to science policy decisions. The particular focus was on
participation related to climate change policy throughout the period 2000-2010,
during which both public participation and climate change rose up the UK
Government’s agenda. Results will be presented supporting the argument that
organisational learning from and about public participation around UK climate
change policy has been largely instrumental or single-loop. That is to say,
learning processes have largely involved the straight-forward acquiring of new
information within existing categories and assumptions about ‘the public’ and
climate change. Where transformative or double-loop learning occurred, it was
often promoted through informal social relationships or events outside formal
organisational structures. The research findings also hint at ways to encourage
deeper organisational learning and reflexivity in the context of public
participation.
33
Conceptualising the Communication of Scientific
Non-Academic Publics through the ‘Work of Translation’
Research
to
Boris O. Popov
Department of Geography, Durham University
The complex relationship between scientific and social worlds has created
added pressure on scientists in Britain to engage with the non-academic world
and communicate their research in an effective manner. The ways in which
scientific knowledge is translated across boundaries for different worlds is yet
to be explored in much detail. Translation is a complex transaction situated
within a communicative, socio-cultural context. While many academic
researchers are motivated to communicate their work outside the academia,
they are often nervous and frustrated that communication may seem to involve
presenting their work in non-academic ways, which may appear to
over-simplify or misrepresent their work. This is a barrier to research
communication which can be interpreted by drawing on the work of Ricoeur,
who conceptualizes ‘translation’ as a process in which work is advanced
through salvaging and acceptance of loss. Salvaging is the act of balancing
faithfulness to one’s research against the potential betrayal through the
communication process. Balance is affected by resistance from the translator
and the audience as well as the presence of segments of untranslatability.
Acceptance of loss corresponds to researchers having to give up the ideal of
the perfect translation. Attainment of this state results in the acknowledgement
of the difference between adequacy and equivalence; equivalence without
adequacy. Proposed theoretical concepts are discussed within the boundaries
of preliminary data gathered as a part of pilot work conducted in association
with a multidisciplinary project at Durham and Heriot-Watt Universities, Built
Infrastructures for Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change
(BIOPICCC), which explores the challenge of how to adapt infrastructures,
essential for health and social systems serving the older age population, to
impacts of a changing climate. The talk concludes by considering a body of
empirical work required to research effective research translation strategies
within the context of scientific research communication to non-academic
publics.
34
Attitude of Trade Unions towards Science
Thomas Rose
Department of Science and Technology Studies, UCL; Fachhochschule
Muenster
In January 2011 a project started to study the attitude of British trade unions
towards science. Are trade unions and their members interested in science, is
science seen to be important, are there personal connections, do they discuss
and participate in science policy?
The project’s focus is on the affective and behavioural component of the
attitude of the union as an organisation and of the union members. After
several interviews with union officers and with MPs a preliminary survey had
been conducted in 2011. Based on its results a second survey is made in
March and April 2012.
A first part of the questionnaire contains several questions from the
Eurobarometer questionnaire to allow for comparing the union results with the
general public in the UK and Europe. A second part studies possible
connections between union members on the one side and scientists, science
politicians and science advisors on the other side.
The survey is conducted in cooperation with Unite, the largest UK trade union.
As a merger of several predecessors Unite’s 23 sectors span a wide range,
from Aerospace and shipbuilding over Docks, rail, ferries & waterways,
Education, MoD and government departments, to Vehicle building and
automotive. So it is possible to address and to distinguish interviewees with
different scientific and vocational qualification and from very different
branches.
First results of the survey will be presented on the conference.
35
Science Communication in the European Research Area
Lorna Ryan
Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, City University London
The European Research Area was launched by the European Council in 2000
and is due to be completed by 2014. It has been identified as a central element
in the success of Europe 2020, the European Union’s strategy for growth.
The concept of the ERA has been described as combining ‘a European
‘internal market’ for research, where researchers, technology and knowledge
freely circulate; effective European-level coordination of national and regional
research activities, programmes and policies; and initiatives implemented at
European level’ (European Commission The European Research Area: New
Perspectives, Green Paper, 2007). Communication within and between groups
– scientists, policy makers and the general public - has been an ever-present
feature of discussions about the functioning of the European Research Area.
Drawing on Alan Irwin’s (2008*) typology of first, second and third order
thinking on risk communication, this paper charts the different models of
science communication enunciated in the ongoing development of the ERA,
paying particular attention to how the role of the ‘general public’ is constructed.
* Irwin, A. (2008) ‘Risk, science and public communication: third order thinking about scientific culture’ in
Bucchi, M. and Trench, B (eds.) Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology, pp.
199-212, Abingdon: Routledge
36
The Role of Science of UNE
SCO
Sadriyeh Sharifi
Programme Specialist of INC for UNESCO
The ‘S’ has been an integral part of UNESCO from its foundation in 1945. In 60
years of existence, UNESCO has acted as a catalyst for the establishment of
many, now leading scientific unions and bodies such as the World
Conservation Union and the European Organization for Nuclear Research
which saw the development of the internet. Initiatives with influential
implications for sustainable human security, health and peace– such as the
Man and the Biosphere programme, the World Heritage sites and the
International Hydrological Programme – were launched in the first thirty years
of UNESCO’s history.
Every two years in the city of Budapest, UNESCO, the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences and the International Council for Science provide a global forum for
intercultural dialogue among leading scientists, policy-makers, NGOs,
educational institutions and research bodies, leaders of culture and industry,
and the general public from different cultures.
It acts at regional level by establishing intergovernmental science center
SESAME in Jordan; it brings together nine members from the wider region
namely Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian
Authority and Turkey. The centre is supported by a group of eleven countries
including France, Germany, Japan, The Russian Federation, the UK and USA.
This is a peace building and inter cultural atmosphere through science.
IPSO is a non-political organization. IPSO's mission is to foster and sustain
cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians and to promote rapprochement
of cultures, dialogue and interaction among scholars and scientists in the two
communities. IPSO is located in Jerusalem. Its mission is Cooperation
between Israeli and Palestinian scientists help create an infrastructure capable
of enhancing sustainable development in both communities.
Science, given its universal character, can be instrumental in stimulating
dialogue, openness, and mutual respect, and thus in serving the cause of
peace and intercultural dialogue. This inter cultural dialogue has taken a new
meaning in the context of globalization and current international politics. Thus
it is becoming a vital meaning of maintaining peace and world unity.
37
Narratives of ‘progress’ and ‘precaution: the contradictory legacy of the
‘1960s’ for contemporary UK debates on innovation, sustainability & risk
Fred Steward
Policy Studies Institute
Studies of the 1960s have pointed to the contradictory positions expressed
during this period of social change regarding the politics of technology.(Agar
2008) One of the major expressions of this arose from the contestation of
notions of technological progress widespread on both the social democratic
and marxist left by emerging movements around ‘radical science’ and
environmental risks in (eg Dickson 1974). An outcome of this debate was
the notion of ‘precaution’ as an alternative to the conventional notion of
‘progress’ in the assessment of technological innovation.
This paper addresses two aspects of this.
First, it revisits the evolution of the left’s ideas on the politics of technology in
the postwar period. It suggests that significant elements had already begun to
shift to a more precautionary or ‘survivalist’ politics (eg Commoner 1971) which
contributed to the rise of modern environmentalism. This was expressed in the
UK through, for example, Marxism Today’s calls for a renewal of the left’s
project to embrace such concerns. In Germany it took the form of a
significant realignment of parts of the left with the new green movement. On
the other hand this was rejected by more fundamentalist tendencies who
sought to revive an enthusiasm for risk-taking technological change as the
essence of marxism (eg Furedi 1975).
The second part of the paper explores the continuing legacy of this espousal of
progress versus precaution into present day public debates. The role of a
political actor, the Institute of Ideas, is analysed in order to seek an explanation
as to how a once marginalised viewpoint has been surprising persistent and
how significant scientific partners have been enrolled in legitimising its
mission.
38
Public attitude toward space activities in Iran: Engagement or
disengagement?
Mahsa Taheran Vernoosfaderani
International Space University
Scientific and technological progress has become an important element in
governmental propaganda in recent years. Space, Defense, Nuclear
Technology, and Medical Sciences are some of the fields in the spotlight.
The government claims the fastest growth rate in science and technology,
repeatedly in many of the official statements. The number of published articles
in international journals, the number of registered patents and inventions, and
satellite launches are used to support these statements. Within academic
community the statistics given by the government are disregarded as a true
indicator of progress, and the sustainability of the scientific activities is a matter
of controversy. How the general public looks at some of the scientific fields
emphasized in the governmental propaganda can be a subject of
investigations in public engagement studies. This paper seeks to understand
the attitude of general public toward these emerging technological progresses
in Iran.
To narrow down the topic space activities are selected as an example of the
fields with considerable outreach investment and significant annual budget.
Organizations like Iranian Space Agency (ISA) and Aerospace Research
Institute (ARI) make noticeable efforts in outreach aspects and there is a
national day to celebrate advances in space technology, celebrated nationally
by the government. With political tensions between the general middle class
public and the government, and the dependency of space activities on the
political agenda of the government, the public response to these promotional
activities is as well influenced by the internal politics. The main question of
the paper is to understand if the outreach activities and propaganda together
have been successful in engaging the general public in governmental space
activities. Published information, interviews with individuals involved, and
public surveys will be used to reflect the public attitude toward space activities
in Iran.
39
Legitimacy and Power: A Rebuttal in a Grassroots Resistance
Meg Turville-Heitz
Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Communications are key to the concept of public involvement in the
democratic process, but when the public perceives government as corrupt
and/or unresponsive, the citizenry feel compelled to direct action. Modern
efforts to permit metallic mines in Wisconsin illustrate this communicative
dysfunction. A qualitative content analysis of opinion pieces – both editorials
and letters to the editor – published in eight newspapers dealing with the
attempt to permit a mine near Crandon in Forest County, Wisconsin, will reveal
an elite discourse that does not register the opposing public attitude, a public
distrustful of state agencies’ motives based on past perceived transgressions,
and a public that expects its participation will yield the result it desires. A
related qualitative content analysis of state agency communication files
regarding the overlapping permitting of the Flambeau mine in Ladysmith, Rusk
County, Wisconsin will provide support for this argument, revealing a pattern of
the state regulating agency in cooperation with regulated industry treating the
public process as a required but inconsequential inconvenience, while
members of the public struggle to educate and insert themselves into the
process, entrenching their sense of government failing to act in the public
interest. This study will place these two examples in the context of recent
attempt to permit a metallic mine in the Penokee Hills near Mellen, Wisconsin
in Ashland and Iron Counties where many of the errors of the past on the part
of government and corporation are repeated, but the public quickly turns to
social media and past experience in opposition to stop mine siting before a
plan can even be written.
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Co-opting the museological for the pedagogical: Learners as publics
and future publics of science
Richard Watermeyer
ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen),
Cardiff University
Building a scientifically literate, engaged and enthused public depends in large
part on early integration of science as a subject of interest and inspiration and
an ability to transcend the proscriptiveness of formal science curricula which
albeit unintentionally, suppress the imaginative and aspirational qualities of
young learners as future science prospectors. Unfortunately, learners’
interactions in science are too frequently delimited by the presentation of
science as something dull, uninteresting or even worse, off-limits. Recruitment
in science subject disciplines remains in the UK context and despite a raft of
interventions, critically low, whilst attrition rates at all tiers of formal education
remain high. Multiple arguments are promulgated to justify the stagnation and
seeming putrefaction of learners’ enthusiasm and aptitude for science both as
a subject and occupational choice and include a dearth of specialist science
teachers; problems of assessment-based pedagogy and paradigms of learning;
and a lack of high-visibility role models. Many of these issues are being
attended to with increased investment on a part of the scientific community
and national and devolved UK governments to impregnate learners with a
scientific curiosity and/or affinity.
The focus of this paper is on experimental and experiential pedagogy as a
route to catalysing early scientific citizenship; where learners’ sense of
self-efficacy, entitlement and ownership of their scientific lives is elucidated
and confirmed through their mobilization as knowledge workers. Discussion
focuses on ethnographic research conducted at the ‘Langley Academy’, the
UK’s only science school dedicated to the use of museum and gallery
pedagogy; and how a unique approach to learners’ socialization in science and
a culture of doing science through object-based learning culminates in a
dynamic, co-operative and engaged community of scientific practice.
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You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink: exploring the
science-policy interface
Emma Weitkamp
University of the West of England, Bristol
Collaborators: Karen Bultitude (UCL), Margarida Sardo (UWE, Bristol), Karen
Desborough (UWE, Bristol), Federica Sgorbissa (SISSA MediaLab), Paola
Rodari (SISSA MediaLab)
There is an acknowledged need for intermediaries that can ‘bridge the gap’
between the policy and research communities (see for example, European
Commission, 2008 and Gagnon, 2011). This paper will explore researchers’
ownership of dissemination processes to the policy community by exploring
their engagement with two news services that are designed to facilitate the
transfer of scientific information to the policy community: Socio-economic and
Humanities Research for Policy and Science for Environment Policy. Both
services are funded by the European Commission with the purpose of
providing mechanisms to highlight policy-relevant research to the policy
community, helping to provide such mediation. Through surveys of the
researchers whose work has been featured in the news services, we have
explored how researchers engage with the process of disseminating their
research findings to the policy community. Two surveys were conducted, one
with researchers featured in Science for Environment Policy (158 respondents,
54% response rate) and the other with researchers featured in
Socio-economic and Humanities Research for Policy (preliminary survey
responses 18 out of 60 and further survey underway at time of writing). The
surveys explored a range of issues focusing on whether the news services
have prompted contact between the research and policy communities and
whether respondents themselves make further use of the materials produced
by the service. The findings suggest that despite offering a ‘mediated’ interface
between research and policy, researchers may not be ready to fully exploit the
materials or potential policy-relevant opportunities available. Researchers
identified some evidence that the news services stimulated interest in their
research. However, this was primarily from other researchers rather than the
policy community. Researchers did recycle the material to a limited extent, for
example distributing the link to the article or placing links on project or
institutional websites. A few report using the materials to prepare internal
documents or to stimulate media coverage. However, they rarely used the
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materials to make direct links with policy makers. These findings suggest that
researchers often fail to take full advantage of opportunities to connect with the
policy community.
European Commission, 2008. Scientific evidence for policy-making.
Directorate-General for Research Socio-economic Sciences and
Humanities. EUR 22982 EN.
Gagnon, M.L., 2011. Moving knowledge to action through dissemination
and exchange. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 64, 25-31.
43
Debating Science, Defining the Public in the 19th century Ottoman
Empire
Alper Yalcinkaya
Sociology/ Anthropology, Ohio Wesleyan University
Like many societies that experienced an unprecedented sense of decline in
the 19th century, the Ottomans saw the sciences of the Europeans as the key
reason behind the changing power balances in the world. Hence, arguments
regarding the meaning, benefits, and potential dangers of these new sciences
abounded in 19th century Ottoman texts, and some of the most heated
polemics published in Ottoman newspapers were on science. Yet these
debates about science were also about what it meant to have a public debate
in general, and what the Ottoman public itself was in particular. Especially after
the 1850s, political elites strived to establish a new Ottoman identity that would
transcend all religious and ethnic affiliations, and thus save this uniquely
diverse society from disintegration. Founded by such elites in 1860, the
Ottoman Society for Sciences had a cosmopolitan membership, and in its
Journal portrayed science as a territory within which all ethnic and religious
communities of the Ottoman Empire could co-exist. Yet many members of the
Ottoman Muslim community experienced the political and cultural changes as
a rise in the status of non-Muslims, and perceived the elites as the speakers of
Europe. Intellectuals giving voice to these grievances emphasized the Islamic
character of the Empire, and praised Muslims’ contributions to science. Their
many works that glorified modern science addressed Muslims, not all Ottoman
communities. They discussed science as yet another area within which
Muslims and non-Muslims were in competition, and Muslims were at a
disadvantage; the Empire was to adopt the sciences of Europe, but the
Empire’s non-Muslim community had already surpassed the Muslims in this
respect. In a sense, science was a wedge dividing the Muslim and non-Muslim
communities, and one could not speak about science without simultaneously
taking a position on the meaning of the Ottoman public.
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Advanced or Traditional: the change of science communication
channels in China
Xiaomin Zhu
Center for Science Communication; Center for Social Studies of Science;
Philosophy of S&T Section, Philosophy Department, Peking University
Based on the 8 national investigations of civil science literacy from 1992 to
2009/2010 in China which also include public attitude to the development of
S&T and channels public getting information concerning S&T, this presentation
mainly discusses the situation and change of science communication channels
in China in these nearly 20 years.
Since 1999, with more and more money from government invested into the
grass-root units many communities (including villages) have built up such as
“digital harbor”(with dozens of computers for residents surfing on internet),
electrical books, LED panels to show the content electrically, and DIY corner
often with various advanced high-tech instruments for science communication
activities, etc. Many new technical and artistic methods are also introduced
very quickly, take cartoon and flash for example.
However, although the government had paid more attention on advanced
channels for science communication, the traditional channels such as
newspaper, magazines and books have still played important even the main
ways for general residents to know about S&T in communities. In rural areas of
China more than 50% people even get information of S&T from “talk to talk”
between acquaintances in the same investigation!
From our spot investigations on about more than 60 communities (and villages)
in Beijing, we found a big dilemma: on one side many advanced channels
(digital harbor, LED) are not opened normally or regularly due to the cost,
maintenance, and absence of professionals operating them to name a few; on
the other side, the traditional channels (newspaper, magazines, talk to talk)
have been shrinking due to less and less financial support by government.
This causes double damages for public science communication in local
communities: advanced channels are not used efficiently and traditional
channels are neglected.
As a result, we suggest to get a balance between advanced and traditional
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channels for science communication, especially the traditional channels
should be paid enough attention too, even the traditional various Chinese
operas or talk show can play a new and special role for especially elders and
people in rural areas concerning science communication. In one word, the
most suitable channels are the best for public science communication in China
although in this new high-tech century.
Key words: science communication; communication channels; advanced
channels; traditional channels
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