A very interesting discussion has been taking placeon a list to do with the public communication of science.
The discussion was triggered by a request to Listmembers for advice from Emanuella Chagas Jaguar <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Brazil, who works in the Department of Popularization and Diffusion of Science and Technology where they have been discussing "the possibility of implementing a law of Popularization of Science in Brazil."
If you're struck in the comments below by the hectoring tones of Michael Kenward who describes himself as "ABSW e-minder", it may be useful to know that ABSW is the Association of British Science Writers, an organisation which has Dame Bridget Ogilvie, the Deputy Chair of the controversial pro-GM lobby group Sense about Science, for its President, and Pallab Ghosh for its Chairman.
For more on Ghosh: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=203
For more on Ogilvie:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=145
Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including its list archive for the unedited mails the material below is drawn from, can be found at the list web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html
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From: Dr Adam Nieman
Sent: 09 August 2005
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
Any country developing popularisation policy must build a clear distinction between public relations and democratic empowerment into any legislation. It is tempting to think that it is the mere quantity of science communication that is important, and not to reflect on the motivation for communicating science. However, there are many different reasons people choose to engage the public with science.
This may sound obvious, but policy in the United Kingdom has tended in the past to assume that all and any science communication meets all and any purpose - be it informing citizens, increasing the science budget, educating the next generation of scientists, or whatever. Clarity about the communicator's agenda is not generally a priority in science communication, but it should be.
Public relations and democratic empowerment are not the same. In fact, they are totally different but in the United Kingdom at least, science communication is dominated by public relations and marketing departments. They do good work but the fact that they are not always clear about their motivation has caused and continues to cause serious problems. Ironically, the extent to which the public trusts science has suffered as a result.
The twisted logic goes like this: science is good; therefore any initiative that helps people to see that science is good will help people to make rational decisions about science. No! Even if you accept uncritically the premise that science is good, you can only advance debate by being crystal clear about where your own interests lie.
For an example of the kind of disingenuous science communication I'm talking about, take Walter Bodmer, one of the founding fathers of the public understanding of science [PUS] movement in the UK. 10 years ago at the Edinburgh Science Festival he argued that, "to understand genetics is to understand that scientists must be allowed to patent genes". No! Patents are politics.
Bodmer was conflating two very different ways of 'understanding'. (If I disagree with Bodmer that genes are strings of DNA, you could say I have not understood genetics; but what if I disagree with him about patents for genes?)
It would be fine to advocate patenting genes and to put forward an argument for it. It would even be OK for a research council such as the BBSRC [Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council] to pay for the public relations effort required to change the legislation if they thought it was important to the community they represent. But if they pretended that in so doing they were 'sharing science' rather than competing with their detractors, they would be doing a grave dis-service to the public understanding of science.
The greater emphasis on 'dialogue' in science communication helps a great deal, but the communicator's agenda could still be clearer in most popularisation efforts.
Best,
Adam
Dr Adam Nieman
Sci-Five
5 Glendale
Bristol BS8 4PN
+44 (0)7764 197151
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.sci-five.com
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From: Michael Kenward This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
Lots of unsubstantiated assertions in this message which describes a parallel world from that which I inhabit.
Any chance that you could back it up with some examples or some other evidence beyond opinion?
In particular, I am puzzled by the statement that "Clarity about the communicator's agenda is not generally a priority in science communication, but it should be." That view harks back to the PUS [Public Understanding of Science] days, a decade or so ago. And even then only a small band of old fogeys really took that line, which is why it lasted about 10 minutes.
Michael Kenward
ABSW e-minder
Editor, The Science Reporter
http://www.absw.org.uk
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005
From: Adam <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science [ ]
Michael,
...I stand by the assertion that clarity about the communicator's agenda is not generally a priority in science communication.
...I was deliberately 'harking back to the old PUS days' because that's when the UK started to grapple with building science communication into
government policy. Brazil can learn a lot from what the UK went through a decade ago. If they don't learn from our history, I fear they are doomed to repeat it.
It's a bit disingenuous to dismiss the PUS movement as just a few old fogies who lasted 10 minutes. The muddled thinking of a decade ago continues to have an impact. Those of us who can remember as far back as 1996 will remember that the Wolfendale report had quite a bit of influence, especially on the research councils. This is an example of the kind of policy document that fails, in my opinion, to adequately distinguish 'public relations' from democratic empowerment.
This is what it says:
1.4 The objectives of the Government's policy on public understanding are:
1.4.1 to contribute to the economic wealth and quality of life of the Nation, particularly by drawing more of our best young people into careers in science, engineering and technology
1.4.2 to strengthen the effectiveness of the democratic process through better informed public debate of issues of public concern arising in the fields of science, engineering and technology.
1.5 The main obstacle to achieving these objectives was perceived by Government to be the relatively low status of science and engineering in the eyes of the general public relative to other competitor nations. The policy therefore is about changing public attitudes as a means to achieving the objectives. (Wolfendale 1996).
Arnold Wolfendale, 1996, Report of the Committee to Review the Contribution of Scientists and Engineers to the Public Understanding of Science,
Engineering and Technology, (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office)
Adam
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005
From: Murphy Glenn This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
While the PUS model has - thankfully - been largely dispensed with, I think we're hugely overestimating the extent to which agenda is considered if we say that it's now automatic.
Off the top of my head, I can think of one immediate example where a non-explicit agenda undermined an attempt at public engagement: the United Kingdom's "GM Nation" debate.
This was supposedly at attempt to create genuine dialogue, in an effort to inform government policies on planting GM crops in the UK. Events were staged, debates were held, but the public were never told exactly how any results would be fed back into real policy-making decisions. As a result, the whole thing came off as little more than a pro-GM public relations exercise - as evidenced by newspaper coverage at the time.
For all its good intentions, I would assert that this effort failed precisely because agendas were left unclear or partially-explained. So I wouldn't say Adam's views are unsubstantiated. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Glenn Murphy
The Science Museum, London
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:41:30 +0100
From: Dianne Stilwell This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
"Clarity about the communicator's agenda is not generally a priority in science communication, but it should be."
Well, if I'm not clear about my communications agenda I'm pretty soon going to be out of a job.
...If I'm finding out the concerns and expectations of the publics with which I'm interacting and using that info to shape my organisation's messages and actions then I don't see too much difference between PR and PUS, PUSET, Sci and Soc and all the other varients.
Cheers - Dianne
Dianne Stilwell
PR and Public Awareness Manager
The Institute of Physics
76 Portland Place London W1B 1NT UK
Tel +44(0)20 7470 4875
Fax +44(0)20 7470 4848
E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.iop.org
Einstein Year is here - be inspired by physics in 2005.
www.einsteinyear.org
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005
From: Michael Kenward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
Is science any different from other activities? Are scientists, or the public, so stupid that you have to put a sodding great label on every uttering?
...If as you admit, you were "deliberately 'harking back to the old PUS days'", but then went on to tar everything happening now with the same brush.
My reference to "a small band of old fogeys" just might have been meant to include the person you mentioned. As a member of Walter's original post-report band of troublemakers, I can assure you that from day one COPUS effectively ditched the sort of line that you described. In other words, you are shooting at straw persons.
You might like to turn your attention to today's world of PEST. Like one or two others here, who I will not name lest it embarrass them, I may have acquired my bus pass, but I do try to keep in touch with what is happening.
MK
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005
From: Jon Turney This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
Emanuella,
As you see from our discussion, there's still plenty of disagreement about where we have got to in science communication in the UK! I assume the "law" will do something similar to the requirement which (as I recall) has our research councils spend a small portion of their budgets on science communication.
Here, I'm with Adam Neimann. Government funded agencies (and, at the risk of biting a hand that feeds me quite often, big research spenders like the Wellcome Trust) find it hard to make a clear distinction between PR/education and public engagement.
This in turn reflects confusion at the heart of government. I think the incoming Labour government in 1997 really believed some of the things they said about democratic discussion of science, among many other things. This was a radical difference from the previous administration, whose then head of science communication in the cabinet office once told me that his budget was mainly for increasing recruitment of young scientists, with any democratic aims a long way behind.
However, Labour's actions rather belied any commitment to public debate. The large increases in the science budget were mainly earmarked for genetics and genomics, and discussion of the implications of those areas of research came a good while after the decisions had been taken.
Warm regards to Ildeu,
Jon Turney
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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005
From: Adam <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> Subject: Re: Law of Popularization of Science
...to many people, science communication looks like a distinctly dodgy activity - not the noble calling we know it to be :-)
We live in a world in which MacDonalds sponsor nutrition posters for school science classrooms. (Actually, I haven't seen any of these myself.) There's a difference between such posters and equivalent posters produced by, say, an education publisher. I think that any policy on science communication should make the difference explicit.
---snip---
- If I'm finding out the concerns and expectations of the publics with which I'm interacting and using that info to shape my organisation's messages and actions then I don't see too much difference between PR and PUS, PUSET, Sci and Soc and all the other varients.
---snip---
The difference is this: your work will not help me in arguing against the interests of the Institute of Physics. Personally, I share those interests, and I am delighted that you are there to promote them, but there is a difference between what you do and empowering citizens to intervene in, say, questions of science funding. It's important when thinking about science communication policy from a national perspective to take account of the difference.
The problem with conflating PR and PUS is that if you set out to, a) empower citizens to take part in an informed debate about, say, GMOs and b) lobby for the de-regulation of GMOs you will fail.
Adam
Dr Adam Nieman
Sci-Five
5 Glendale
Bristol BS8 4PN
+44 (0)7764 197151
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.sci-five.com