Why “scientific literacy” is silly, again.

The prize of smugness for anyone who can correctly guess which event caused a friend to text me this last year.

I spent an evening earlier this month doing some public engagement about public engagement. Or, talking about scientific literacy in a pub in Bloomsbury as part of the regular “Big Ideas” debates. If you don’t mind the sound of a load of pub chairs moving around, here’s a podcast.

It’s pretty similar to the stuff I covered for the BBC last summer but with added Boris Johnson and much longer (and better) Q&As at the end. Especially good first question from a chap who works for a biomedical charity.

Questioning academics

A table at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre coffee shop. No, I don’t know what it means either. 

The latest episode of Brain Train is up – the podcast I work on where we get academics to quiz other academics – this time with autism researcher Johanna Finneman interviewing philosopher Nina Power. I think my favourite bit is where Power stands up for the right of philosophers to be “a little bit annoying”. As much as I am a philosopher (and I’d say I’m roughly 15% philosopher, albeit a self-hating one most of the time) I very much ascribe to that.

The format’s designed so each episode an academic interviews another about their work, then in the next episode the interviewee becomes the interviewer (and the expert becomes the novice) and so on. At the end of each episode we also ask the interviewee (the expert) what questions they have for their own field. These are Power’s, for philosophy, but I think they could be directed to about any group of the academy.

A political question [first]: how do we get philosophers at Russell Group Universities to defend those philosophy departments at non-Russell Group universities that are being closed? I’d like to see solidarity across my subject, because it’s my feeling that if you love and care about the subject, you would want to see more of it, everywhere, not less of it. And not trying to sort of keep it to yourself  and you know, get all the research money which they get already and you sit by while philosophy departments left right and centre get closed. So that’s a political question […]

I guess the question you’re [Johanna started with] asking me: How do we get philosophy out there? How do we critically but clearly state what we think is important about philosophy? […] How do we make the link between the critical questions that people have all the time to the older and ongoing philosophical questions in a non-patronising way, in a way that doesn’t kind of, I don’t know, but nor does it reduce to a self-help model of philosophy, this kind of popular philosophy that is, I think, anti-philosophical in lots of ways.

Brain Train Podcast

Largely gratuitous picture of a steamtrain.

Martin Austwick (physicist, podcaster, musician) and I have just launched a podcast called Brain Train.

Each episode an academic interviews another about their work, then in the next episode the interviewee becomes the interviewer (and the expert becomes the novice) and so on. It’s a bit like Chain Reaction on Radio 4, except our focus is more on knowledge rather than performers’ lives. The pilot had me interview a water systems engineer. Then she wanted to know about autism research, so we found an expert on that. Now the autism researcher wants to know more about philosophy…

Visit the website, or you can subscribe directly in iTunes. We’re still finding our feet a bit, and each episode with vary just because of the nature of the project, but I hope it’s going to build into something fun.

Scientific literacy

A visitor’s view on energy policy spins around a giant wheel shaped piece of art at the front of the London Science Museum.

I was on Radio 4 last night talking about why I don’t think calls for scientific literacy are the way to solve problems of science in society.

It’s fifteen minutes long. You can listen on iPlayer or you can download it as a podcast (which also comes with some bonus Q&A at the end) and there is a shorter, text based version on the BBC News site.

As I hope I made clear in the podcast, I’m all for people learning more about the world. I just don’t think you can train people up with a basic tool kit of science and then say those people are all set to manage modern life. I think that tackles the problem the wrong way around. It also reduces science to something smaller, blander and less intricate than it is.

Listen to the piece if you want to know more. If you want to argue about it, the comment thread below is open.

Science and growth

Last week I co-organised a debate on science and growth, one of a regular* “Science Question Time” seminars.

The idea that science might equal growth is something which has dominated UK science policy discourse for several years (e.g. David Willetts’ first speech as Science Minister). But can the government pick winners, and how can we ensure public coffers benefit from such public investment? Perhaps we need to think in different terms entirely – should we be looking to technology for sustainability, rather than growth? Is an unrelenting focus on growth a bit irresponsible? (see, for example, the Royal Society’s recent People and the Planet report).

We brought together a panel consisting of Penny Attridge (SPARK Ventures), Rebekah Higgitt** (National Maritime Museum/Royal Observatory), Mariana Mazzucato*** (SPRU, University of Sussex) and James Meadway (new economics foundation), chaired by Jack Stilgoe (University of Exeter) and involving a diverse audience largely drawn from science, policy and journalism for what turned out to be an exciting and lively debate.

Yes, exiting and lively, about innovation policy, really and truly, I promise. It was even funny at times. You can listen to a podcast of the event for yourself:

 

 

* The last event was in March, on nuclear policy. You can also listen to a podcast of this event. That was played over 120,000 times, so it must be good (nothing to do with it having been Boing-ed, not at all…).

** Becky’s written up her notes for the evening with some good links on her blog.

*** Professor Mazzucato’s contribution was dominated by questions of rebalancing the economy (and what we might mean by this) with a particular focus on the capturing of structures and rewards of innovative labour by the financial sector. You can read her report on this for the Policy Network, published yesterday (see also her piece for the Guardian).

Science communication and political divides

Last month, I chaired an event on science communication and political divides at the Biochemical Society.

As taster, here’s a bit from about half way though, from panelist Steve Cross:

Within all kinds of science communication, not just the stuff you think is controversial [e.g. climate change, GMOs] there is a big political divide and that political divide is between the people who cheer-lead for science and the people who attempt to open up scientific institutions, open up scientific processes, open up scientists to listen rather than just to speak up on behalf of themselves. The reason we have this tension is that the money is mostly in cheerleading, the money is mostly in pushing science forward and saying isn’t science wonderful. The money is mostly in encouraging children to become scientists, it’s mostly on PR for science. There isn’t a lot of money in challenging science.

Steve finished his piece by stressing he had no problem with cheerleading existing, he just wanted other work to happen too, and added a warning “just be careful who you are cheerleading for”. Steve had started by arguing against the idea that everyone in science communication necessarily shares the same values: BAE systems sponsor the Big Bang Fair, so does everyone involved in Big Bang share the values of BAE?

There was a lot more debate about cheerleading throughout the debate, from panelists and audience members. We also explored ‘balance’ at the BBC, whether scientists should be open about their values, whether scientists are good at talking about politics* and much, much more. We got mentions on the Guardian and Bishop Hill. Not sure what that says for political divides, if anything. You can listen to the podcast for yourself. Here it is, complete with lovely headshot of co-organiser Beck Smith:

(*or if they, and science communication professionals were even that aware of the politics of their work. E.g. I’d love to know how many people involved in the Big Bang Fair have even looked at the sponsors, let alone thought about the issue. Same goes for other areas of sponsored science communication. No reason to just pick on that event, even if it does have a rather unfortunate name…)

Sounds of Science

BBC Madia Vale Studios, before a recording last year.

It’s world radio day! I don’t know about you, but I’m celebrating. I love the radio.

I think I just like noise. Maybe it’s because my Dad was a musician. He usually worked from home, on what are probably best described as “musicians’ hours”, so there was a steady stream of odd bits of organised noise coming from his office. He was always very focused on the quality of sounds around him, taking personal offense to musac and swearing loudly every time the doorbell rang or a car horn beeped to interrupt the more controlled flow of noise around him. As an orchestrator, it was the particular sound any instrument made which interested him most, and he’d come home from a recording session full of stories of standing out the back of Abbey Road studios with percussionists hitting bin lids. I’m not a musician, but I seem to have picked up some of his obsession sound.

I thought I’d take the opportunity of world radio day to advertise an event I’m chairing at Charles Darwin House next month on the sounds of science. Do come! There will be beer and cake and interesting people talking about the noisiness of science. It’ll be great fun.

On the run up to this, I’ve been thinking about how I could share the noises of my research. I’m a humanities scholar so mainly just sit in an office on my own. There’s the sound of an email hitting my inbox I guess, or maybe the bell ringing from the tower outside my office at Imperial or people gossiping over a cigarette by the window I sit near at UCL. There is also a really cool whistling sound that happens on a windy day in the space between the engineering departements at Imperial. Some day I really must record that. Or the glass bridge at the Science Museum. It’s held up by piano strings so makes a slight sound as you walk across it. It’s usually too loud to hear in the museum, with all the visitors, but when I worked there I’d sometimes walk across it when the museum was closed, lean out to pluck a string and just listen. There are probably other noises around my work I don’t think about. I’m going to have to take time to think and listen.

I also thought I’d share my top five listens in terms of science and technology; the podcasts I feel my week isn’t complete if I haven’t heard.

• BBC World Service Click – I’m not just saying this because the presenter has an office next door to mine at Imperial. The global perspective on technology it provides is simply fascinating. It’s something I don’t get from a lot of the other sci/tech media I consume, and really makes me think about technology in different ways. Like the Guardian tech podcast, I also find it invaluable as a briefing on media issues.
• Radiolab – It’s hard to describe quite how brilliant RadioLab is. Very simply, it is storytelling about science at its best. It will make you cry and laugh out loud in the middle of the street and you won’t care that it makes you look a bit weird because you are simply so absorbed in it. It is that good. Really.
• Guardian Science Weekly – There are a few science magazine radio shows out there, but this is my personal favorite. It updates me on the news and will add in the odd interesting feature and/ or interview too. There is a lovely chatty feel to it, a nice mix of humble and strident, and fun too. I’m also a huge fan of the Nature one, though it’s slightly more serious.
• Peter Day’s World of Business – This is maybe an odd choice as the focus of this is business, but perhaps because of this I find that when it does cover sci/ tech issues it does in a way I won’t find elsewhere. Plus, I just love the presenter’s voice and they once did a whole show about the history of pencils.
• In Our Time – Again, not always science, but rather the history of ideas, which often touches on science. The presenter can sometimes be a bit deferent to scientific expertise for my personal taste, but it’s usually a good clever chat about something interesting and often has Simon Schaffer on it (I’m happy to admit to being a huge Schaffer fangirl). The archive is prestigious.

So, what are your favourite science and technology themed podcasts? I’d love to know. Also, do you work in a lab? Does your machinery, building or colleages make interesting noises? Maybe you could record it on your phone or something and share it? (Audioboo is good for this). Share your science noises!

Pondering PUS

The Public Understanding of Science journal, volume 1.

The main journal in my field, Public Understanding of Science, is twenty next year. I recently had to look up an old paper in the first edition, and it was slightly depressing to see how little has changed. Still, the fact that I find much of it still relevant was also kind of inspiring, and does (sort of) make me feel part of a historical body of scholarship.

The journal’s name is a bit embarrassing for some; too strongly associated with the Bodmer Report (pdf) and top-down models of public communication apparently popular in the 1980s. Many people working in science communication, especially in the UK, are keen to stress they prefer the term ‘engagement’ over calls for public understanding. The journal takes a much broader view than this, and covers a lot of what might be dubbed ‘engagement’ as well as science in popular culture, science journalism, public attitudes and a lot more besides. It just happens that the journal was founded while the term ‘understanding’ was still in vogue, and keeps the name.

I gave a talk last week about the sorts of worries that prompted the public understanding of science movement as well as some of the reasons people turned their back on it, and Sarah Castor-Perry interviewed me about it afterwards. You can listen to the full podcast, or here’s a rough transcript of her first and last questions to me:

Sarah: What is the public understanding of science, and how is it different to something like ‘science communication’?

Alice: For me ‘science communication’ is an umbrella term which encompasses any kind of communication about science and I’m going to be really broad about the ‘science’ and ‘communication’ words. It could be two scientists sitting in a pub complaining about their boss, or an article in a really esoteric journal that is really hard to get hold of and is written in really difficult jargon than only a few people will ever understand and even less of them will ever read, or it could be Brian Cox on the telly, or it could be a science show with puppets for four year olds at the National History Museum, or parents talking about vaccinations at a schoolgate, or a news story about spaceships. It could be all of those things. Whereas the Public Understanding of Science or PUS is more specially a worry about what ‘the public’ (which I guess we could define as non-scientists) know and think and is generally used to refer to a particular part in history around the 1980s and 1990s when there was a real worry about a need to tell the public stuff. The idea was that scientists would tell the public things, and it was imagined the public would just listen.

Sarah: Do you feel reasonably positive about the public relationship with science, or do you feel there is distrust and a lack of knowledge and a lack of interest, or are you quite positive about how popular Brian Cox and Bang Goes the Theory and things on television, and Lates at the Science Museum? Positive or negative?

Alice: Um, negative because it’s positive? To explain that… if my aim was for people to like something called science then yes, this thing seems to be flying quite high at the moment. But I also think that a lot of this is a kind of glitzy, glamourous ‘science is cool’ way which is not exactly good. If you just think science is great and look at these people who are simply going to give you good knowledge that is reliable, I’m not so sure. I’d rather have a public aware of the problems of science, who questions it and helps make science as good as it should be. I think that’s what most scientists want too. I don’t think most scientists want people to breathlessly go ‘wow, you’re great, tell me your wonderful knowledge’. They’re are happy to have a conversation and they know that what they have done is potentially useful for some people, but they don’t want to be made out to be gods, or painted as music stars. I don’t think that would help science in the long run, or society in the long run either. I worry that a country that loves science ‘because it. is. awesome’ will end up not liking science because something else will come along. More to the point, we’ll like shampoo advert science. Because if you look at those adverts that a lot of scientists get annoyed about – the reason they work is because people like science. People get pulled in by that because they are working with an image of science, rather than real science and real conversations with real people. So if we have more of these conversations, and were maybe more critical, we’d have a more productive relationship. So, yeah, if my concern was if people liked science I’d probably be positive, but I think that’s the wrong concern.