Speakout

Scientists, get off the fence

Trusting Pandora, a debate at the Institute of Education, focused on the complex relationship between scientific expertise, public understanding and political decision making. Its panel consisted of Lord Oxburgh, Robin Grove-White, director of the centre for the study of environmental change, Sheila McKechnie, director of the consumer association and Douglas Parr, the chief scientist at Greenpeace. Ros Smith sat in on the discussions.

"As an Imperial student undertaking the MSc course in science communication, as well as being a former school science teacher, I was very interested to hear what Lord Oxburgh had to say at a debate on science and its image makers organised by Prospect magazine.

Science has an image problem. The panellists generally agreed it was stuck between a rock and a hard place, pulled this way and that by politicians and the multinationals. The end result? Its self-image is suffering.

Lord Oxburgh referred to an article in the Financial Times about an unnerved public, rushed into the millennium by the super stallions of science, technology and capitalism. The defence of most scientists seems to be that science is just an innocent pawn in all this. After all, it is not a scientist's job to work out the social consequences of new discoveries; that is the job of politicians.

However, with science's continuing high profile on contentious issues such as BSE and GM foods, it strikes me that science cannot have it both ways. Scientists seem happy to employ the attitude of 'What can we do?', while placing the blame firmly at the door of the politicians who frequently use science to back their claims.

The negative side of such a portrayal is that it conjures up the image of scientists being no more than faceless parts of a larger machine, relegating them to the status of mere button pushers and data recorders. This is clearly unfair and an image with which most scientists would be unhappy. After all, scientists do have power, especially those such as Lord Oxburgh who as head of one of the leading scientific establishments in the world, has more than most.

As a former physics teacher, I was somewhat saddened to hear Lord Oxburgh place some blame on school science education for science's image problems because in school, science is portrayed as simply rock solid facts. He suggested that science should be more about questions and providing a disciplined approach to their solution.

School science has changed more than many realise. If further changes are required, and I am the first to admit that they are, then public figures such as Lord Oxburgh are ideally placed to influence such changes. Teachers, like scientists, can also feel powerless and pawn-like when such discussions place the blame at their door. They need the help and support of those with power in higher education who can influence the future of secondary and further education."