Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream, University of Warwick

October 06, 2009

Great Shows – FREE!

If you want to see music / comedy / theatre for FREE as well as getting to know a load more people, why not aply to become an Arts Centre Steward. Application forms can be found at box office and the deadline is the end of the week. It’s well worth doing – I started in my first year and am still doing it even though I graduated three years ago!

Helen Ryan : 06 Oct 2009 06:24 | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

August 02, 2009

Week 28: The Science Wars

Follow-up to Week 27: The History of PUS and Academic Research from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

The science wars build on the anti-science stuff I was looking at a few weeks ago. In essence they comprised of scientists and social scientists calling each other names. The main ‘problem’ comes form constructivists saying that all knowledge is socially constructed and that no way of knowing is better than any other. In response the scientists have said that their way of knowing is superior. The sociologists then started blowing raspberries at the scientists and the scientists pulled out Dawkings on the sociologists. Messy and unnecessary. The issue in the end seems to come down to the fact that there isn’t enough money in the system.

Sociologists – the scientists have had a profound influenece in shaping both your society and your discipline – don’t diss them
Scientists – finding out more about how science works has to be something you’re open to – you’re supposed to be critical reflectors after all, but if it annoys you that much then just ignore them.

Helen Ryan : 02 Aug 2009 17:54 | Tags: Msc Science And The Public | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

July 31, 2009

Week 27: The History of PUS and Academic Research

Follow-up to Week 24: Are Anti–Science Sentiments a threat? from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

Discussions of PUS often start with the report of teh Royal Society in 1985, but PUS related ideas had been around for much longer with authors such as C. P. Snow addressing differences between the scientific and literary cultures in Briatain. The idea of basic scientific literacy is somewhat more recent but can be dated back a fairly long way in the US. There have been a variety of different methods for assessing scientific literacy. Quantitative surveys, for example, can identify general trands in the public, but fail to explore the factors influencing the thoughts of individuals. Psycological approaches and social model formation are alternative methods of addressing the more complex factors involved. Undoubtedly there are huge difficulties in carrying out academic research on PUS – what is meant by understanding? What do the public need to understand? How does this differ between sub-populations?

July 25, 2009

Week 24: Are Anti–Science Sentiments a threat?

Follow-up to Week 23: The moral responsibility of scientists from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

Anti-Science. It’s a term that’s been used to descibe such a broad range of phenomena that it’s very difficult to answer the question in the title. I’m going to concentrate on what I think are the three main branches.

1. New Age-ism. This is all your crystal healing, homeopathy, astrology stuff. The main problem with this is its tendency to masquerade as Science. Motion of planets – science, crystals use the piezo electric effect – science, you get the idea. The main complaint against this is that it apparently damages scientific thought. I would contest that there is little more belief in this claptrap than there ever was and that it’s not going to really damage science (with a provisio given later).

2. Sociology. The analysis of scientific practice has gone a long way to showing that science isn’t quite as objective as people (scientists) like to make out. It apparently scares scientists to have this kind of criticism directed against them. There is a general push towards the idea that other forms of knowledge are equally valid. This is typified by things like feminist science which says that a more female (intuitive) science would come up with different results.

3. Anti-science for political gain. Here ‘science’ is used to make cultural or political gains. For example ID poses as a science to oppose evolution. The fear here is that a) people stop believing in the actual science and b) that people lose their ability to distinguish between science and not-science. I think that it is this form of anti-science which has the most potential damage.

The problem from the first two comes through scientism. Some people have made science out to be like a religion, and suggest that there is no room for other belief systems or other ways of thinking. I think that the in your face ‘scienec is the be all and end all’ approach is enough to put a lot of people off.

July 23, 2009

Week 23: The moral responsibility of scientists

Follow-up to Week 22: Science, Regulation and Standards from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

This week has been mostly addressing the question of whether science is divorced from morals as it would be if it were valueless. As I see it, science cannot be valueless and hence there has to be some impact of the morality of science. Scientists are human and hence it is expected that they should take a minimum of the same morality as anyone else. The question is whether scientists have a privileged position in society and should therefor have additional moral responsibilities. Should they apologise when they get things wrong? Should they take responsibility for the applications of science? Should scientists aim to be impartial? Does the commercialisation of science mean that the morality of scientists is compromised? Ultimately, is science selling out?

July 05, 2009

Week 22: Science, Regulation and Standards

Follow-up to Week 21: Science in Public Policy Decisions from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

This week I’ve been looking at how regulation influences science and conversely the role of science on influencing regulation. The two areas of focus were standards setting and technology forcing. Standards are generally seen as scientific – they tend to have a number which is considered a sign of tried and tested excellence. As it happens, very few standards have been scientifically tested and those that have rarely represent the pinnacle of the item involved but an acceptable minimum level (e.g. size of apple, sturdiness of glass). When science is used for policy or standard setting (which itself is usually taken on by non-governmental groups) it becomes mandated science.
Technology forcing has particularly interested me. The government really sets the scientific and technological scene by deciding where it will spend money on research, but technology forcing takes things one step further. The example we studied looked at Californian vehicle regulation in which companies were prohibited from marketing vehicles in the state if they didn’t produce a certain number of zero emission vehicles (electric cars). This forced the development of this technology but only worked as it was supported by changes in infrastructure. Linking back to last week’s study of acid rain, the emissions limits imposed on companies could also be seen as technology forcing as they forced companies to develop new technologies to reduce their emissions.
The circumstances of the legislature is very important when the effectiveness of technology forcing is considered. The Californian example was against a background of a country where people were seen as having both a right to drive and a right to clean air. In addition there was a long history of using new technology to overcome problems.

June 28, 2009

Week 21: Science in Public Policy Decisions

Follow-up to Week 19: Scientists as public experts from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

In this topic I’ve been looking at the role of science in policy making. We were looking in particular at the acid rain controversy of the 1980s. The provided text compared the UK and German positions, but I also looked into the US and Canadian positions which refected these quite closely. It’s interesting, in this case (and a number of others) it has been scientific uncertainty which provides legislators with the ability not to move, despite scientific advice to the contrary. There are so many factors that affect these supposedly scientific decisons and they very seldom rely on the science.

June 06, 2009

Week 19: Scientists as public experts

Follow-up to Week 18: Science Education: For Scientists or Citizens from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

This week’s topic was a bit of an off one as there didn’t seem to be very much to sink my teeth into. We looked at what is was to be an expert and the qualities that journalists look for when selecting experts to quote (they ring back is usually a top criteria). Theoretically being a scientific expert should (from the perspective of a scientist) mean that you’re at the forefront of research in your field (and you could only use your expert credentials in that field). As a public expert you need more atributes than that – communication skills are key, journalists need people to quote who can effectively provide soundbites and give clear and understandable descriptions of processes. They need to be able to see the possible applications of a finding or be prepared to warn of negative consequences. They need to offer unequivocal answers.
As a result public experts tend to be scientists towards the ends of their careers who have built up their communication skills and have little to lose by putting their necks out. Otherwise they are from relevant administative organisations.

May 28, 2009

Week 18: Science Education: For Scientists or Citizens

Follow-up to Week 17: Trust in Science from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

This is probably one of the most relevant units for me in the course but unfortunately the datedness of the materials has really let it down for me. It talks a lot about science for citizens and the role of education in fostering a better understanding of the way science works. Unfortunately it was written well before the science for the 21st century courses were launched a couple of years back.
There is a lot more emphasis now on the process of science but I think that this aspect of the course is very limited for a number of reasons

teachers are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the material
many teachers won’t have studied the scientific method (this tends not to be developed until postgraduate science)
it’s not (from what I gather) being incorporated into teacher training
there is not one method that applies to all of science anyway.

May 27, 2009

Week 17: Trust in Science

Follow-up to Week 16: Risk Perception from Every Nightmare Begins As a Dream

Traditional interpretation, and that that has long been promoted in schools is that scientists should be trusted as sources of new knowledge. They are portrayed as impartial and disinterested in the outcomes of their work – as catalogers of data. We are told that peer review will weed out all dodgy claims and that the scientific community is adequately self-regulating. It has, however become increasingly clear that this is not the case. A series of high profile disputes between scientists have shown that this knowledge isn’t uncontested and the public is more aware than ever about possible bias in science.
Back at the ‘dawn of modern science’ the veracity of a scientist was largely down to his social standing – gentalmanly conduct included truthfullness and thiose scientists whose knowledge passed into the general domain were gentlemen. What is more, due to the small population of scientists they were known personally to each other (and the more general gentle population) and hence trust was much easier to give. The increase in population and the increasing specialisation of science now means that there is much less face-to face communication and hence less trust in individuals. Trust is now in institustions.