Public engagement in science

Posted by Andrew Wadge on June 29th 2007 in Science in Government

At a Demos meeting this week, the Government Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, gave a keynote address on ‘where next for public engagement in science?’  A member of my team has told me that Sir David spoke of the importance of the Universal Ethical Code for Scientists in winning trust. 

In an earlier blog I said how the Agency’s core values and the commitment to sound governance have provided us with a good platform to earn trust. I fully endorse this code and have now incorporated it into the Agency’s governance of science framework.

Later in the Demos meeting there was a discussion of a new social contract for scientists that also touched on the key issue of winning trust in expert advice.  A number of eminent panellists spoke on this issue and I was particularly interested to learn that Ben Goldacre - a doctor, writer and ‘Bad Science’ columnist for the Guardian - spoke about the difficulty of communicating science effectively and the tensions between the need for clarity of message and the weight and density of the supporting evidence. 

He advocated a viral communication model based on trusted sources of information and spread by those in society who are interested in science and want to understand the evidence before advocating the message.

In my blog I am trying to reach out to those of you who are interested in the science behind the story and encourage you to access the depth of evidence and analysis that drive the Board's public discussions of policy.

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Media responsibility, viral and Web 2.0

Posted by Andrew Wadge on 18/07/2007 - 15:21

Dear Louise, Wyn and Ben,

I’ve finally found some time to revisit this debate and address some of the interesting points you’ve raised. Thanks for these.

I’ll talk about trust first. Yes, trust can be damaged and stories are sometimes inaccurately or sensationally reported, but scientists do have a responsibility to ensure that new developments or risks are communicated in as straightforward a way as possible.

We take a lot of time at the Agency to fine tune messages whenever possible so they are as straightforward as possible and I think we’ve got better at this over the years.

We did quite a lot of work a few years ago exploring what consumers understood by the term ‘theoretical risk’ and alternative ways of expressing terms such as ‘genotoxic carcinogen’. I think we also have a responsibility to understand the environments in which most journalists operate – 24-hour news channels, hundreds of websites, newspaper supplements, magazines. And at the end of the day, readers or viewers won’t trust a title or programme if it consistently gets things wrong.

One good thing about newspapers having more space to fill nowadays is that there is potentially more space for meaningful analysis of the kind done by science writers such as Ben.

And finally, Louise’s point about Web 2. We’ve always promoted our websites as a source of ‘unmediated’ information and this blog is an extension of that – an opportunity for my colleagues and me to explain, in Ben’s words, the evidence behind the news, or, as we call it at the Agency, the science behind the story.

The responsibility of the media

Posted by Wyn Jones (not verified) on 13/07/2007 - 08:44

Scientific engagement is paramount in order to maintain the trust between science and the public. Any trust that can be built however is often demaged or destroyed by irresponsible and inaccurate reporting by the media. It is in the media's interest to be alarmist or sensationalist in order to promote a story even if the truth behind the science gets lost or is misrepresented. The science community needs to find a way to change the perception of science portrayed by the media.

viral

Posted by bengoldacre (not verified) on 03/07/2007 - 16:25

Delighted to get a mention. I really do think that there is a vast herd of people out there who can understand tricky stuff, and are a resource waiting to be tapped. People can be wrong about an issue in so many ways, and can only be disabused of their idiosyncratic misunderstandings in a very tailored way, especially with science, where there is always a varying amount of background to fill in.

There is no single document that could explain the data on mmr and autism to everyone in the country, say, but it is easy to imagine a good solid single source of precis info that people could have read as a resource to subsequently advocate with.

I think 'evidence behind the news' services like Hitting the Headlines are particularly excellent for that kind of viral explanation of real evidence on relevant issues.

National Library for Health

Blogging and Web 2.0

Posted by Louise Manning (not verified) on 29/06/2007 - 12:12

I think that blogging and Web 2.0 provides a huge opportunity for scientists not only to communicate with each other, but also to communicate to everyone else. Whilst the challenge historically for scientists has been to make new discoveries and push boundaries further, I believe the challenge for scientists of my generation and after will be to communicate more effectively what we do, why we do it and why science is so important to all our lives, otherwise we will not gain people's trust and they will not value what we do.