Communicating the Public Understanding of Science ...

Communicating the public understanding of science: the Royal Society website Jonathan P. Bowen* Museophile Limited Oak Barn, Sonning Eye, Reading, Oxon RG4 6TN, United Kingdom E-mail: [email protected] URL: www.jpbowen.com *Corresponding author

Ann Borda Faculty of BCIM, London South Bank University Borough Road, London SE1 0AA, United Kingdom E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The United Kingdom’s Royal Society is widely considered the foremost scientific society in the country and one of the leading scientific institutions in the world. Like all modern organizations, it has been developing its web facilities to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of its users, including the public as well as its members. This paper surveys the progress of the Society’s website from its simple initial offering to the dynamic resource that is available today from a public perspective. This progress has been rapid, during a period of less that a decade for an institution that is well over three hundred years old. The services on offer are considered from the point of view of increasing the public’s understand of science, an important remit of the Society. Keywords: public understanding; science; websites; World Wide Web; education, Royal Society. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bowen, J.P. and Borda, A. (2009) ‘Communicating the public understanding of science: the Royal Society website’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 31, Nos. 1–2, pp. 146–164. Biographical notes: Prof. Jonathan P. Bowen is Chairman of Museophile Limited, a Visiting Professor at London South Bank University, and during 2006–2007 a visiting academic at University College London. His main interests include formal methods, online museums and the World Wide Web. Dr Ann Borda is a Visiting Research Fellow at London South Bank University. She works for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and was formerly Head of Collections Multimedia at the Science Museum in London. Her interests include information technology, online gaming, science museums and virtual communities.

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Background

The Royal Society is the oldest and most prestigious scientific society in the United Kingdom. It was started on 28 November 1660 and it soon received royal patronage through a Charter on 15 July 1662 (Hartley, 1960). The exact founder is a matter for debate as the following poem shows:

J.P. Bowen and A. Borda

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Who founded the R.S.? But with Sam’l Hartlib It’s a bit of a fib. Sir Christopher Wren Said its one of three men. Drs. Petty and Wallis Were medici corporis. The Hon. Robert Boyle In the background did toil, But young Robert Hooke The curatorship took, And led O, a dance Who published Phil. Trans. Dr. Wm. Croone Left the R.S. a boon, And J. Evelyn’s fame Was to give it its name.

I, said Charles Two T’was a Royal thing to do. I, said John Wilkins, Who married Sis Nollekins. Yes, said Tom Sprat, You well managed that. Tales, said John Wallis, Cum grano salis. I, said Bob Moray, My plan was to hurry. I, said Lord Brounker I was the sheet anchor. Well, said J. Goodard, Also Bathurst and Seth Ward, We were well to the for’ard. Theodore Haak Can some credit take,

– E. J. Bowen

In more modern times, like all organizations of note, the Society has started a website. The exact founder of this is no doubt equally uncertain, but the founder of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has since been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Since the late1990s, the Society’s website has developed rapidly to meet the demands of its users. This paper charts that development and provides context and comments on the progress from an external point of view, together with an assessment on how the current website contributes to the public understanding of science.

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Introduction

Scientists, advocates and policymakers have frequently cited the phrase “public understanding of science”. It is often associated with a variety of contexts, including institutional initiatives of the same name, but more precisely, it relates to the creation of a scientifically “literate” society (Wynne, 1992; Gregory and Miller, 1998; Borchelt, 2002; Burns et al., 2003). It can cover activities such as: preparation for work in areas of science and technology; being able to cope with science in daily life situations; participation in decision making about controversial issues with a science dimension; and recognition that science is a part of our cultural heritage and therefore an important part of general knowledge. Expertise in science and technology is increasingly called upon to contribute to public debate, decision-making and legislation. Indeed, the public requires a basic understanding if they are to diagnose the issues, enabling them to make informed and technical choices (Irwin, 2001; Borchelt, 2002; Burns et al., 2003). The role of the Royal Society since its inception has been integrally linked to the move into a knowledge society and part of an identified need to increase the general levels of scientific culture within society. A major milestone in this public science movement occurred in 1985 when the British Association for the Advancement of Science (the BA, www.the-ba.net), the Royal Institution (www.ri.ac.uk) and the Royal Society together founded the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science (www.copus.org.uk) in response to the Royal Society (1985) report 'The Public Understanding of Science'. Known as COPUS, the aim of the organization was to interpret scientific advances and make them more accessible to nonscientists. COPUS succeeded in opening up the research community to the wider world, and establishing standards for communicating science, as well as laying the foundations for expansive work in the area of public understanding among the Research Councils (providing governmental research funding, e.g., see Hargreaves and Ferguson, 2000), universities, professional bodies for scientists/engineers, the media, charities, museums and industries. The establishment of COPUS also coincided with an awareness of new forms of communication such as the Internet, which would become a pervasive dissemination vehicle over the following two decades. Not least, the Royal Society’s supporting role and its own responsiveness to new scientific technologies and other initiatives under the banner ‘public understanding of science’ is evident in the evolution of the Society’s website over a half decade. In particularly, the J.P. Bowen and A. Borda

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period between 1999 and the present shows active transformation of the website that can be considered in parallel with the appearance of several key reports from government and other sources. In the rest of this paper, we first summarize the development of the Royal Society website from a historical perspective. Then we consider the facilities of the current website in more detail, especially with respect to science education for the public. Finally, we draw some conclusions on what other scientific academies and societies could learn from the Royal Society website and how it could be improved for the future.

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Historical Perspective

The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) provides an online store of websites on various dates during their development. This provides an invaluable reference for web “archaeology”. Here we use the facility to provide an overview of the development of the Royal Society website (www.royalsoc.ac.uk) from its initial simple beginnings to the sophisticated website of today. Other organizations interested in the public understanding of science, such as museums, have experienced similar rapid developments online (Bowen et al., 2005).

3.1

1996–1998

The Royal Society’s website was initially hosted by the British Academy (the national academy for the humanities and the social sciences in the UK). In 1996, it was a very simple th site with a list of links on the home page (see Figure 1). One link (9 out of 12 in the list) was to ‘Education, COPUS and the public understanding of SET’. SET is science engineering and technology, although this was not clarified on the website. As well as the Royal Society, COPUS also included the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Institution. From 1987, COPUS had a grant scheme to support and encourage ways of making science accessible to public audiences in the UK, with funding from the UK government’s Office of Science and Technology (OST, www.ost.gov.uk) and the Royal Society, although this scheme is now closed. The brief information provided on the Royal Society website in 1996 stated that: “The Society has a major commitment to promoting greater scientific awareness in the general public.” Also, concerning science and mathematics education, “Policy for science and mathematics education at secondary and tertiary level is a major concern: in particular, the content and assessment of the secondary science and mathematics curricula, the supply and training of teachers, and the supply of skilled manpower in the UK.” However, very little information was provided online and this remained little changed for several years.


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Figure 1: Royal Society home page, 1996

3.2

1999

The homepage of the website in 1999 (see Figure 2) contained a single hierarchical and directory style layout with a set of uniform (equal emphasis) links including the following:   

COPUS and the public understanding of SET Meetings, lectures and exhibitions Science and mathematics education

This content is in keeping with the Royal Society mission, its authoritativeness and organizational focus, and through the appearance of news items supports the general theme of openness that came out of such sources as the guidelines issues by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser (1997) on Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making. The information was expanded from the 1996 website, although is still rather basic. There was information on lectures for the public. Four lectures were listed in January 1999, with details of the title, speaker, date, time and a brief abstract in each case. 1999 also represents an important reference point prior to the millennial year 2000 which would mark an escalation in the notion of scientific literacy in the UK public’s (and government’s) consciousness, for instance with the BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease) crisis and genetic research developments, which were headlining in television news and other media.


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Figure 2: Royal Society home page, January 1999

3.3

2000–2001

In the United Kingdom, a House of Lords (2000) study provided a major re-definition of the landscape in relation to the need for an “understanding of scientific matters by non-experts.” According to the report, the global term “public understanding of science” has become a catch all phrase for “forms of outreach by the scientific community, or by others on their behalf (e.g. science writers, museums, event organizers), to the public at large, aimed at improving knowledge.” Rather, the House of Lords report introduced a key phrase – “public engagement with science and technology” – that implied the need for a conversation about science between scientists and the public, where both sides can learn from and about the other’s perspective. The House of Lords’ emphasis on dialogue recognizes that the public in conjunction with any technical comprehension of a scientific topic also relies on trust and social values in forming an opinion. Following the House of Lords report, COPUS underwent a significant review; it was remodeled as a more inclusive partnership for science communication in the UK. The new COPUS Council (which met in spring 2001) benefited from the direct input of research funding bodies, learned institutions, museums, science centers and the media, as well as the three original founding organizations. Another significant report to be published was ‘Science and the Public: a review of science communication and public attitudes to science in Britain’ (Office of Science and Technology and Wellcome Trust, 2000). This brought together research that mapped the provision of science communication with research exploring attitudes to science, engineering and technology. It gave information about public attitudes to science at a general level and about the ways in which the public spends its spare time. The intention was to provide this information for providers and funders of activities to enable better targeting and refinement of existing activities and the development of new activities that would engage people in science


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in their spare time, rather than at work as part of their job. Hence, it was designed to underpin the development of the relationship between science and society. The year 2000 also saw the appearance of published ‘Guidelines on Science and Health Communication’. These were produced by the Social Issues Research Centre together with the Royal Institution of Great Britain in an effort to address concern expressed within the health and science communities regarding the ways in which some issues are covered in the media. The topic would continue to increase in importance over the coming years as the public understanding of science would become increasingly linked with media perceptions and coverage. The guidelines themselves would be revised to address some of the growing issues (Social Issues Research Centre, 2001). Both the impact and outcomes of the 2000 reports on the wider scene can be gauged from the Royal Society website in early February 2001 (see Figure 3). The website is contrastingly more ‘user-friendly’ with iconic graphics, and clearly targeted sections matching government priority areas, such as ‘Science for All’ and ‘Science Policy’. There is a noticeable emphasis on public outreach through news items and highlighted exhibition: New frontiers in Science. ‘New frontiers’ is a noted area of interest among survey respondents (National Science Foundation, 2001). In addition and noticeably, there are fewer links relating to the Society and its members’/Fellows’ activities on the website at this top level.

Figure 3: Royal Society home page, February 2001

3.4

2002–2003

In October 2002, the Office of Science and Technology commissioned the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) to look at how the UK government should receive advice on science communication policy and activities from other organizations (British Association, 2002). The COPUS council stepped down following the report and is now solely a grant body. Also in 2002, the Royal Society submitted to the House of Commons a report on Scientific Learned Societies. The report recognized scientific publishing as the cornerstone of modern science. It highlighted the great uncertainty about the potential impact on the J.P. Bowen and A. Borda

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scientific community of the current proposals for open access journals. Importantly, it emphasized the vital role that learned society (not-for-profit) publishers play in the scientific community in using their publishing surplus to support and fund scientists and engineers, as well as to undertake science communication and public dialogue programs. The Royal Society website in 2002 reflected many of the widespread movements in the area of public understanding of science that was taking place outside the UK. For instance, there is a noticeably broader scope to include international developments. Media news items such as the profiling of physicist Paul Davies of Australia shows the interest in and recognition of scientific enquiry beyond the UK. The UK focus is provided in the continuation of a Science Policy link and in outreach activities in the form of conferences, lectures and educational programs. There was also the provision of prominent links to other websites that served as pointers for the public to external authoritative resources, and hence gave an indication of the broadening of online resources now becoming available (and supporting the growing public use of the Internet for seeking information). In 2003, the Royal Society website homepage (see Figure 4) was dominated by positive images of ‘science in action’, for example showing women scientists, and children interacting with the environment. The public oriented revision of the website is further emphasized by a large central frame containing Notice board of Royal Society activities, what’s new, and media related items, including a ‘Tell us what you think!’ email link button to encourage public feedback and engagement on popular media subjects like ‘Cloning & stem cells’. There is also a notice for a video-on-demand lecture by Tim Berners-Lee, which reinforces the widening scope for ‘popular culture’ subjects. Importantly, the topic underlines the significance of the Internet in the choice of Berners-Lee as an invited speaker, and not least the use of web technology in the delivery of the lecture (i.e., online video). The left hand side navigation links are revised as well. There is the continuation of ‘Science Policy’, but the additional introduction of ‘Science in Society’ and ‘Scientist Profiles’. As in 2002, the international dimension is represented, although with a clear link of its own in the 2003 version. Additionally, the public is offered the option of registering for ‘updates’ which is a more proactive form of information provision and serves as a personalized communication channel beyond the website.


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Figure 4: Royal Society home page, November 2003

3.5

2004–2006

Subsequently, in 2004 and the latter half of 2005, the media is seen to dominate the debates around scientific issues and supports the connection made to media coverage and scientific literacy (Nisbet, 2005). In addition, the notion of ‘public’ is increasingly becoming segmented by social identities and values such as religion, partisanship, education, identity, ethnicity, occupation, region, locality, and prior knowledge. This is, perhaps, where dialogue and interaction with the public can play a more optimal role in the current situation, as scientists and their institutions learn about the perspectives and concerns of these particular social groups, and then tailor their public understanding of science activities accordingly. The Royal Society website in this period has clearly kept in step with the ongoing dialogue and with the identification of a more defined public and their separate requirements and uses of information in the understanding of science. On the homepage (see Figure 5), there are categories of links serving different segments of the public: Information for Fellows; Scientists; Policy makers; Teachers; Popular science; Media; and more recently Students. The website has similarly remained current in its use of Internet technology and in engaging the public who may be well informed in this, even if they may not be experts in scientific knowledge. In November 2004, the Royal Society website user interface was completely updated, as can be seen in Figure 5. The new site also introduces “blogs” for public interaction and provides streaming video of lectures that both complement the physical event and reach a wider audience. Consideration of the UK 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, which came fully into force on 1 October 2004, has been included in the design; for example, it is possible to select a ‘Text only’ link (see Figure 6) and to enlarge the text interactively. The site claims to meets level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines (www.w3.org/WAI). Although this is the middle of three levels, in practice most websites only met the lowest level of compatibility (A) or do not comply at all. They also comply with W3C web coding standards such as XHTML 1.0 (www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, www.w3.org/Style/CSS), which also aids accessibility and compatibility with different browsers. This widens access of the information to a greater range of users, including disabled people, especially the blind, who typically use text-reading software in conjunction with a normal web browser. Accessibility is an important feature for public access that is now a legal requirement in the UK (Bowen, 2005), and the Royal Society seems to be setting an commendable example for others to follow. Understanding and being sympathetic to the issues is key to successful provision of such facilities for the public in an effective and wholehearted manner, as is the case here. Overall, it is the ability to find a balance and contemporaneousness, despite the changing landscape of the public understanding of science, which characterizes the Royal Society website. It also continues to underpin the Society’s role as a responsive and exemplary communicator in the field.


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Figure 5: Royal Society home page, April 2006


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Figure 6: Royal Society ‘Text only’ home page, April 2006

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The current website

We now consider how the current website (see Figure 5) contributes to the public understanding of science. The website allows users to sign up for and receive email information on events, including both public meetings and discussion lectures, on a regular basis (see Figure 7). There are also discussion forums (under ‘Share your views’) and further email lists for news stories, scientist profiles and current scientific issues. This has the potential to engage the public with science in a very direct and cost-effective way. The forthcoming events diary is available directly on the website, as well as via email. There is a growing video and audio library archive of more than 30 webcasts of events organized by the Royal Society. Public lectures and prize lectures are videoed for later use. For example, there is a lecture on “The future of the World Wide Web” by Tim Berners-Lee, FRS, as previously mentioned, delivered on 22 September 2003, with slides accompanying the video presentation (www.royalsoc.ac.uk/portals/bernerslee/rnh.htm). Podcast RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for both audio and video are available, allow people to listen to Royal Society lectures at their convenience on their iPod using a program such as iTunes. This service is likely to develop further in the future.


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Figure 6: Royal Society email message, April 2006 An ‘Engaging with the public’ section (under ‘Our work’ on the home page) covers a number of aspects concerning the public understanding of science. These include the following topics (as of April 2006):          

Events Science in Society programme Dialogue initiative Communication & media training Aventis Prizes for Science Books Scientists and Parliament Einstein versus Newton Science Writer Awards 2006 Celebrating British Science Risk assessment workshop


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A wide-ranging set of events is aimed at non-specialists and students, and specifically nonscientists. Some are presented by non-scientists, often in collaboration with other institutions. There is also a Summer Science Exhibition, which is the Royal Society’s largest annual event for the public. This presents around 20 to 25 exhibits, selected from UK universities, research institutions and companies. The ‘Science in Society’ program started in 2000 to promote informed discussion of key issues like BSE (colloquially known as “mad cow disease”) and genetically modified food. The program includes the following: Dialogue (with the public and others): The dialogue program aims “to promote Science in Society learning between science institutions and civil society”. Since 2001, the Royal Society has organized a theme-based series of workshops around the United Kingdom each year, together with a national forum for discussing social issues concerning developments in the area of science and technology. The meetings offer a forum for participants to develop recommendations as input for UK scientific policy and decisions. So far, there have been more than 600 participants, including the public, scientists, social scientists, the media, industry, government ministers, policy makers and other societal groups. Subjects have included ‘Trust in Science’, ‘Genetic Testing’, ‘Cybertrust and Information Security’, and ‘Pharmacogenetics’. Some of the programs have explicitly included young people in the discussions. Royal Society Kohn Award for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science: This is for UK scientists and science communicators, to recognize their role in the engagement of society with scientific issues, such as social and ethical aspects. The program also enables pairings of scientists and Members of Parliament to help form communication links between scientific researchers and government, by allowing scientists to spend around a week engaged with an MP. Also part of the Science in Society program, on 30 September 2005, a Risk Assessment workshop was held. Documents from this workshop are available in the Society’s website. The Society organizes communication skills and media training courses for scientists, given by journalists and other experts, to help in communicating their enthusiasm for science to the public. In addition, the Aventis Prizes are annual book awards for popular science writing aimed at both adults and children. An Einstein vs. Newton debate (now closed) was promoted by the Royal Society in November 2005, allowing a vote between the two on their relative scientific impact, as part of the Einstein Year celebrations. Some 1,363 members of the public responded to the vote online and 345 Royal Society scientists answered an email questionnaire. In the event, Newton drew more votes, especially from the scientists. The Daily Telegraph and Bayer Science Writer Awards are supported by the Royal Society. These are aimed at scientific writers who try to condense scientific literature into a form more suited for a general readership, a useful service even for other scientists. Finally, as part of the UK National Science Week in 2006, the Royal Society and the Office of Science and Technology (part of the governmental Department of Trade and Industry) held a half-day meeting to celebrate British science. Speakers included two government ministers, the President of the Royal Society and five researchers. Webcasts of all the presentations are available on the Society’s website. Overall, the website includes an interesting range of information concerning the public understanding of science. This is aimed both at the public themselves and those wishing to promote this area themselves.

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Conclusion

Initially the Royal Society was somewhat reticent in its use of the web. It was certainly not at the vanguard of web usage in the 1990s, with little information available online. However, more recently it has taken significant steps to improve its online web provision. It has progressed rapidly to provide a website that meets all the important web standards requirements, including accessibility. This may be partly because of the acceptance of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001.


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Much useful information is now available directly from the Society’s website. For example, facilities such as the webcasts (and podcasts) allow a member of the public anywhere in the world to listen to lectures delivered at the Royal Society at a time that is convenient for them. The facilities seem to be developing rapidly and a unique archive of high-quality scientific material suitable for the public will build up in time on the website. More interaction could be included by allowing the online audience to ask questions and perhaps interactive directly with speakers in an online discussion (e.g., via a multi-user instant messaging system). Other scientific academies and societies could follow the lead that the Royal Society has now taken. In particular, such organizations should lead by example and ensure that their websites are exemplary in terms of adherence to technical web standards to ensure a high degree of accessibility for the public and others. They should also use their unique position to generate real content for their websites. This can be in the form of printable documents, but more personally and engagingly, it can include live and recorded events (both audio and video). Creating a community around the website is important (Beler et al., 2004). The Royal Society has started to do this with their discussion forums and email newsletters. It could be taken a step further with a more comprehensive set of online forums and personalization of the website for individual users, using the same registration scheme to identify the individual (Bowen and Filippini-Fantoni, 2004; Filippini-Fantoni et al., 2005). Other collaborative and community-building technologies such as a Wiki (www.wiki.org) could further enhance the facilities and give a sense of participation (Ebersbach et al., 2006). The Royal Society could expand its scope on the web beyond its own website and encourage participation in other educational community endeavors such as the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). Advice for educational organizations like museums is also relevant to societies such as the Royal Society (Bowen and Angus, 2006). Bias in the website should be eliminated where possible, whether through gender, race, religion, etc. This aspect is not one that is greatly emphasized by the current Royal Society website, but should be considered by all such societies. Often educational websites are biased against women in their style of presentation; e.g., see Boiano et al. (2006), Bowen et al. (2006), and specifically for science museums, Gunn et al. (2006). The present Fellows are dominated by traditionally male white scientists, but addressing such issues further with respect to the website, especially the parts intended for the public, would be a good goal for the future. For example, science is traditionally less attractive to women; exploring and countering this stereotypical situation would be worthwhile. It could also be interesting and beneficial to encourage more interdisciplinary activities between science and the arts using the Royal Society website in combination with others as an enabler for such endeavors (Bowen and d’Inverno, 2006). In summary, the Royal Society has made great strides in the development of its website over the last decade, including covering aspects of the public understanding of science. After a slow start compared to other organizations with academic interests, the Society has now caught up with and indeed overtaken many other related organizations in the scientific field with respect to its website provision. Of course, this is a fast-moving area, so significant developments will continue to be needed in order to maintain its current position.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to Museophile Limited (www.museophile.com) for support.

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Appendix: Excerpt Science and Technology – Third Report (House of Lords, 2000) 23 February 2000

Introduction (Chapter 1) 1. Society's relationship with science is in a critical phase. Science today is exciting, and full of opportunities. Yet public confidence in scientific advice to Government has been rocked by BSE; and many people are uneasy about the rapid advance of areas such as biotechnology and IT - even though for everyday purposes they take science and technology for granted. This crisis of confidence is of great importance both to British society and to British science.

Public attitudes and values (Chapter 2) 2. Public interest in science in the United Kingdom is high. Survey data reveal, however, negative responses to science associated with Government or industry, and to science whose purpose is not obviously beneficial. These negative responses are expressed as lack of trust. 3. We detect several strands within this situation:       

The perceived purpose of science is crucial to the public response. People now question all authority, including scientific authority. People place more trust in science which is seen as "independent". There is still a culture of governmental and institutional secrecy in the United Kingdom, which invites suspicion. Some issues currently treated by decision-makers as scientific issues in fact involve many other factors besides science. Framing the problem wrongly by excluding moral, social, ethical and other concerns invites hostility. What the public finds acceptable often fails to correspond with the objective risks as understood by science. This may relate to the degree to which individuals feel in control and able to make their own choices. Underlying people's attitudes to science are a variety of values. Bringing these into the debate and reconciling them are challenges for the policy-maker.

4. Knowledge obtained through scientific investigation does not in itself have a moral dimension; but the ways in which it is pursued, and the applications to which it may be put, inevitably engage with morality. Science is conducted by individuals; as individuals and as a collection of professions, scientists must have morality and values, and must be allowed, indeed expected, to apply them to their work. By declaring the values which underpin their work, and by engaging with the values and attitudes of the public, they are far more likely to command public support. 5. The importance of this is not confined to scientists; it extends to those who make policy on the basis of scientific opportunities and advice. Policy-makers will find it hard to win public support on any issue with a science component, unless the public's attitudes and values are recognised, respected and weighed along with the scientific and other factors.


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Public understanding of science (Chapter 3) 6. There has been a cultural change in the attitude of most British scientists, in favor of public outreach activities. Activities to improve the public understanding of science now receive support from Government and industry. 7. However, the crisis of trust has produced a new mood for dialogue. In addition to seeking to improve public understanding of their work, scientists are beginning to understand its impact on society and on public opinion. 8. Efforts to improve relationships between science and society take many forms. We have reviewed some of the principal influences:     

COPUS, the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, formed in 1986 by three of the leading organizations in this field, the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS); The Research Councils and Higher Education Funding Councils, through which the British Government funds academic research; Science museums and science centers; The Internet; Special initiatives for women.

9. Much excellent work is being done to raise the public understanding of science. All these institutions must, however, respond to the new mood for dialogue. Some are already doing so.


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