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Scientists meet the publicWendy Sadler As part of the Royal Society, Science in Society programme, Wendy Sadler (Techniquest public programmes) was invited to attend a dialogue meeting between Scientists and the Public held at The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on 25 January. Here she provides a detailed view of the day. This 'dialogue day' was the last of four similar meetings held in venues across the country. The aim of the meetings was to provide a springboard for the Royal Society to find out more about how the public view science (and scientists) and to get some scientists together with members of the public to share views. The Royal Society wanted to assess public opinion and get ideas of how it could change it's way of working to closer meet the needs of the public. We were told very little about the structure of the day and I was intrigued about exactly who 'the public' would be at this meeting. I assumed that working within the Science Communication industry I was classed as one of the scientists, but as the discussions progress throughout the day I found myself becoming a diplomat between the academic scientists and the 'public'. This of course is an important point, just because I am a scientist, it doesn't mean I am not also a member of the public! I was slightly disappointed that there were less 'non-scientist' public amongst the discussion group that I was involved in. I was looking forward to hearing opinions from those who have little day-to-day involvement in science. As it happened I was on a table with the Head of a University Biosciences Dept, A Royal Society Fellow Post-doc, and the Director of National Museums and Galleries of Wales! I was relieved then to also have a member of the Police force who is actively involved in running community programmes with youth groups. It must be said that she felt rather unsure why she had been invited to this meeting which made me wonder how the 'public' involved had been picked. On investigation I found out that an advert had been put in the local paper and letters had been sent to target various community organisations. The first task we were set was to brainstorm on post-it notes the reasons we thought that the public had lost confidence in science. This was based on the results of a MORI poll that apparently proved that people had lost confidence in science. There was some contention from those present that this was really the case (mainly from the non-scientist public), but despite this we got stuck in to discussing what problems there were. The Museum Director had an Arts background that helped dilute the academic scientists on our table. When we criticized poor media coverage of science, he rightly pointed out that there had been a huge amount of funding given to science programmes in the last few years (Walking with Dinosaurs, How to Clone a Human etc) and that it was very unlikely there would be that amount of support for Arts programmes. In addition he pointed out that for every post-it note we wrote about the problems with science, you could replace the word 'science' with 'art' or even 'the police force' and it would still highlight the same problems. His very valid point was that scientists seem to think they are the only ones with problems with public perception but that in fact it applied to many other subjects too-look at the media representation of the Turner Prize. After pooling ideas from all 41 participants we voted and edited them down to six key problems:
The groups then divided into tables allocated to each of these issues. The aim was to define some general actions and some specific Royal Society actions that could help improve the current situation. I was involved in the discussion about the media representation of science that was chaired by a (non-scientist) Producer from BBC Wales. A fellow of the Royal Society spoke in glowing terms of the media training he had received through a Royal Society initiative and so we concluded that more media training for scientists would be a way forward. We also discussed science training for the media, in fact a buddying scheme where a scientist and a member of the media learn from each other in a partnership over a period of time, rather than in a hastily built relationship when a news story breaks. In addition we thought that an independent research body like The Royal Society could assign levels of research to scientific findings. The media should then be obliged to include this rating in their reports. For example research that has yet to be peer-reviewed could have an amber rating. Research that has undergone the peer-review process could be given a green rating. It was thought that this would help the public become aware of the scientific progress and the uncertainty involved in some areas of research. Each of the six tables then reported back their thoughts on how the Royal Society could help with the six key problems we had identified that morning. A full report of these conclusions can be found at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/scienceinsociety/data/meetings/index.html Many of the emerging conclusions to the problem have been discussed before but the difference with this event was that it included outsiders to the scientific and science communication community. What struck me was that most of the non-scientist public didn't seem to think science did have a problem. The way that the government handle the science data, perhaps. The application of science for commercial gain, perhaps - but the overwhelming feeling from those present was that science did an awful lot of good. Of course, as one member of the 'public' pointed out, those out there who don't trust scientists wouldn't have come along to a meeting with them! I felt the day was a good start in getting scientists talking to non-scientists about the issues involved in their work. One possible solution that seemed to echo through all the different problem-solving debates was partnership. Partnership between schools and scientists, partnerships between scientists and journalists, and partnerships between scientists and members of the public. From my perspective, this is where science centres can help. Techniquest co-ordinates a teacher scientist network that pairs up scientists with teachers, and ECSITE-UK are currently implementing a 'Meet the Scientist' project that brings scientist into direct contact with the public at their local science centre. Perhaps it is not our place to do something with the media as well, but certainly we can help break down the boundaries with schools and the public. And finally, it's worth remembering that the public view of science may not be as bad as we sometimes believe. Newsletter Spring 2002 Contents Fabricators' Event 2001
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