The misappliance of science

Their job is to increase public understanding of their field, but they're falling down on it. Hugh Aldersey-Williams names the guilty men

Science is fascinating and controversial. So why are our new professors of the public understanding of science so dreary? And why do they not do what their job title says they should?

Let's start with Richard Dawkins, the first Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, a position endowed in 1995. His tenure has been notable mainly for his outbursts against religion, and Christ-ianity in particular. That's fine by me; I'm an atheist, too. But is it the most important thing he could use his position to say? Does his saying it do anything at all to increase the public understanding of science? Or does it perhaps put people off science and scientists?

Professor Lewis Wolpert stepped down last year after five years as chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS), established by the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986, but nevertheless maintains his media profile. His leitmotif is that science is not the same as technology - an argument he uses to excuse scientists from any obligation to make ethical decisions about their work. So it isn't, but the real world is more complicated than Wolpert's black and white painting of it. Scientists are often happy to remind people of their role in preparing the ground for technologies that have proved beneficial, so it hardly seems fair to absolve them of all responsibility for the development of technologies that prove less attractive.

Wolpert has another tune, which is that scientific creativity is absolutely nothing like artistic creativity. The two activities are indeed different in crucial respects - for example, that it really does not matter in science precisely who makes a particular discovery, only that it is made - but others have made constructive contributions and boosted the public understanding of science - and probably art, too - by exploring the overlaps. The aim of Wolpert's simplistic arguments seems to be to isolate science and "pure" scientists from the wider world. But isolationism won't help the professors to explain or us to understand.

The third of these grumpy old men is John Durant, Imperial College's professor of the public understanding of science, a post also established in 1995. He got hot under the collar last year with the release of the feature film of The X-Files, warming over one of Dawkins's old arguments that The X-Files' pseudo-scientific jargon somehow impugns real science. (It was Dawkins's rant against the television series in the first place that got me watching; I had never seen The X-Files and wanted to know what could possibly drive an Oxford professor to such distraction.)

But hold on, Mr Scientist. It's fiction. That's why we watch it. We know it's not real. That's what makes it fun. Entertainment, you see. Criticising The X-Files for pseudo- science and suggesting that it has the potential to undermine real science is like a hotelier saying Fawlty Towers doesn't accurately reflect the art of hotel-keeping and might put people off going to a real hotel.

To his credit, Durant weighs all this. He acknowledges that we can be sceptical about things such as The X-Files or new-age philosophy, even while indulging in them. This scepticism in itself reflects the triumph of the scientific manner of thought. But he doesn't like it when people turn the focus of that scepticism on to science itself. So he, too, sees the scientist as an embattled hero, fighting off all comers with the simple sword of truth (bargain, unused, owner moved away). If war is not waged, the forces of what he mysteriously calls "serious pseudo- science" will win. (Is The X-Files serious pseudo-science? If so, what on earth is flippant? And what about Dr Who and Star Trek, which have cult followings among many scientists themselves?)

All these arguments are worth making - once. They are not worth labouring. But this is what the professors have been doing. The fact of the matter is that it is easier to attack these paper tigers than actually to help the public to understand science, which, on the face of it, seems to be what a professor of the public understanding of science ought to be doing.

In fact, the professors appear to want science to be seen as difficult and dreary. "Life would be so much easier," drones Durant, "if only knowledge came, not from the hard work of achieving genuine understanding, but rather from spontaneous intuitions and direct wire transfers into one's subconscious."

Science isn't easy. But people are at least curious and concerned about it. The same cannot be said for all areas about which there is widespread ignorance. People want to learn. "Make me understand," says the token non-scientist - a woman, of course - in Stephen Poliakoff's recent play, Blinded by the Sun, about the bureaucratisation of scientific research in Britain, and a shining example of art broadcasting a message that you'd think even Wolpert would want heard.

Nor is science the only subject that's difficult. Yet we struggle by without professors for the public understanding of, say, contemporary music or economics. Science is difficult, but it's also fun and weird, exciting and alarming. But the professors do not tell us this. We don't even learn about their personal interests. How many of us could connect Dawkins, Wolpert or Durant with their chosen "-ologies"?

The media rules of the game don't help. More often than not, these figures are called upon to "defend" science in a staged debate with an over-emotional and under-informed opponent of whatever is the impending "advance" in the spotlight. And with science "critics" such as Bryan Appleyard feeding them the rope, one can almost forgive them being so doleful. The trouble is that these gentlemen can be relied upon to line up for science every time. What sort of public understanding of science does it convey if science is pronounced to have the right answer every time? Perhaps one that suits Jack Cunningham, but not one that people should believe. Science like this (technology, Wolpert would insist) led us to DDT, CFCs and BSE.

The tone is wrong, too. Prompted by public fears over "Frankenstein foods", Dawkins wrote a letter to the Independent sarcastically pointing out that we have been genetically modifying food for centuries by the selective breeding of plants and animals (not quite true, but let it pass). As pertinent was the letter that came back in response, pointing out that we are biologically conditioned to be wary of unfamiliar foods and that what went for Robinson Crusoe gingerly trying strange fruit on his desert island also goes for us now confronted by Monsanto's latest marvel. It would not have gone beyond Dawkins's remit to have presented both sides of the argument.

It need not be like this. There have been, and are, public figures who increase the public understanding of science through sheer enthusiasm: Patrick Moore, David Bellamy, David Attenborough; take your pick. In the United States, Carl Sagan was the pre-eminent spokesman for science. Until his death in 1996, he stimulated public interest in the exploration of our solar system. But he also popularised, if that's the word, the concept of nuclear winter. His experience of research in the chemistry of atmospheres made him informed on both topics. (And, rather than wring his hands over the fact that Mary Shelley's "anti-scientific" Frankenstein was ever published, as Wolpert often does, he told me something new, interesting - and scientific - about it, which is that the book, along with Byron's poem "Darkness", was written in the freakishly cold summer following a major volcanic eruption; hence the ice-bound narrative.) Sagan showed that spreading a scientific message was not an isolated activity, but something that could sit with a social conscience. He wanted to see an inquiring but sceptical public, not one predisposed to accept everything some scientist says is a good thing.

It is unfortunate that the first generation of professors of the public understanding of science have interpreted their role as one of antagonism. They may have strangled this ponderously named vocation in its infancy, damaging science in the process. Since 1995, no university has followed Oxford and Imperial's example, although the University of Bristol this term launches its Collier Chair (named, one notes in passing, after a former chairman of Nuclear Electric) in the public understanding of science and technology, with three people, none of them research scientists, taking turns at the job for a year apiece. This is perhaps an indication that "pure" scientists have failed in the role so far. First into the chair is BT's soapbox technophile, Peter Cochrane. It seems one of his tasks will be to allay public fears about mobile phones, which hardly bodes well.

But a different crew may revitalise the task. The incoming wave of science spokespeople are women. Dame Bridget Ogilvie has taken over from Wolpert at COPUS. She was until recently the director of the Wellcome Trust, which has made it part of its job to emphasise the connections of science with arts and society rather than its separation. Professor Susan Greenfield is the new director of the Royal Institution and may raise that organisation's public profile. Bristol's next incumbent is Sally Duensing, a director of San Francisco's renowned Exploratory science centre. There is reason to expect from these appointments a more constructive dialogue in the future. They will be a welcome change from the curmudgeons we have heard so far.

The British Association Annual Festival of Science runs from 13-17 September in Sheffield

Hugh Aldersey-Williams is working on books on the literature of science and science and nationalism for Granta Publications. He is the author of "The Most Beautiful Molecule" (Aurum Press), which describes the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, the molecular third form of the element carbon, for which the discoverers were awarded the 1996 Nobel prize for chemistry

Post this article to

• Digg
• del.icio.us
• facebook
• newsvine
• NowPublic
• Reddit

We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.