Winston calls for new understanding between scientists and public
Martin Ince
Lord Winston, former president of the British Science Association, called for a new understanding between scientists and the public at the British Science Festival today.
He wants scientists to feel a bigger sense of obligation to the public that pays for their work, and he thinks that the public should feel more ownership of the science it pays for.
His presentation was based on his new book Bad Ideas? In it he says that all the key inventions in history, “right back to the hand axe,” have had a dangerous side. This includes cities and agriculture as well as more conventional inventions and discoveries.
He said: “In the book I set out eight key aphorisms, for instance that all key inventions are overpraised at the time they are announced, and that they always have a different importance from the one the inventor imagined.”
As an example of unintended consequences he cites the laser. “It would now be regarded as one of the most important inventions of the past 50 years,” said Lord Winston. “But when it was developed, nobody thought of CDs and DVDs, of lasers being used at every supermarket checkout, or of their use to send messages around the world and to carry out operations at the back of the human eye.”
Another technology with massive but unanticipated effects is the internet and the web. Designed for use by scientists, it now delivers free information to everybody as well as allowing them to do shopping and banking in new ways. But Lord Winston points out that it can also deliver “mistrust and sedition,” and that a serious breakdown of the web would be “a catastrophe.”
Part of the answer to this misunderstanding is for scientists to do more communication, but he adds that it is even more important for them to do more listening.
He calls on scientists to be “more humble” about their work and to communicate about it more openly. He says: “There is no point in scientists being ethical about their work if the public is not educated to appreciate it. Science should be seen as part of culture. If it is regarded as unacceptable not to have read Hamlet, why is it OK to admit that you do not understand the structure of the atomic nucleus?”
As a medical scientist, he is especially keen for people to know better what a randomised controlled trial is. He is scathing about the use of NHS money for homoeopathy, which he regards simply as “drugs that do not work.” More understanding of drug trials might reduce their attractiveness to the public.
Lord Winston, former president of the British Science Association, called for a new understanding between scientists and the public at the British Science Festival today.
He wants scientists to feel a bigger sense of obligation to the public that pays for their work, and he thinks that the public should feel more ownership of the science it pays for.
His presentation was based on his new book Bad Ideas? In it he says that all the key inventions in history, “right back to the hand axe,” have had a dangerous side. This includes cities and agriculture as well as more conventional inventions and discoveries.
He said: “In the book I set out eight key aphorisms, for instance that all key inventions are overpraised at the time they are announced, and that they always have a different importance from the one the inventor imagined.”
As an example of unintended consequences he cites the laser. “It would now be regarded as one of the most important inventions of the past 50 years,” said Lord Winston. “But when it was developed, nobody thought of CDs and DVDs, of lasers being used at every supermarket checkout, or of their use to send messages around the world and to carry out operations at the back of the human eye.”
Another technology with massive but unanticipated effects is the internet and the web. Designed for use by scientists, it now delivers free information to everybody as well as allowing them to do shopping and banking in new ways. But Lord Winston points out that it can also deliver “mistrust and sedition,” and that a serious breakdown of the web would be “a catastrophe.”
Part of the answer to this misunderstanding is for scientists to do more communication, but he adds that it is even more important for them to do more listening.
He calls on scientists to be “more humble” about their work and to communicate about it more openly. He says: “There is no point in scientists being ethical about their work if the public is not educated to appreciate it. Science should be seen as part of culture. If it is regarded as unacceptable not to have read Hamlet, why is it OK to admit that you do not understand the structure of the atomic nucleus?”
As a medical scientist, he is especially keen for people to know better what a randomised controlled trial is. He is scathing about the use of NHS money for homoeopathy, which he regards simply as “drugs that do not work.” More understanding of drug trials might reduce their attractiveness to the public.
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