Martin Bauer plans to map the societal conversation of science

Researchers concerned with public opinion about the relationship between science and society have begun a new discussion to improve the way surveys map this relationship (1).

UK bias

Public opinion surveys of science have been around since the 1950s. In the UK, however, they have been stigmatised by the idea that they are about measuring how ignorant the public is about science, and how anti-science it is. This is in spite of the fact that surveys can be interpreted to deal with broader themes than ignorance and anti-science.

Last November, the Royal Society hosted a workshop called International Indicators of Science and the Public (2). More than 25 researchers from all over the world gathered to reassess the relationship between science and society. We wanted to find out how people relate to science in all walks of life: to map the conversations of science.

We took a fresh look at survey research on public understanding of science. The relationship between science and the public varies between different cultures: people feel more or less familiar with science in their everyday lives. The idea that the public is mainly ignorant or anti-science is a spin on this state of affairs that adds little to the analysis of this relationship.

International databases

The Royal Society meeting highlighted the existence of a global database spanning the US, Canada, most of Latin America, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and all Western and Eastern European countries. Some of this information reaches back to the 1970s, and the aim of the research will be to analyse and compare trends over time.

Many scientists who sponsor these data in scientific institutions and government ministries are not in the best position to conduct the social scientific analysis, nor are the consultants who have done much of the work in recent years.

Using existing survey questions, the researchers hope to construct new measures like, for example, a ‘Cultural Distance Index’, to give a numerical value to people’s familiarity with science in different walks of life; or a ‘Science Culture Index’ which, similar to the Human Development Index, would give every country a score based on knowledge, attitudes, interest and public engagement together with R&D expenditure, the number of scientific researchers, and so on. Such comparable measures of the relationship between society and science would, we hope, move the discussion on.

Wider sources

In addition, we need to monitor mass media and study everyday conversations at different places.

Public deliberation such as consensus conferences, cafés scientifiques, deliberative opinion polling and so forth are strategic occasions for engaging the public in science. These contribute to the great conversation of science, together with the public relations efforts of research labs and hi-tech business. How do these events scale up in the country and over time? Can we create an international scoreboard for such events?

Laudable intentions are no substitute for evaluations; unintended consequences are always possible, even for successful events. And instead of reinventing the wheel for this purpose, why not develop the measures in our existing series of indices of knowledge, interest, attitude and engagement with science? We could assess how events such as consensus conferences and the rest scale up to make a difference in closing or widening the science-society gap and in changing the quality of that relationship. Not least in the UK, these measures go back to the 1980s when the Royal Society mobilised the scientific community with its Public Understanding of Science report (3).

Missed opportunity

The latest UK survey (4) seems to start elsewhere. None of the items compares further back than 2000. This looks like a missed opportunity to add value and to chart the changes in the British conversation of science.

Since the Royal Society meeting last November, we have had follow-up gatherings which have highlighted the regional expertise for Southern Asia and Latin America. Similar events are on the agenda for Japan and China. The recent Public Communication of Science and Technology meeting in Sweden, and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology conference in Rotterdam, saw specialist symposia on this topic.

Closer to home, we need goodwill and support to look at this material here in the UK without the spin of public ignorance and anti-science.

Reference

1. MW Bauer, N Allum, and S Miller (2007). What have we learnt from 25 years of PUS research – liberating and widening the agenda, Public Understanding of Science, 15,1, 1-17

2. http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=7200

3. W Bodmer (1985). The Public Understanding of Science. London: Royal Society

4. RCUK (2008) Public attitudes to science 2008, London: RCUK

Dr Martin W Bauer is Reader in Social Psychology and Research Methodology at the London School of Economics. He organised the Royal Society workshop together with Dr Rajesh Shukla (National Council of Applied Economic Research, Delhi) and Dr Nick Allum (Essex University).