| Spending review: Is poor advice betraying UK science and engineering? The UK is reputedly poor at capitalising on its scientific excellence. Is this due to a lack of vision in the advice given to politicians?Crises provide opportunities, as every good manager knows.From my point of view as a particle physicist there is a very dangerous kind of opportunist lurking in and around Whitehall. You don't have to be a genius to realise that if swingeing cuts are made in the science budget, huge damage will be inflicted on the scientific standing and economic future of the UK. But some influential people in the science policy arena see this as an opportunity to remove an annoying anomaly - the UK's leadership in particle physics. In particular they seem to loathe CERN, the world-leading laboratory of which the UK is a founder member. I'm sorry if this sounds paranoid, but the evidence is they are out to get me.I don't think this threat comes from politicians and I don't detect a massive change here between Labour and the coalition. David Willetts is on record praising CERN (and Margaret Thatcher's decision to stay in it), and in his speech on Wednesday Dr Vince Cable also highlighted CERN's contribution.But there is something badly wrong when Sir David King, president of the British Science Association and a former government chief scientific advisor, chooses the day the Large Hadron Collider puts exciting science in the news with a positive story to accuse us of "navel gazing". Or when Lord Browne, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is asked about priorities and immediately tells the government to cut science, especially maths and physics, and most especially particle physics and CERN. (Even if the authority with which he speaks may be dubious.) And then, seizing the "opportunity" of Cable's speech, the Chemical Engineers wade in. With even a (very old) picture of the science they want to stop.If this is what they will say in public, I dread to think what they say in their private chats with ministers or civil servants.In my darker moments I worry that the actual council of STFC (which funds particle physics) is part of the problem. I desperately hope I am wrong, but I would feel a lot better if Philip Greenish, CEO of the RAEng and a member of STFC council, had distanced himself from the ill-informed attack the RAEng made on STFC science. Or failing that, if Professor Michael Sterling, the chair, hadn't backed him up. Do they agree that particle physics, which is in their custody, should be for the chop?When Professor Bill Wakeham was commissioned to produce a review of UK physics in light of the dire state of STFC finances many feared he was another who saw the CERN budget as something which would be better spent fighting climate change or subsidising industry (to take the apparent preferred destinations of Sir David and Lord Browne respectively). However, his report triumphantly vindicated STFC science, concluding that particle physics and astronomy were two areas in physics where the UK was genuinely world leading.The tragedy is that there is such a lost opportunity here. CERN is a target simply because it is large and visible. This high profile should be a huge strength for the whole breadth of science and engineering.Why could Sir David King not appear on Newsnight and say "Yes, this is brilliant! Look how exciting science is! And we must harness the excitement and the new knowledge it brings to solve some of the problems facing us!"Why could the RAEng not say "Particle physics is an adventure where exciting engineering is essential, from software and the invention of the world-wide web, through electronics and the invention of touchscreens, to the challenges of large-scale cryogenics. Be an engineer, be at the scientific and technological cutting edge, and be part of the economic recovery."Do engineers in general agree with what is being said in their name? Lyn Evans and Steve Myers, past and current leaders of the LHC, are UK engineers, for goodness sake! This is a real, classic example of lack of vision in the UK failing to capitalise on real UK excellence. The science and engineering budget, as far as anyone can tell, makes a big net return to the economy. The whole thing, from medical research to maths, is comparable to the amount lost in unpaid taxes and wrongly paid benefit. These grandees should be out there arguing the relative priority of (for example) climate research in the context of all government spending, not against CERN.This has been something of a partisan rant, everyone is nervous about the coming cuts. But I don't think it is special pleading, it is an objection to being specially pleaded against. Particle physicists are not generally more expensive than other scientists, we just have fewer, bigger and more visible projects which seem to make irresistible targets for some.Yesterday I was depressed to hear Dr Vince Cable accepting that big cuts would happen, and repeating tired lines about economic focus. However, he did also talk about backing excellence, and there is clearly still room for some discussion. Given the unquestioned excellence of UK particle physics, (and many other areas of curiousity-led science) perhaps the opportunists should take care.Everyone in receipt of taxpayers money should have to justify themselves, especially now. We can and do. Particle physics is an essential part of the scientific culture of the UK, and that culture is critical to our future as a nation, and globally as a species. I hope at least some of the people who have the ear of the government also have the eyes to see.CernHigher educationResearchResearch fundingScience policyUniversity fundingVince CableEducation policyJon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Who are you calling a boffin? What do the public think scientists are like? And what do stereotypes matter anyway?Jenny Rohn writes the Mind The Gap blogThere is little that irritates scientists more than the idea of the "boffin". This century-old meme has at least two flavours: the befuddled, bespectacled, bad-hair-day (or no-hair-day) man, socially inept but somewhat cuddly (think Doc in Back To The Future); and there is the more sinister iteration: the equally dishevelled but cold, arrogant and/or mad male meddler, bent on no good (think Rotwang in Metropolis).Neither of these versions is remotely flattering, and neither bears any resemblance to reality. If you came to visit me in my molecular biology lab, you'd certainly see the expected array of shiny microscopes, racks of tubes, glass beakers, steaming liquid nitrogen and even the odd white coat, but you'd mainly encounter a building full of very normal-looking people.Because I'm a biologist, you'd see roughly equal numbers of men and women, mostly between the ages of 20 and 40-something. Our dress sense would range from casual to snappy: lots of T-shirts and jeans, but also a number of people making an effort, depending on what their plans were that evening. You wouldn't hear any maniacal laughter (unless it was ironic) though you would hear lots of banter, music, shop-talk and gossip. My friends in other scientific fields look similar, though disciplines such as physics, chemistry and maths tend to have fewer women.Most of us are obsessed with the work – as people in many professions are – but we also know how to have a good time. Lab staff have probably looked and acted pretty much like this since the 1970s. So why does the boffin meme stubbornly persist?I've made it one of my life's missions to eradicate boring old portrayals of scientists from our fiction. And, at one time, I was a firm believer that society-at-large had negative stereotypes about us scientists in their heads as well.Nowadays, though, I'm starting to wonder if we scientists have got it wrong, that we are the ones with the outdated stereotypes of what everyone else thinks.At a recent conference held in London, there was a lot of fretting about scientist stereotypes amongst the researchers present. People spoke about "draw-a-scientist" experiments in which children obligingly produce the classic male boffin image. Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux performed such experiments in 1957 (35,000 high school students), as did David Wade Chambers in 1983 (about 4000 children ranging in age from 5 to 11). Both researchers found that, compared with the beginning of the 20th century, the "mad" meme was fading in favour of an emphasis on government conspiracy and warfare – but the researchers were still pure boffins. Little had changed since Mead, Chambers found, except that about 1% of the girls (and only girls) would draw female scientists. Chambers, with his age range, was also able to pinpoint when stereotypes had set in: about age 7. By 2003, when Christopher Frayling carried out a similar, though very small, study (88 students aged 7-11), only a little more than half the drawings were stereotyped, and half of the girls drew females. Comparing these studies suggests that the boffin image might already be on the way out.There is also a knee-jerk reaction amongst my colleagues that scientists are portrayed badly in films and on TV. But this simply is not true – not for the past few decades at least. In his entertaining book Hollywood Science, physicist Sidney Perkowitz sat through hundreds of films from the 20th century – from biopics to B-movies and blockbusters – and saw the evolution of on-screen scientists from Einstein-haired wild-eyed men through to today's industry standard: young, beautiful 20- or 30-somethings of both genders with glossy hair and trendy clothes. If they require vision correction, then it's largely designer spectacles.I would argue, from my own viewing, that the 21st century has continued this trend. Think of Bridget Moynahan in I, Robot (2004), Will Smith in I Am Legend (2007), Chiwetel Ejiofor in 2012 (2009), Sigourney Weaver in Avatar (2009), Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley in Splice (2009) – and the entire cast of CSI and other forensics dramas on TV. The science itself may be outrageous, but its practitioners don't look like boffins. They have depth and humanity and they're even allowed to be sexy.We've been living with these catwalk Hollywood scientists for nearly 20 years now but has this affected how people – both children and adults – view scientists? Though I can find no hard data on this, I think it's probably very likely. As images of scientists have to come from somewhere visual, where better than the big screen?A deeper question is whether we even believe the old research data on perceptions anyway. Some of the authors of draw-a-scientist studies have pointed out the obvious drawbacks: if children believed that the task was to reproduce a recognisable scientist, they'd probably pull out all the stops with regards to stereotypes – much as all the children I know draw stylised houses with pointed roofs, paned windows and smoking chimneys. Children know that not all houses look like this, but that's part and parcel of the schema they hold for the concept of "house". So maybe these sketched boffins are not an accurate representation of their true understanding either.The most important question is probably whether any of these stereotypes actually make a difference, beyond the ability to impress members of the opposite sex at parties. Christopher Frayling certainly has thought so, as he made it a key message in his 2005 book Mad, Bad and Dangerous?. But would a poor or cartoonish image actually impair the trust that people have in us in real life?Scientists themselves seem to believe it would. If you'd eavesdrop on us down at our local pub, you might hear us worrying about misleading and negative imagery that may be holding us back from engaging productively with society, impairing public trust in us as messengers, and ultimately, in our message. And in a time when scientists have valuable input to add to debates about key issues such as the MMR vaccine or climate change, that reticence could have serious consequences.But I suspect that our collective gut feeling that scientists aren't trusted is a stereotype too. In a recent Ipsos MORI poll, we didn't do too badly at all, being ranked 6th (65% trust) behind doctors (90%), teachers (86%), professors (78%), judges (78%) and the clergy (73%). If you remember that many scientist-spokespeople are professors as well, the trust is even higher. Maybe it's not brilliant, but we're still streets ahead of the police (59%), civil servants (44%), government ministers (22%) and – ouch – journalists (18%).So why do scientists sense a lack of trust when it may not be justified? Most of our public debates have now moved online, and I think that we scientists get a disproportionate feeling of negativity from a small number of vocal and virulent people who frequent the comment threads of our newspaper sites, blogs and fora. Hell hath no fury like an anonymous conspiracy theorist with access to an internet connection. Maybe, instead, we should shake off the whole boffin thing as a minor annoyance, one that is possibly heading for extinction, and concentrate on what really matters: continuing to speak to the public about our work and showing them as best we can what it is we do – and why. With the current spending cuts looming, it's never been so important.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Whale rider found WA Authorities have identified a boy seen climbing a whale at an Albany Beach last month. abc.net.au |
New evidence found for flour in stone-age diet By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID 2010-10-18T20:13:51ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- The popular image may be of Stone Age people gnawing on a chunk of woolly mammoth, but new research indicates their diet may have been more balanced after all.... hosted.ap.org |
Video: The Natural History Museum launches a new interactive film on evolution Extinct creatures are brought back to life in an interactive film at the Natural History MuseumAndy Duckworth guardian.co.uk |