Category: Uncategorized
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The ‘Making Science Public’ blog: What is it for?
Our ‘Making Science Public’ blog puzzles some readers, and perhaps rightly so. One blogger in particular pointed out recently that he found what we are doing ‘confusing’. This confusion emerged in particular in the context of us posting some guest-posts on climate science and climate politics (and climate scepticism) and also in the context of…
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The little-known secret of “not-doing”
Guest post by our visiting fellow, Jeff Tamblyn, film maker and director of Kansas vs. Darwin. The campus itself might have been what drew me to the MayFest Grounds Tour at the University of Nottingham – it’s vast, sweeping, and dotted with stately buildings and huge trees, many of which are more than three centuries old.…
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Science communication: From filling deficits to appreciating assets
I recently read a blog post on science communication by John Timmer and a response to this post by Peter Broks, which made me think about (a) the public understanding of the ‘deficit model’ and (b) how one can get from saying science communication should be engaging in the ‘co-creation’ of meaning (Broks) to giving…
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Making Science Public: A one-year anthology of blog posts
In spring 2012 we began work on a five-year research programme funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled ‘Making Science Public: Challenges and Opportunities’ (2012-2017). The programme deals with all aspects of ‘making science public’, but in particular with controversies around science, politics, publics and participation. As part of the programme, we began writing a blog…
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More Thoughts on Citizens and Publics….
Last month Sciencewise-ERC published a report we’ve been working on this year, with input from Sciencewise and some other members of the policy and academic communities. “Which Publics? When?” (pdf) teases out and explores the policy potential of involving different kinds of publics in processes of public dialogue around science and technology. This post doesn’t…
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It might not be cricket, but it is cricket
The first test match of the 2013 series between England and Australia was, undoubtedly, a great match and a credit to the players of both teams. From my perspective as part of the Making Science Public programme, however, it was also interesting for the role that technology played in the controversy and excitement of the…
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Public, publics and citizen: What do these words mean?
Sciencewise has published a paper ‘Which Publics? When?’ by my Making Science Public colleagues Alison Mohr, Sujatha Raman and Beverley Gibbs, which has already provoked some blog responses. One blog by Sciencewise Executive Chair Roland Jackson has given it a very positive reception but mentions “a nagging feeling that this word ‘public’ is part of…
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Making science in public: Kickstarters – promises and perils
A few weeks ago my son showed me a ‘new thing’ he had discovered online. It was a ‘kickstarter’ for a publishing project called ‘to be or not to be that is the adventure’. I thought it looked like good fun, especially since the creator is Ryan North whose Dinosaur Comics I sometimes read. A…
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Making science public is a snowclone
Recently Warren Pearce has been working on a paper in which he discusses the famous Bloomberg Businessweek front cover proclaiming “It’s global warming, stupid”. It was published on November 5, 2012, after Hurricane Sandy had hit New York. (The magazine bears the name of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg) This headline is obviously modelled…
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Neo-liberalism: a problem of social science and for society
This is a post by JOHN HOLMWOOD, sparked by some discussions on twitter and on our ‘Making Science Public’ internal discussion list. A recent post by John Field has called neo-liberalism an ‘overworked concept’, much in use in the UK social science, but less frequently elsewhere. He implies that its use is largely normative, and…
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