Tag: science and politics
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Making Science Public 2021: End of year round-up of blog posts
We are coming to the end of a another pandemic year, and time seems to expand endlessness towards an uncertain horizon. That means quite a few of my blog posts this year were still devoted to covid and the pandemic, but I also wrote about genetics, climate change and some other incidental topics. As usual,…
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Science, politics and integrity
On 12 October three things appeared in my Twitter timeline: a report, an academic paper and an interview, all dealing with science and politics in the context of the management of the coronavirus pandemic. Most importantly, there was the House of Commons report which showed for all to see what a shambles the UK government’s…
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Public engagement with ‘post-normal science’
It is relatively rare, I think, for mainstream newspapers to deal with Science and Technology Studies (STS) concepts and discuss them publicly.* An article by Sonia Sodha from 20 March for The Guardian is an exception. She uses the concept of ‘post-normal science’ to try and shed some light on the vaccination debates in Europe.…
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Mutant algorithms
I was talking to a friend in the United States. She told me the story of a friend who normally just talks about motherhood and apple pie, but suddenly wondered about algorithms. So, my friend asked me how I would explain algorithms. That reminded me of discussions I had a year or so ago with…
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Pandemic blogging: Taking stock
Over the last few months I have written a number of blog posts about the social and cultural impacts of the current pandemic of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2. In this post I want to provide a brief overview of the various topics I have covered, from metaphors to politics. Pandemic metaphors As early as January…
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Science, sanity and sanitation
Lots of things keep happening in this pandemic… Two things, in particular, happened over the last couple of days, which made me and many others sit up and think. The membership of SAGE, the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, was revealed at last, and we heard that Dominic Cummings attended meetings. At the same time,…
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Images in the time of coronavirus
This post has been inspired by conversations with friends and colleagues on the SCIREPS list, particularly David and Dolores Steinman, Martin Kemp, Pascale Pollier and Roberta Buiani. Added, 10 July, 2020. There are now many more studies of images. Two in particular stand out about images of the virus. One by Rebekah Frumkin for the…
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Making science by publicity stunt: The case of the CRISPR babies
Science is supposed to be a public, systematic, consensible, evidence-based and collaborative enterprise. It’s also supposed to be carried out responsibly, not recklessly. Making science in public and making science public are complex processes. Making public science normally doesn’t consist in presenting fellow-scientists and members of the public with a ‘fait accompli’. This is however…
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Antimicrobial resistance and climate change: Communication, governance and responsibility
Last week I was reading some tweets from an international science communication conference held at Dunedin, New Zealand. As I have blogged and written about hype, I was particularly interested in tweets about a fascinating Roundtable convened by Tara Roberson entitled: “Can hype be a force for good? – Debating the benefits and drawbacks of science…
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If not evidence-based, then what?
In my last post on science communication, I quoted from an article by David Dickson in which he said that “evidence-based decision-making is an ideal that we should aspire to at every level of society, from local communities to the top levels of government”. Evidence – a twitter discussion There was a bit of back-lash…
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