Making Science Public

Tag: Trust

  • Bring on the Yawns: Time to Expose Science’s “Dirty Little Secret”

    Bring on the Yawns: Time to Expose Science’s “Dirty Little Secret”

    Guest post by visiting fellow, Jeff Tamblyn, film maker and director of Kansas vs. Darwin. As a visiting fellow in the “Making Science Public” project, I’ve had a great first week at the University of Nottingham, filled by conversations with social science scholars and capped off with the events of May Fest – a day in…

  • Debating empty chairs: creationism, climate and public engagement

    Debating empty chairs: creationism, climate and public engagement

    This week, Making Science Public has been very proud to welcome US film director Jeff Tamblyn during his UK visit. On Wednesday we screened his amazing film, Kansas vs Darwin, a documentary charting the attempts by members of the Kansas School Board to introduce creationism and intelligent design into high school science teaching. The film…

  • Public Worth of STS: Drawing on STS Sensibilities to Inform the Design of an Ethical Surveillance System

    Here at Nottingham we are busy preparing to host the Science in Public conference in July. It is all very exciting and looks like it is shaping up to be a busy event with around 90 papers – the draft programme will be announced and registration opened very soon .. perhaps even this week. In…

  • Families of climate scepticism I: faulty science?

    Families of climate scepticism I: faulty science?

    At last week’s British Sociological Association conference, I presented some initial observations from my research on climate change scepticism. My starting point was that climate change scepticism – or as it is often inaccurately described, denial – is not monolithic. Those people typically labelled as sceptics vary in their arguments. Sometimes may employ many different arguments, some may focus on…

  • The privatisation of science is not in the public interest

    The privatisation of science is not in the public interest

    This Blog post is a summary and more extended reflection on some thoughts presented as part of the ‘Making Science Public’ launch event. In the afternoon we kick-started a debate about issues related to the privatisation of science with two short talks by Alex Smith (tasked with speaking in favour of the motion as set…

  • Public remaking science? Seeing Sandy, science and climate change

    Public remaking science? Seeing Sandy, science and climate change

    I wrote just after Hurricane Sandy about the tussle between literalism and lucidity in linking the disaster to climate change, contrasting the careful language used by some academics with the ‘tabloid’ simplification of publications such as Bloomberg Businessweek. Since writing that post, some data has emerged potentially shedding more light on these rather muddy waters.…

  • The Threat of Fracking: Real or Constructed?

    The Threat of Fracking: Real or Constructed?

    Guest post by Dr. Rusi Jaspal, Research Fellow on the ESRC’s Climate Change as a Complex Social Issue programme in the School of Sociology & Social Policy. (This post can be read in conjunction with Rusi’s 2014 article in The Conversation) Global energy consumption is likely to rise significantly over the next two decades with…

  • Science in Public 2013 – Call for Panel Proposals

    UPDATE: You can see the full Call For Papers including details of all the proposed panels at http://scienceinpublic.org/conference/  8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013 on ‘Critical Perspectives on Making Science Public’ Call for Panel Proposals The University of Nottingham is proud to host the 8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013.…

  • Inside climate science: the opening and closing of IPCC expertise

    Inside climate science: the opening and closing of IPCC expertise

    This is a guest post by the University of Nottingham’s Paul Matthews – outlining what he can (and can’t!) divulge about the IPCC’s peer review process. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the scientific body established by the United Nations to provide assessments of current knowledge in this complex and controversial field of…