RE: paleonet article on ID

["Dr. Lisa E. Park" <lepark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title:

This was in The Guardian, UK and I think it points to an important aspect of science today: that increasingly, science is becoming a "democratic" process.  Warren studies biodiversity and illustrates this problem well in his editorial, but it could easily apply to global warming, evolution, or stem cell research.  I guess the question is: as scientists, what is our role in society?  do we have to have these 'debates' with lay people?  What is it that makes people accept or not accept what scientists say about things like global warming, biodiversity and evolution?  I think this is a very interesting phenomena......

End this two-way process

Scientists are too busy discovering hard facts to engage the public in constant dialogue, says John Warren

Wednesday June 8, 2005

As a scientist in the 21st century I am not only expected to unravel the mysteries of the universe, but also to engage the public in dialogue. Unlike my predecessors, who were simply encouraged to go forth and educate the masses - or more politely - "enhance the public's understanding of science", I am told to be involved in a two-way process; so let's kick-off.
What do you wish to discuss, sub-atomic partials, the human genome or nanotechnology? Sorry, I can't help you there, they are not my field. Before I could get involved in any worthwhile dialogue on these topics, I would need to do some reading or talk to an expert. Yes, I would need to 'enhance my understanding of science'. I don't have any problem with that, but no, that is old hat, we must have a two-way process. The trouble is, for a meaningful two-way discussion to occur there must be at least some understanding on the part of the non-specialist.

Let me give you an example of the problem. I was recently involved in a government-funded project that was designed to find out how much the public values biodiversity (and hence how much they would be willing to pay to support nature reserves, or more environmentally friendly farming and so on). The problem with this is that many members of the public have virtually no understanding of what biodiversity is.

So before we could ask them how much they valued it, first we had to tell them what we, as scientists, mean by biodiversity. This is true focus group democracy and it's crackers, because the value that the public ascribed to biodiversity was simply a reflection of how important we told them it was the minute before.

Democracy is about informed choice, but science is now so vast and complex, that no single individual could ever be well enough informed to make this level of dialogue feasible.

"What arrogance!" I hear you call, in thinking that only scientists are well-informed enough to make such important decisions. But actually that's not the point: the nonsense of the biodiversity example is that nobody knows the answer, but there might be a correct answer. But we just don't know enough about biodiversity to know exactly what it does yet.

It's a bit like me asking you: how much would you pay to stop me throwing away a component from under the bonnet of your car? The answer is, it depends on the component, I guess you would value the spark plugs more highly than the lead to the seat warmer. But you are not going to identify what it is by asking 100 members of the public to guess and then taking the average, it much better to ask one mechanic to find out.

And that is the real craziness of this kind of focus group involvement in science; much of what scientists do is just about discovering facts, but there is little scope for meaningful dialogue in a fact.

Of course there are plenty of issues involving science that are worthy of public discussion and debate: the ethics of embryo research, the risks of nuclear powers versus its benefits for climate change, the possible environmental and health implications of GM crops - the list is endless.

But scientists are too busy discovering hard fact to inform debate in all these controversial areas. Many of us are frustrated - not because no one is listening to our opinions - but because public debate is occurring but no one is listening to the facts.

· Dr John Warren is based at the Institute of Rural Sciences at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth


-----Original Message-----
From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]On
Behalf Of dana geary
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 10:16 PM
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: paleonet article on ID


Here is the link to Allen Orr's piece on ID-

>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact

dana



>Hi all,
>
>This just in. Thought you might be interested.
>Sorry, do not have the article in question yet.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Niko
>
>--
>Faculty Member Yuh-Nung Jan makes an unusual evaluation of an Intelligent
>Design article
>Yuh-Nung Jan (HHMI, UCSF), a F1000 Faculty Member for the Neurodevelopment
>section, has commented on an article by H Allen Orr entitled "Master
>Planned: Why intelligent design isn't" in the New Yorker that cannot be
>included in the Faculty of 1000 site because it comprises evaluations for
>scientific papers only; however, we thought his comments may be of general
>interest to life scientists:
>
>"Many biologists are probably puzzled (and perhaps appalled) by the action
>of the state educational boards in a number of states in the USA mandating
>the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwin's theory of
>evolution. This article provides a succinct evaluation/debunking of the
>underlying arguments of the "intelligent design" (ID) movement. I think most
>scientists are aware of this ID movement; however, I suspect that most of us
>(myself included) believe that ID is scientific non-sense that is largely
>motivated by religious groups and hence would not bother spending time to go
>over their arguments. I was quite impressed by this New Yorker article,
>which gives an excellent account for the basic arguments underlying ID. This
>ID movement can do a lot of damage (not only affecting science education but
>also with potential impact on research policy such as stem cell research in
>the USA). If some of us are to debunk the ID movement when we have a chance
>(even at the grass-root level), it would be a good idea to be aware of the
>arguments, and this article provides an excellent starting point."
>
>
>--
>__________________________________
>
>Nikolaus Malchus
>
>PhD (Geology)
>Ramón y Cajal researcher (RyC 1)
>
>Dept. de Geologia/Unitat Paleontologia
>Universitat Auṭnoma de Barcelona
>Campus, Edifici Cs
>08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès)
>Catalonia, SPAIN
>
>    Tel 34-93-581-1464
>    Fax 34-93-581-1263
>    Regular Fax to my e-mail box:
>    x49-(0)89-1488-192-992
>
>    nikolaus.malchus@uab.es (< 2 MB)
>    n.malchus@gmx.net (> 2 MB)
>____________________________________


--
Dana Geary
Professor
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Madison, WI   53706
(608) 263-7754