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Does Science Matter?
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Lesley Judd : But why should we care about the public understanding
of science? Does scientific knowledge matter? Does scientific knowledge really
help with the practical problems we face in our daily lives?
Jane Gregory : There is an idea that has become known as the deficit
model,which says that there is a certain number of scientific facts that
everyone needs to know,and if you don't have these facts then you are in
deficit,and various little tests have been done on people and they don't
get very good scores,so people say "Well there's a huge deficit there,we've
got to give people more scientific facts".But sometimes you don't need scientific
facts to get on okay with your life.
[Whilst I accept Jane's analysis and I think Sue Blackmore is correct in
saying the methodology is the important thing. I think not knowing that the
Earth spins on its axis in 24 hours creating a day and taking a year to orbit
the Sun are things that everyone should know. I think Jane is right to laugh
at the list of things US citizens need to know,but by the same token it would
be easy to make a UK list that featured the current atomic model,the elements,
DNA, viruses and bacteria,the human body and brain,the planets,Public Key
encryption,Chaos Theory,the rudiments of how a computer works etc etc In
order to take issue with GM crops,one cannot do this from a position of ignorance
of what DNA manipulation is and isn't capable of. Not even knowing what DNA
is,means you have no right whatsoever to say what should and shouldn't happen
to GM crops.Similarly finding mathematics boring and not paying attention
to it,leaves you in no position to voice concerns over big-brother issues
when Public Key ciphers are provisioned with skeleton keys so that the government
can check secure electronic communications.If you're ignorant you'll be taken
advantage of and duped and conned.It's in an individual's best interests
to be informed. One would not go to sea without a life-jacket unless one
was stupid.A smart person would take radar and a radio and perhaps GPS.Knowledge
of science enables the individual to be prepared in a scientific society
-LB]
And sometimes unscientific facts can be just as useful.There was a study
done of elderly people,to try and find out why it was that they weren't keeping
themselves warm.The result of this study was that old people have a different
concept of heat and cold from the people who were trying to give them advice.As
far as scientists are concerned "heat" is a thing,it's an energy,and "cold"
doesn't exist,it's just an absence of heat.Now for elderly people,the study
found that many of them believe in "cold",as an entity,and "heat" is an absence
of "cold".So cold is a very real thing for these people.
[So what? If they think the Earth is flat are we supposed to accommodate
them as having "a different conception of roundness"? That's "bollocks" Jane!
The OAPS haven't got a valid model however practical it is.They should be
taught why their model is wrong,not accommodated as being equally right.Their
model only works because they have no conception of atoms.Thus it is a limited
model which only works because it fits into their limited conception of the
world. If one lived (as in days of yore) only in the few square kilometres
of one's birthplace,then one might get by with a flat Earth view (as people
indeed did so),that does not mean that the view is a valid model,even if
it works for intents and purposes to draw maps and write "beyond here be
dragons" at the edges of it. The fact is that this model is "deficit" of
the fact that the Earth is round,and moreover lacking in the means to showing
why it MUST be round. If someone creates a personal scheme or belief not
cognisant of the facts,then that scheme is not a truth,it only has validity
unto themselves.One can believe the Earth is flat but it isn't.One can believe
the Sun orbits the Earth but it doesn't.One can believe there are gods, but
there aren't.Furthermore,if that belief is not serviceable or causes one
to make decisions which cause problems for the individual or society,then
the belief is a detriment.Theoretically one should change one's mind according
to what is proved,and not go on believing a "warped world model" which
facilitates no benefits or is an invalid description. Of course human beings
will continue to believe utter bollocks regardless of whether it makes any
sense, because "making sense" isn't how they make up their warped
models.Science's methodology attempts to minimise warping,and create an accurate
representation as opposed to a personal and warped representation -LB]
Whereas "heat" is a very real thing for scientists.Advice was being given
to these people in terms of "you need to keep the heat in".Now this is
meaningless to people who believe that heat doesn't exist,but that cold does.
[Then their ignorance should have been dispelled,by explaining why heat is
an entity and cold is a lack of heat.This is not just a convention on adopts
arbitrarily,and neither is it a matter of just trading two words,at the top
and bottom of a temperature scale.The OAPs conception is WRONG,and their
view is not ANOTHER unscientific view,it is an invalid view in error through
not being informed. It maybe impractical to try to teach OAPs atomic physics
in order for them to wrap blankets around themselves,but not being able to
teach an old dog new tricks,its not an excuse for accommodating ignorance,and
renaming it "alternative unscientific fact". If they thought a bacterium
was a virus and vice versa and conceptualised them in an inverse fashion,would
this be called "an unscientific fact"? If so it would also be a in error
-LB]
Old man : Keep the cold out.
Old woman : The cold out! (They laugh)
Jane Gregory : So one practical result of that study was that advice
is now given in terms of "how to keep the cold out".
[Typical Britain.Instead of educating people,we change the government processes
to accommodate the public's ignorance! -LB]
Edgar Jenkins : The cognitive deficit model effectively asks people
about the science they know,which scientists really think they ought to know.So
typically you would ask questions about "Do you know whether the Earth goes
round the Sun or vice versa?" or "Can you tell the difference between a virus
and a bacterium?" and so on.Generally the results of those tests,both here
and in many other countries are disappointing and they,I think offer those
who find that model attractive evidence that our understanding of science
is much less adequate than it should be.
[How about this? One time next door's son cam home from a lesson in astronomy
and his science teacher had told him that that the Sun was a planet not a
star,and he at first refused to accept that the Sun was in fact a star when
told,believing the authoritarian teacher (as in the above experiment of
conformity) rather than my wife.If science teachers don't know the Sun is
a star,something is very wrong. Similarly as a note on priority in our culture,
Newsnight's flick through the papers had the "The Telegraph" front page photo
of the Sun blowing off plasma titled "The moment the sun sneezed" but referred
to a minor story about paedophiles rather than the main photo enhanced story
of the Sun.The story of the Sun affects everyone more profoundly than does
the current disquiet about paedophiles,and yet Newsnight prioritised the
paedophile story.As usual science took a back seat to media hype - LB]
But the weaknesses in that model essentially,I think are first that the
assumption is that we should know the science that scientists think we should
know.
Edgar Jenkins : Hello Marjorie?
Marjorie : Hello.
Edgar Jenkins : I'll bring this chair across if I may.
Marjorie : Yes,yeh.
Edgar Jenkins : Thank you. One of the interesting things to ask about
knowledge...scientific knowledge in the every day world is to say," How do
ordinary people faced with problems,that has or seems to have a scientific
dimension cope with that problem?" What use do they make of the science that's
relevant? Where do they get it from?
Marjorie : I don't let any heat go out of the windows..... [Marjorie
seems to have a concept of "heat" as opposed to "cold" contrary to the survey
-LB]
Edgar Jenkins : Mmmhmm.
Marjorie : and er..try....I try my best to cut down (laughs)but I
mean I like my warm bedroom,it's not good saying I don't.
Edgar Jenkins : What we find is that information is scientfically
accurate,and talks about the things you would expect it to talk about -
insulating your loft,double-glazing your house and so on.The trouble is that
it's not received in an isolated way. People live in communities and the
have social practices and personal habits and practices,into which that kind
of scientific knowledge has to fit.
Marjorie : ...two separate curtains,and adjust them to the middle
and leave that little bit open.
Edgar Jenkins : And why do you like the long curtains? Is it you just
don't like short ones or....?
Marjorie : Yes.I don't like short ones!
Edgar Jenkins : It's a matter of taste isn't it?
Marjorie : Well my bedroom ones....
[So what we are supposed to do is allow Marjorie her long curtains because
"she doesn't like short ones" even though this is inefficient use of heat,and
then say that this is "a scientific solution" that accommodates context.
RUBBISH! This is just doing what people want because they aren't sensible
enough to make the right decision about the criterion they are faced with.
Marjorie isn't being practical,but that's human beings for you. Science shouldn't
bend to people's views of it and what they want,that defeats the object of
what it is. Marjorie's use of heat isn't AS efficient as using short curtains
allowing the radiator access to the room.Her way isn't another way that's
just as good,it's a worse way,it's up to her if she doesn't take the advice
and freezes to death.People should change their activities and habits according
to the advice assuming it is salient and they wish to.The advice shouldn't
change to suit their preconceptions of the world,that isn't science -LB]
Edgar Jenkins : The scientific knowledge assumes that they act in
isolated rational ways.We don't find that at all.
[That's because science is counter intuitive,and people's intuitions create
world models that are false,because they don't test them against nature.Thus
science seems alien to the lay person,the methodology is a foreign entity,it's
not how humans usually do things,that's why so many believe rubbish.It's
up to the humans to accommodate this methodology,not for the methodology
to change to suit them,that would defeat it's objectivity - LB]
People do things that they know are perhaps contrary to scientific advice,but
they do them for very good reasons.So that if scientific advice says that
you lose a lot of heat through the top of your head,nevertheless if you have
someone who doesn't like wearing something on her head,she quite rightly
will chose not to do so.
[In what way "quite rightly"? Of course people are going to make choices
based on their personal preferences,but contravening the good advice doesn't
make it right.She will lose heat and possibly freeze - that's stupid.No on
is saying she MUST wear headgear regardless of preferences,but it must be
acknowledged that her preference diminishes her capacity to hold heat in,and
therefore is not a good move in maintaining body heat.It is therefore not
"quite right" in terms of maintaining heat which was the objective -LB]
Marjorie : As cold as it is,I never wear anything on my head when
I go out.
Edgar Jenkins : Don't you?
Marjorie : I know they say that you should do when you're getting
old but,I can't be doing with it.
Edgar Jenkins : Why's that?
Marjorie : Well,because I can't do with it,I can't do with being fastened
up around here (indicates in the vicinity of her ears and cheekbones).
Edgar Jenkins : I may make sense to have short curtains,because that
allows heat to come into the room from the radiator,but you don't like them,you
like long curtains,and so for that reason you have them.
[Marjorie's aesthetic tastes cannot be equated with something that improves
her chances of survival.Self preservation necessarily comes before aesthetic
choices,since one cannot make aesthetic choices if one is not alive! -LB]
And a whole range of examples like that,suggest that scientific knowledge
is simply one kind of knowledge that has to fit in with other kinds of knowledges
if it's to articulate and make any sense for the way in which ordinary people,in
this case elderly people,conduct their lives.
Lesley Judd : Food for scientific thought? It's not just the elderly
who refuse to let science rule their lives.The rest of us are equally reluctant
it would appear,on a simple trip to the supermarket.
Richard Shepherd : In general,there is a feeling that if people new
more about science they could make more rational choices,they would behave
more rationally,things like risks would be reduced,because they would act
in a logical way.now,one of the problems is that even when people do have
quite good knowledge,they don't always make use of that,and in the nutritional
area for example, people may have quite good knowledge about nutrition,but
don't make use of it.When they come to choose foods they choose them on all
kinds of different criteria.Their knowledge about nutrition may not be an
overriding criterion.They buy food to enjoy and also for social reasons,and
then even if you teach them more about nutrition,that may not influence their
purchase or their consumption of foods.
Lesley Judd : Bryan Chapman has given his life to the teaching of
physics.But he worries whether the physics we are taught has a practical
use.
Bryan Chapman : (Gets in his car) Although I'm a physicist,and I know
how this car works,if I break down,I'm not going to make use of the physics.I
don't really think that if I looked under the bonnet it would be very helpful
to me,even though I understand the physics. It's far more useful fro me to
know what the Freephone number of the rescue services are.If my science was
useful to me,as a physicist,I ought to be less likely to have a car crash
than somebody who doesn't understand Newton's Laws
of Motion. I suspect if you did an analysis of crashes,you would find
that physicists were no more or less likely than anybody else to have a car
crash,because...whether they understood Newton's Laws of Motion or not. (Trim
phone sounds)
Science Shop : Good afternoon Merseyside Science shop can I help you?
Farm : This is Acorn City Farm here,we seem to be having a problem
with the raisins sinking to the bottom in rum and raisin icecream.
Science Shop : Your raisins are falling down in your icecream! (laughs)
Right!
Lesley Judd : An idea from Holland may lead the way in making science
relevant to daily lives.Dutch University towns have a science shop,where
the public,community groups or anyone not standing to make money can go with
a scientific problem.The UK has two,on in Belfast,one in Liverpool.
Science Shop : Take a seat and we'll get on with the business.
Girl : Erm,we're from the Toxteth Activities Group and we've been
donated a computer,an Apple Mac and we weren't sure what software to use
to put it to it's best use.
Lesley Judd : The City Farm in Kirby,where children from the local
estates can experience life on a farm,first hand.The Science Shop was able
to help the City Farm with a problem they had with the making of their Goat's
Milk Icecream. (sounds of icecream machine)
Fiona Smith : We make icecream from our goat's milk and with the rum
and raisin icecream,the raisins kept sinking to the bottom,it still tasted
alright,but it didn't look very good,so we contacted the Science Shop,and
they advised us that in fact the icecream mixture needed to be a bit more
solid than it was,so that the raisins would be suspended in it.So we got
round that problem by actually investing in a better icecream machine,and
we now make excellent rum and raisin and tutti fruity and nothing sinks to
the bottom.
Lesley Judd : Dr Alan Irwin who had an interest in how scientific
knowledge is used by the public,was asked by the Nuffield Foundation,who
helped fund both British Science Shops to evaluate the Liverpool Science
Shop.
Alan Irwin : So this is for the goats?
Fiona Smith : Well some of it's for the goats,we don't give them the
brassicas,because it makes their milk taste horrible,but the rest'll go to
the pigs,but they love the fruit,they've got a real sweet tooth.
Alan Irwin : And this is what the Science Shop was involved with?
Fiona Smith : That's right, yes.We get a lot of offers of free food
like this.This is the leftovers from the supermarkets and indeed the market
in Kirby,but I wasn't sure what the nutritional value of it was for the animals
or whether or not it was good for all of them.So we contacted the Science
Shop,and they put us in touch with the Department of Animal Nutrition at
the University,and they came down and gave us some very good advice about
it.
Alan Irwin : And d'you think they learnt from getting involved here?
D'you think they got anything out of it,or was it all just giving to you?
Fiona Smith : No,I hope they did,I think they sort of saw a different
aspect of life,that goes on outside the University.
Alan Irwin : I think the really interesting thing about Science Shop
work is that it takes you so far away from the laboratory,it takes you into
places like this,with these lovely animals behind, where people are living
and learning and playing and enjoying themselves.This is where science actually
happens,and this is where people actually make sense of scientific issues.It's
not white coats,it's not that kind of notion,and we also see people making
sense of that science,not just soaking it up,they're not just blank sheets
of paper,they're actually productively doing something with that knowledge,and
that's the key to the public understanding of science.If the people can't
see any value to science,if they can't see what they would actually do with
that,then they're probably not going to want to know.It makes sense in particular
contexts,and it makes sense to the other aspects of everyday life,and that's
the nice thing about a story like this.
[This infuriates me,that people only wish to understand when it's useful
to them and what they want!! Trifling matters like raisins in icecream have
been solved by Walls and the other manufacturers,why not ask them? Science
should be valued as a methodology that stands us in good stead for the future,and
because of the answers to profoundly deep mysteries.Like as not most people
will not understand the need for million pound linear accelerators because
it doesn't help them in their everyday lives.So freakin' what?!! That's not
the point,if they don't understand what a linear accelerator is for,that's
their ignorance,and they should be informed about it so that they see why
it needs funding. People's personal narrow parochial practical concerns have
little to do with particle accelerators and their fundamental discovery of
the nature of matter and energy.Such research has payoffs that may not be
immediately obvious to the undiscerning eye.The point is everyone's eye SHOULD
be discerning,otherwise they start scoffing and turning up their noses at
things they have no comprehension of and see investment in such machines
as a waste of money. Paltry problems like raisins in icecream should be solvable
by the person with the problem,because they have enough scientific knowledge
in their own head to solve the problem themselves!! Why is the public ignorance
always pandered to and everything warped around what they want and how they
see it? Do the public not have a responsibility to society to be educated
about how society functions? - LB]
Lesley Judd : However one branch of science that affects all our lives,at
some point,is medical science.
John Durant : There is research which suggests that when people think
of scientists today, what they often think of is the medical scientist,the
person developing a new drug or a new treatment,and I think we have to see
medical science, which in fact dominates the media coverage of science and
technology as being an area in which public understanding and public
communication are particularly important.
Michael Baum : I explained that we were going to discuss it this morning.
Woman : Right.
Michael Baum : And I want to talk to you about the medical treatment.Now
the surgery...
Lesley Judd : Michael Baum is a leading cancer surgeon.He's concerned
that public uncertainty about scientific methods has affected his ability
to continue his work researching cancer treatment,at London's Royal Marsden
Hospital.
Michael Baum : ...were invaded,and because they are invaded,we think
you should have chemotherapy.Think about it. Patients are not guinea pigs,they're
human beings [Speciesism -LB],and they deserve all the treatment with dignity
and compassion,as human beings. Now the randomised controlled trial,is the
expression of the scientific method in clinical practice.So by allocating
the treatments at random,you get rid off,first of all my bias, because if
you left it to me,I would choose the best cases to have the new treatment,so
that gets rid of the biases of the clinicians.But more important than that
it gets rid of the random error,in the fact that you may, without intent,have
better cases in one arm of the trial than in the other arm of the trial.So
the randomised controlled trial is the gold standard of the scientific method
applied to clinical medicine.
[Note that Augusto Odone in "Lorenzo's Oil" chose to take no notice of this
gold standard,and thus risked his son's life.As it was his son was suffering
anyway and had little to lose. Augusto,like Kevin Callan in
"Breaking the Science Barrier" had to learn science
from scratch in order to bring about the circumstances they wished. How much
easier would it have been if the notion of long chain molecules had not been
a foreign concept to Augusto. More to the point why did he not see that what
the community of parents were doing in accepting the medical orthodox position
was accepting the gold standard? No one would say that Augusto didn't have
"contextual" parochial concerns that via his emotions led him to go out on
a limb,but the orthodox system was attempting to put the needs of the many
before the needs of the one,and figure out a solution whilst minimising
risk.Augusto took a massive risk whilst informing himself of the science,and
fortuitously it paid off.However if the gold standard was to operate in such
a reckless fashion as Augusto,people would be treated like "guinea pigs"
and their would be an outrage at unethical practices of trying untested drugs
on people. Similarly Oliver Sacks in administering
L Dopa to his patients was essentially playing a hunch (albeit an informed
one),and in the film "Awakenings" used Robert de Niro's character essentially
as a "guinea pig" having got the go ahead from his mother. In both Oliver
Sacks case and Augusto Odone their was little chance of the subject living
a normal life,and so taking such a risk was perhaps worth it,considering
that they might be cured or helped,but this should not set the precedent
otherwise it becomes impossible to tell if the drug has had the curative
effect. That's why Peter Ustinov's character in "Lorenzo's Oil" was perturbed
at Augusto's action. Such unilateral actions muddy the waters for everyone
else,and are essentially selfish actions with no wider concern for other
patients or the future progress in that area.Those who do not see the motive
for double blind randomised trials are thus ignorant as to why it is done,and
thus can cause problems for a system that is trying to maximise the likelihood
of a cure,and minimise the risks and biases -LB]
And we're doing a trial comparing conventional chemotherapy versus a modern
type of chemotherapy.
Woman : Right.
Michael Baum : Where the dose of drug is greater,but it's infused
slowly,in order to get a greater dose in.
Woman : I mean I can't make that choice myself anyway,as to what sort
of medicine would be more suitable for me,I'd like to know more about the
types...
Michael Baum : The different treatments?
Woman : The difference between the two treatments, obviously,and what
to....
Michael Baum : Yeah,well the essential feature of randomised trial
is that the decision to have the conventional treatment or the new treatment
is made at random.I don't make that decision,effectively a computer makes
the decision.
Woman : Oh right.
[Now here's a case in point where even the doctor may not have enough or
the right type of scientific knowledge.The idea being that who is selected
for which treatment is "random". No computer selection
is truly random. Randomisation is based on various algorithms usually involving
modular (remainder) arithmetic and prime
numbers,and possibly shift registers,and a
"seed" value. If one does not know this,one
might be fooled into thinking the process was truly random. At least the
doctors biases aren't in there,regardless of how random it is.But again is
demonstrated how many things in science are brought to bear in the simplest
of tasks,and thus one is naive if one believes that one's life isn't affected
at virtually every stage by some scientific process that one probably isn't
informed about.If the woman above is told that it is a "random" trial, perhaps
she will think that it is truly random because an authoritarian is telling
her so. Michael's expertise is in cancer treatment not mathematics and
computing,and so it is incumbent upon the individual to be informed so that
one is not relying on intuitive notions such as "randomness" -LB]
Michael Baum : How am I meant to find a cure for cancer,unless I can
experiment with our new treatments on patients? Now if there isn't the public
an political will to help us find a cure for cancer we'll never get there,it
has got to be a partnership. So will you consent to randomisation?
Woman : Yes.
Michael Baum : That is consent to allow the decision about what type
of chemotherapy to be decided at random,knowing what that means?
Woman : Yes.Yeah.
Michael Baum : Okay.
Nurse : If there's anything at all that you're unhappy with during
the treatment,we will stop the trial...
Michael Baum : What the public needs to appreciate is that the very
process,the mechanisms of science protect them,better than any other mechanism
might protect them, and this is broadly referred to as "peer review".Now
before we're allowed to do a trial of any new innovation,it will of gone
through all sorts of hurdles along the way to get to the stage. Then when
we come to publish the results, before we're allowed to publish,all the credible
scientific journals will demand that the paper is peer reviewed for scientific
integrity.
[Note that this kind of scrutinisation is missing from mystic rubbish where
you are just required "to believe",it is thus potentially dangerous -LB]
So before we adopt a new treatment,it will have been subjected to confirmatory
trials,parallel trials,and by the time it's endorsed,it is based on the most
secure knowledge that we have. I believe medicine has to be a science, because
science by definition,is a philosophy,a methodology for approximating to
the truth,and if we are not dealing with truth,then we are subjecting our
patients to the hazards of toxic mutilating treatments which may not improve
their chances of survival.So I believe that if medicine is not a science,then
it is a very dangerous activity,and that the public should beware of us like
the plague.
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