Science and politics: Some whimsical thoughts
March 4, 2025
On Monday morning I had a lot of time. I was in hospital getting an infusion of Vedolizumab. With observation etc. that takes about three hours. I scrolled on my phone and read some posts on Bluesky, while, at the same time, reading an old novel on my Kindle – a Lord Peter Wimsey novel. …
When the world falls apart, enjoy a metaphor!
February 11, 2025
I have been writing blog posts since 2012. They dealt mainly with topics relating to climate change, the biosciences, infectious diseases, and more recently AI. Occasionally, I branched out into space or into the 19th century. That happened at times when the tectonic plates of politics shifted, such as after Brexit, the first Trump government, …
Invasion as a metaphor
November 4, 2022
On 31 of October Suella Braverman, Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, said, according to Hansard, the official report of all Parliamentary debates: “The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast, and which party is not.” ‘Invasion’ is generally defined as the “action of invading …
Loaded language
February 13, 2021
A lot has been written about the dangers of war metaphors used by politicians during the pandemic. But war metaphors are of course everywhere in political speech, where people fight elections, defeat opponents, battle against the odds. It is almost impossible to think about politics without thinking of it as a battle to be won. …
Mutant algorithms
September 2, 2020
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 …
Making science public: Taking stock
November 10, 2017
When we wrote our ‘Making Science Public: Challenges and Opportunities’ research project some six or so years ago, various scandals had rocked the unspoken contract between science and society, universities and their users (BSE, MMR, climategate etc.). This contributed to a widely held perception, and I stress perception, of a lack of public trust in …
Sock puppets, muzzles and the impact agenda
February 24, 2016
This is a post by JOHN HOLMWOOD A new threat to the contribution of university research to public debate has been identified. This derives from Cabinet Office rules that would prevent bodies in receipt of grants from Government from lobbying. It has been suggested that this could muzzle academic research. Ironically, the rules derive from …
Science, politics and epigenetics
September 12, 2014
This post by Shea Robison is reposted here with the permission of author. Shea originally posted it on his blog ‘The nexus of epigenetics‘ under the title “Epigenetics Minority Report Part I: Epigenetics, blame, precrime and politics“ *** If you picked up the movie reference in the title to this post, you are likely (hopefully) asking …
Making sense in science and in public
June 14, 2014
Over the last few weeks some of my colleagues within the Institute for Science and Society and the Making Science Public programme (and beyond) have probably got pretty annoyed with me, as I have become a bit argumentative in a debate about science and politics and the line between sense and nonsense. In the following …
Re-imagining the public / re-imagining the political
June 11, 2014
Last month (15-16 May) I attended a conference organised by Michel Ledda, Robert Cowley, and David Chandler from the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at the University of Westminster entitled: ‘New perspectives on the problem of the public’. Together with Sujatha Raman I work on the Leverhulme funded project ‘Models of Managing …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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