The social construction of science: What does it mean?
October 30, 2018
40 years ago science was still carried out in an ivory tower, scientists were highly respected bearers of truth and certainty and labs were mysterious and closed spaces.* Then came along some young and enterprising social scientists and showed that scientists are human, labs are places of messy human practices and science is fallible. Science …
Making science public: Our edited collection
January 5, 2018
As our Making Making Science Public programme has come to an end, it’s time to take stock across all projects and beyond. This is exactly what we have done in an (open access) book coming out with Manchester University Press in January, entitled Science and the Politics of Openness: Here be monsters. The chapters in …
Assembling a synthetic human genome: Science and the politics of openness
May 18, 2016
There has recently been some commotion in the field of synthetic biology about a meeting held at Harvard on 10 May 2016 at which scientists discussed the creation of a synthetic human genome. The meeting was a closed, invitation-only meeting. In a field of science that takes pride in its openness and transparency, this created …
Reviewing the evidence on transparency in science: a response to Lewandowsky & Bishop.
March 30, 2016
Co-authors: Warren Pearce, Sarah Hartley & Brigitte Nerlich. In January, Nature published a Comment piece by Lewandowsky and Bishop entitled “Don’t let transparency damage science“. The authors argued that some of the “measures that can improve science — shared data, post-publication peer review and public engagement on social media — can be turned against scientists”. …
Will a spoonful of ‘awareness’ help the medicine go down?
November 28, 2014
Lord Robert Winston, well-known scientist and professor of fertility studies, would like the public to be made aware that experiments on animals are involved in the development of all medicines, vaccines, and drugs for human use. To this end, he introduced the Medicinal Labelling Bill in October 2013 which, if passed, would make it mandatory …
Making Energy Research More Responsive: Public Dialogue as Experiment
March 31, 2014
The UK Civil Service Reform Plan includes a commitment to embedding systems that are open to a broad range of inputs, including those of the public. Public responsiveness is therefore recognized as a key characteristic of good governance including in the field of science and technology policy-making. Since the influential 2000 ‘Science and Society’ report …
Bring on the Yawns: Time to Expose Science’s “Dirty Little Secret”
May 22, 2013
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
May 17, 2013
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 …
Which Publics? When? – Part II
April 3, 2013
by Alison Mohr, Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies, University of Nottingham with Beverley Gibbs and Sujatha Raman This post was originally written for the Sciencewise-ERC blog: http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/blog/?p=915 Part 2: When should dialogue take place? In this second blog post we look at when to carry out public dialogue. That public dialogue should take place ‘upstream’ …
Which Publics? When?
March 22, 2013
by Alison Mohr, Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies, University of Nottingham with Beverley Gibbs and Sujatha Raman This post was originally written for the Sciencewise-ERC blog: http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/blog/?p=926 Part 1: Which publics should be invited to a public dialogue?In the discussions around public dialogue the term ‘public’ is often taken for granted. However the decision about …
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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