// Latest Posts

Are climate sceptics the real champions of the scientific method?

At the Science in Public conference, which we hosted in July, Alice Bell convened a panel on science and the green movement. Following the conference Alice asked me to contribute to a series of posts on the same theme for the Guardian’s Political Science blog, focusing on my research area of climate scepticism. The post …

The little-known secret of “not-doing”

Guest post by our visiting fellow, Jeff Tamblyn, film maker and director of Kansas vs. Darwin. The campus itself might have been what drew me to the MayFest Grounds Tour at the University of Nottingham – it’s vast, sweeping, and dotted with stately buildings and huge trees, many of which are more than three centuries old. …

Science communication: From filling deficits to appreciating assets

I recently read a blog post on science communication by John Timmer and a response to this post by Peter Broks, which made me think about (a) the public understanding of the ‘deficit model’ and (b) how one can get from saying science communication should be engaging in the ‘co-creation’ of meaning (Broks) to giving …

Making Science Public: A one-year anthology of blog posts

In spring 2012 we began work on a five-year research programme funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled ‘Making Science Public: Challenges and Opportunities’ (2012-2017).  The programme deals with all aspects of ‘making science public’, but in particular with controversies around science, politics, publics and participation. As part of the programme, we began writing a blog …

Geoengineering and the (un)making of the world we want to live in

This post was written by Rusi Jaspal and Brigitte Nerlich. It was was originally published on GeoLog, the European Geoscience Union’s official blog Geoengineering promises to alter global climate patterns and thereby avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change. Implementing various types of climate engineering options is a huge, but still mainly speculative, technological …

What’s behind the battle of received wisdoms?

This is a guest essay by Ben Pile, a writer for Spiked Online and his own blog Climate Resistance. There is a response by Dana Nuccitelli from the Guardian’s Climate Consensus blog here. Andrew Neil’s interview with Ed Davey on the Sunday Politics show last week caused an eruption of comment. For sceptics, it was a refreshing …

It might not be cricket, but it is cricket

The first test match of the 2013 series between England and Australia was, undoubtedly, a great match and a credit to the players of both teams. From my perspective as part of the Making Science Public programme, however, it was also interesting for the role that technology played in the controversy and excitement of the …

Science, politics and certainty

I  have recently begun to think about what it might mean to give scientific advice (or science-based advice or evidence-based advice or, even, expert advice), a topic that I have not thought about before. I know that there is a lot of literature on that topic and that many people have written about it, but …