Do scientists need to reconnect with the people, or the people reconnect with science? This was the theme of an op ed in todays Financial Times by James Wilsen head of science and innovation at Demos think-tank and no stranger to a variety of nanojurys and debates in the UK.
Apparently the latest MORI poll commissioned by the Office of Science and Technology shows that 86 per cent of people think science makes a good contribution to society up 5 per cent on two years ago but more needs to be done and Demos propose a fundamental reform of scientific culture and practice although how that would be implemented is a different matter, probably over the dead bodies of a lot of the science community.
While Demos mourn the fact that most PhD scientists in Britains top universities receive compulsory courses on attracting venture capital but are taught nothing about the history and philosophy of science, or the social impacts of technology a more balanced view is definitely needed (not to mention undoing the work of the last twenty years which involved coaxing scientists out from under the lab bench after the word business was mentioned.
It returns us again and again to the fundamental issue of whose job is it to police technology. Is it left to the conscience of the individual scientists, should a think tank like Demos do it, learned government committees or mobs of pitchfork wielding peasants?
Many scientists have no idea what the long-term implications of their work may be, and most non specialists have no idea what that work actually is, and unless we address that issue we will have an endless cycle of scientists and sociologists making baboon faces at each other.
It is not a case of whose job should it be, but whether the academic community can build the kind of systems that would gives us that long-range view of potential outcomes, and then find a way of doing something about it.