Scanning the Horizon

I've been away from my blog for some time, largely due to confining my writing efforts to other projects. However, yesterday evening's BBC2 Horizon titled 'Science Under Attack' has given me something to write about here.
The programme featured the incoming president of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse, Nobel laureate and leading geneticist. Sir Paul presented the audience with a passionate call for better understanding of science, and for scientists to communicate their work in more open and understandable ways. All well and good, if perhaps rather predictable, and it was interesting to see Sir Paul gently probe some climate change and HIV/AIDS deniers. Science, Sir Paul told us, with its staunch scepticism, objectivity and endless questioning of itself, can provide answers but only when all evidence is examined correctly and appraised using impartial perspectives.
Then Sir Paul turned his attention to the controversy surrounding GM crops, a subject which, he thinks, shows a 'mutual misunderstanding between the scientists and the public'. He meets a leading GM crop scientist and the programme shows footage of anti-GM campaigners ripping up crops and denouncing GM foods as bad for the environment and for people. Sir Paul goes on [this is a verbatim transcript, commencing at 53'25'']:
'The controversy surrounding GM was something I really wanted to understand. I went and talked to members of the public to find out why they were so against it. And one thing that came up very often was that they were against eating food with genes in it, and that's something that would never occur to a scientist, as a scientist obviously knows that all food has genes in it, but, I mean, why should a member of the public know that? What had happened here is that we scientists hadn't gone out there and asked what bothered the public, we hadn't talked to them about the issue, not had dialogue with them.'
Let's take a look at this in more detail:
1) Sir Paul has 'gone and talked to members of the public'. Who, when, how? What did he ask them? What does he mean by 'very often'? I would not let my undergraduate research methods students get away with this level of vagueness. Personally, I have never met a single person who does not want to eat GM foods because the food might have genes in it. Does Sir Paul really think that all those anti-GM campaigners don't understand what genes are, that they are against GM because they might eat food with genes in it? Does he really think that the general public are so ignorant of science and that only scientists know that 'all food has genes in it'?
2) Sir Paul is very dedicated to science, as we might expect, but seems to be completely unaware that social scientists have carried out extensive research into why the public do not want GM foods. Presumably social science is of a lesser status than science so it is not worth bothering with. No point in talking to a sociologist of science on this topic - what could they tell us?
3) According to Sir Paul's argument GM foods would have been adopted in the UK if only scientists had explained their case better. So, it is all our fault, the stupid lay public, who did not understand the science. This line of argument reflects a very common trope in popular science communication, that the public are ignorant and need scientists to come along and enlighten them. [See chapter 6 in my 'Science, Culture and Society' (Cambridge: Polity 2005) for more on this].
4) About thirty seconds later Sir Paul goes on to ask 'How can we win back the confidence of the public?'. Try not insulting our intelligence, and sticking to your own precepts.
5) One minute later Sir Paul reiterates what the project of science is: an endeavour that is built on observation, respect for data, respect for experiment. That clearly, by his standards, doesn't apply to finding out things about society. Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, in 'Science in a Free Society' (London: New Left Books 1978), points out that scientists are often very unscientific about other knowledge claims, simply relying on assertion and status.

Is it any wonder that the public has concerns about science when the leaders of the scientific community operate in this way? The assumption that science is just great, and all it needs is to explain itself better, is a dangerous one. It assumes that there is only one valid form of knowledge, and that this knowledge can somehow be wholly objective. As Evelyn Fox Keller pointed out recently in an article in New Scientist on the controversy surrounding 'climategate': 'If they [climate scientists] are to be blamed at all it is for adhering to an image of science as capable of delivering absolute (and value-free) truth: an image most scholars recognise as indefensible, and one that, among themselves, most researchers accept as unrealistic.'

Scientists and non-scientists need to recognise their mutual connections and their mutual location inside society. Reinforcing an idea of the 'separateness' of science is dangerous and will simply lead to less trust and understanding. Sir Paul is, I fear, part of the problem not part of the solution.

Lichtenberg:
'It is a question whether in the arts and sciences a best is possible beyond which our understanding cannot go. Perhaps this point is infinitely distant, notwithstanding that with every closer approximation we have less in front of us.' Notebook A: 2