James Wilsdon is head of science and innovation at the think-tank Demos. Below he takes on Dick Taverne, the head of Sense About Science - first in a debate at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and then in a review of Taverne's book, 'The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism'.

EXCERPTS: Near the start of the book [Taverne] decries those who "use evidence selectively and unscrupulously to bolster prejudice, and who go through the motions of inquiry only to demonstrate some foregone conclusion". A more apt description of Taverne's own method it would be hard to find.

...In attacking one form of fundamentalism, Taverne supplants it with his own: a naive and outdated scientism. His is a world in which science can do no wrong; in which research is untainted by vested interests, and companies such as Monsanto exist purely to feed the hungry. Those seeking a more thoughtful encounter with the contemporary dilemmas and opportunities of science are advised to march elsewhere. (item 2)

1.ICA debate – "Science and democracy"
2.Review of The March of Unreason
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1.ICA debate – "Science and democracy"
James Wilsdon, 14 March 2005

Demos, as our name suggests, has more than a passing interest in democracy, and how we can help it to function more effectively.

Not only democracy in formal settings - through elections, parliaments and the like. But also – and more importantly – democracy as it lives and breathes through our institutions, working practices and everyday lives.

So we're great advocates of more openness, engagement and dialogue between scientists and the public.

And last year, we published a pamphlet - See-through Science - which argues that we're on the cusp of a new phase in the public engagement agenda.

Phase 1 was all about educating the public.

Following the publication of the Bodmer Report in 1985, the language of 'public understanding of science' - or 'PUS' – oozed across the face of science policy.

But PUS clogged the pores and spaces that might have allowed genuine dialogue to breathe.

Implicit within it was a flawed understanding of science, a flawed understanding of the public, and a flawed understanding of understanding.

And it relied on a deficit model, which assumed that if only the public were told more about science, using smaller words, they’d soon fall in line behind it.

Phase 2 began in around 2000, when an influential House of Lords report detected 'a new mood for dialogue'.

Out went PUS and in came the language of 'science and society' and a fresh impetus towards dialogue and engagement.

And in the past five years, there has been a perceptible change. Scientists have embraced dialogue, if not always with enthusiasm, then at least out of a recognition that it's now a non-negotiable clause of their 'licence to operate'.

But now, a new term has moved to the forefront of the debate. In Phase 3, everyone's talking about "upstream" engagement. Lord Sainsbury is at it. So is the Treasury in its 10 Year Framework for Science and Innovation . So are the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering in their report last year on nanotechnologies.

Now of course it’s wrong to get hung up on new buzzwords, or bits of jargon. Just as this idea of moving upstream can be helpful, so it can also obscure the complexity of innovation processes – implying a linear process that we can move up and down at will, when in fact – as we all know – science is usually a lot more messy, complicated and unpredictable than that.

But whether we're up, down, left or right, the important thing is that we're making a genuine effort to engage.

Which brings me to Dick's book – The March of Unreason

In my view, less of a march – more of a slow and at times painful trudge

In a way, I’m grateful to Dick for providing us with a distillation of the arguments against public engagement in science.

In amongst all the bluster and polemic, he does make a few useful points – about the dangers of eco-fundamentalism, and the possible limits of a precautionary approach

But he also massively overplays his hand. And completely misrepresents the arguments of Demos, Greenpeace, sociologists of science such as Brian Wynne – and just about everyone who’s contributed anything useful to this debate in the past few years.

Most strikingly, he presents a completely distorted account of the relationship between science and environmentalism – arguing that nearly all greens are anti-science Luddites on the basis of the experience with GM crops – and entirely ignoring the extent to which environmentalism relies on and engages positively with science – for example, in understanding climate change and developing technologies to tackle it, or in monitoring biodiversity.

In fact, on climate change, he sails very close to the wind. Narrowly shies away from a sceptical view. When he says "I believe Lomborg has rendered a great service" – whose case is he helping to build? I can’t see Sir David King, the Chief Scientist, thanking him for that intervention.

There's a fantastic moment at the start of the book where he attacks those who "use evidence selectively and unscrupulously to bolster prejudice, and who go through the motions of inquiry only to demonstrate some forgone conclusion." I had to laugh when I read this - because I'm afraid that's exactly what he does throughout the book!

Let me sum up quickly why engagement matters:

It matters for normative reasons. Science takes place within society and a significant slice of it is paid for through our taxes. So it's perfectly reasonable to expect scientists to take some account of public values, aspirations and concerns in their work. Dialogue about science is an important component of a well-oiled democracy.

It matters for instrumental reasons. As the government acknowledges in it 10 Year Framework, finding new ways to involve the public, particularly at an early stage in potentially controversial fields such as stem cell research or nanotechnology, can reduce the likelihood of conflicts further down the track (of the type we saw over GM crops).

And it matters for substantive reasons. Tapping into different sources of public knowledge and social intelligence can actually enrich the culture and practice of science

In his critique of all this…in the name of 'sense' about science, Dick frequently spouts nonsense.

Public engagement does not require us to invite the public to vote on scientific projects or hold referenda on whether the earth goes round the sun.

Nor is it about inviting people to stand over the shoulder of scientists in the laboratory, telling them what they should do.

That he can only conceive of accountability in these terms reflects nothing more than the poverty of his own democratic imagination.

Questions about the openness and accountability of funding structures need to be addressed. But they are a sideshow compared to the far more important – and exciting – challenge of how we build more reflective capacity into the practice of science.

How we bring out what is sometimes referred to as 'the public within the scientist' – by encouraging scientists themselves to engage with the wider social and ethical dimensions of their work.

And how we open up new routes through which social intelligence and public knowledge can feed into the processes of scientific decision making and priority-setting.

Part of this about demolishing the myth that science is simply about facts that currently exist, rather than also being about what scientists do, why they do it, and what they don’t already know

Dick thinks he's helping scientists by defending them against the forces of democracy, but in fact he’s about as useful to science as Robert Kilroy-Silk is to race relations.

In fact, the parallels are striking: two ageing ex-Labour MPs, clinging to a set of outdated certainties, and painting their arguments in vivid black and white, when the rest of us have learned to embrace the grey.

Dick is fond of quoting Galileo so let me end with another quote from the great man: 'I've never met a man who was so ignorant I didn’t learn something from him'.

This is the real difference between me and Taverne. I have a basic faith and confidence in my fellow citizens that he lacks.

They may not have all the technical jargon at their disposal, but they still have valid and useful insights that can enrich science, and help to ensure that it serves our common good.
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2. The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism by Dick Taverne
Review by James Wilsdon
The Financial Times, FT Magazine, April 15 2005
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7d7aa3e8-aca3-11d9-ad92-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html
Oxford University Press GBP18.99, 310 pages

Lord Taverne is a man with a mission. In 2002, angered by the public backlash against genetically modified crops, the Liberal Democrat peer founded a pressure group, Sense About Science, "to promote an evidence-based approach to scientific issues".

Like every political movement, Sense About Science requires a manifesto, a core body of arguments around which its followers can rally. The March of Unreason sets out to perform this task.

Taverne's central message is that science is under siege. Environmentalists are leading the charge by promoting a dangerous mix of anti-technological Luddism, precautionary regulation and an irrational faith in organic agriculture. Organisations such as Greenpeace display a form of "eco-fundamentalism", which ignores any scientific evidence that fails to support its pre-ordained views. This tendency was particularly marked in the battle over GM crops, but applies equally to campaigns against chemicals and waste incinerators.

A second line of attack is from postmodernists, whose notions of science as a social construct have assaulted "the very citadel of science itself, its claim to objectivity". The notion that science is not simply the value-free pursuit of truth, but is shaped by social factors and the assumptions of scientists themselves, has eroded trust in science. It is also to blame, argues Taverne, for the misguided view that there should be more public dialogue, accountability and "democratic control" within science.

If science is not defended from the "pessimists and the anti-science brigade", Taverne warns that the engine of innovation that has sustained economic and social progress since the Enlightenment is likely to stall. Even democracy itself is threatened, as "the eco-warriors have encouraged a general cynicism about government and authority, have encouraged the public to support widespread corporate conspiracies against the public good and have added to the widespread suspicion that already exists of almost every kind of expertise."

Fundamentalism is rarely attractive, and Taverne is most effective when documenting the occasional excesses of the green movement. He also makes some thoughtful points about the limits of the precautionary principle as a framework for dealing with the uncertainties inherent in new technologies. Throughout, it is clear that he is motivated by a genuine passion and enthusiasm for science.

It is a shame, then, that this passion leads him to argue in such strident tones. The delicate interplay between science, risk and democracy demands serious analysis and reflection. But any subtleties in these debates are drowned in the torrent of polemic poured onto those he condemns as the "enemies of reason". Near the start of the book he decries those who "use evidence selectively and unscrupulously to bolster prejudice, and who go through the motions of inquiry only to demonstrate some foregone conclusion". A more apt description of Taverne's own method it would be hard to find.

Two flaws in Taverne’s argument stand out. First, he offers a one-dimensional account of the relationship between science and the environment. He takes a particular case - that of GM crops - where environmentalists found themselves at loggerheads with the scientific establishment, and uses this to argue that almost all environmentalists are anti-science. In doing so, he sidesteps the fact that the green movement was born out of a greater scientific understanding of the earth, and that environmentalists today rely heavily on scientific evidence to underpin campaigns and policies on climate change, renewable energy and biodiversity. Most green groups now employ scientists, sit on scientific funding panels, and argue consistently for more research into environmental solutions.

Further signs of Taverne’s confusion on environmental questions appear in his discussion of climate change. While he accepts that some global warming is happening, he strays close to a sceptical position in considering what we should do about it. Here is an issue where the scientific position is clear-cut: the overwhelming consensus of the world’s climatologists, as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is that urgent action is required. Yet Taverne cannot bring himself to line up with the scientists if they and Greenpeace are on the same side.

Second, Taverne is mistaken in his belief that science will be strengthened by being insulated from accountability and democracy. He caricatures the case for public engagement in science, by likening it to inviting a referendum on whether the earth goes round the sun or vice versa.

But of course, it is nothing of the sort. Science takes place within society and much of it is paid for by our taxes, so it is perfectly reasonable to expect scientists to take account of public values, aspirations and concerns. Dialogue about the future direction of science is an important component of a well-oiled democracy. Involving the public at an early stage in controversial areas such as stem cell research can help to avert potential conflicts. Most importantly, as many scientists now acknowledge, tapping into different sources of public knowledge and social intelligence can enrich the culture and practice of science. People may not have "expert" knowledge, as traditionally defined, but this does not mean that they have nothing to contribute to scientific decision-making.

In attacking one form of fundamentalism, Taverne supplants it with his own: a naive and outdated scientism. His is a world in which science can do no wrong; in which research is untainted by vested interests, and companies such as Monsanto exist purely to feed the hungry. Those seeking a more thoughtful encounter with the contemporary dilemmas and opportunities of science are advised to march elsewhere.

James Wilsdon is head of science and innovation at the think-tank Demos

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