George Monbiot on science and democracy
George Monbiot comments in the Guardian on the position of science in society.
Echoing CP Snow’s famous lecture 'The Two Cultures' which highlighted the gulf between the humanities and the sciences, Monbiot discusses the different perspectives on freedom of information requests noting:
“What scientists might regard as trivial and annoying, journalists and democracy campaigners see as central and irreducible. We speak in different tongues and inhabit different worlds.”
Monbiot’s reflections were triggered by the recent scandal at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in which freedom of information requests about the data of the climate scientists were deliberately ignored. ‘Climategate’ has raised questions about the ownership and availability of publicly funded data and analysis. There are calls from many across public, private and third sectors to open up public data to citizens – not just for the sake of transparency and good science but also to create better products and decisions by creating usable information from that data. In an interview with Prospect magazine, Tim Berners-Lee gives an excellent example of how mashup technologies were used to create cycling safety maps within hours of Government making raw data available on the web.
Similarly, Mayo and Steinberg’s The Power of Information, for example, makes the case for why public data should be published online, stating:
“When enough people can collect, re-use and distribute public sector information, people organise around it in new ways, creating new enterprises and new communities. In each case, these are designed to offer new ways of solving old problems.”
A second result of the Climategate scandal was the re-energising of the debate about the public’s relationship with science (and vice versa) and the case for the opening up of science that is explored in Sciencewise’s Road Ahead report. Monbiot argues that scientists need to break down the divide that exists between the institutions of science and broader society:
“Painful and disorienting as it is, they [scientists] must engage with that irritating distraction called the rest of the world. Everyone owes something to the laity, and science would die if it were not for the billions we spend on it. Scientists need make no intellectual concessions, but they have a duty to understand the context in which they operate.”
It seems that scientists are open to these arguments. For example, Involve’s 2007 Democratic Technologies report illustrates how public dialogue has benefited both science and the scientists who take part. A scientist interviewed in the report noted:
“I was very impressed by the questions that were asked [by the public]. There were a number of quite insightful questions about nanotechnology […] For me it was a really useful and interesting experience.”
The fallout from Climategate illustrates that the forging of a more open relationship between science and society is here to stay, and the benefits for all are clear to see: the development and application of data and science for societal benefit.