Intellectual pyrotechnics before 10 a.m. isn’t for everyone, but I thought it was an excellent way to start this third day at the IHEST summer school on science and public debate.
Is there such a thing as the public? Well, think of God, said the morning’s first speaker. One could say the concept of God exists, in which case God must exist as well. It’s the same with the public. The concept of the public exists, so the public also exists. But, some will ask, who created the concept of God, humans or God? If you say humans, you’ll be thrown out of the church, and if you say God -- well, then you’re really in trouble, because God presumably also created humans, and hence the human concept of God, and so you’re just going in circles.
Be that as it may, he said, we need to distinguish the many different publics that exist in the same urban space. And when people say that the public rejects science, they’re just wrong, because it may be only a few activists who want to end a particular line of research (as with the recent protests here against nanotechnology). They’re not the public, and neither is a public opinion poll.
Fair enough, I thought.
But the philosopher from the College de France wasn’t pleased. He had listened to this sociologist for a bit longer than necessary, so he requested the microphone and calmly informed him: just because Bertrand Russell is “old fashioned” doesn’t mean he’s wrong, and just because 90 percent of sociologists believe that truth equals utility, doesn’t mean their right. Where are your arguments? And isn’t there still room for truth?
After a coffee break, the mood had shifted, and we were treated to a sensible political scientist with numbers and graphs, presenting data on whether and how people acquire scientific knowledge through the internet. She explained that many people find it easier to express themselves on a blog than in room full of people, and they shouldn’t be excluded from public debate. That’s right, I thought. Wallflowers of the world unite! She also pointed to data showing that the more people surf the internet, the higher their trust in the knowledge they acquire there. Whether their increased trust is justified, she didn’t say.
We then heard from a science journalist who argued, among other things, that the way to improve news reporting on climate change is for media organizations to hire more editors with a scientific background. I wasn’t convinced, so I asked him about one of the arguments from the Hartwell Paper that Dan Sarewitz presented yesterday: a key problem with the climate debate has been the obsession with climate science, and in particular, climate skeptics. Climate science has long been good enough to justify policies to respond to climate change, and such policies have long enjoyed consistent (if rather tepid) support from a majority of citizens. If that’s true, I asked, then shouldn’t science journalists devote more attention to the politics of climate change, and perhaps somewhat less to climate science? And shouldn’t their news stories give at least as much space to social scientists who study climate change, as to climate scientists?
Yes, as a social scientist, I realize that amounts to special pleading. But that’s not what the science journalist said in response. For whatever reason -- and it might have been the language barrier, which has been a real challenge here, despite the excellent interpreters -- his answer passed by my question like a family car packed to the brim passing by a homeless hitchhiker. I actually don’t even remember what he said, because I was listening so hard for an answer to my question, and I don’t think I got one. I’ll try to catch him tomorrow to ask again.
About the Author: Mark Brown is a CSPO affiliate and is an associate professor in the Department of Government at California State University, Sacramento. He is the author of Science in Democracy.
