Posts tagged as:

Public Engagement

Decoupling “nanotechnology”

by Andrew Maynard August 12, 2010

Even though it was written a couple of years ago, this post remains very relevant as people continue to make sense of nanotechnology. Maybe it’s time to revisit yellow-technology! Originally posted May 17 2008. Nanotechnology as an overarching concept is great for sweeping statements and sound bites, but falls short when it comes to real-world [...]

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Building trust between science and society: A Scientist’s Manifesto

by Andrew Maynard May 9, 2010

Having recently finished Robert Winston’s “Bad Ideas? An Arresting History of our Inventiveness,” I was rather taken by his concluding “Scientist’s Manifesto” – a fourteen-point guide to help strengthen the relationship between science and society. As well as reflecting much of my own thinking, it embodies many of the ideas coming out of the science [...]

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Public participation in nanotechnology – should we care?

by Barbara Herr Harthorn May 4, 2010

A guest blog by Barbara Herr Harthorn, Director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California Santa Barbara. A couple of weeks back, my colleague David Guston wrote here about engaging the public on nanotechnology. In his piece he gave an excellent overview of the US government’s activities – or relative [...]

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Ben Goldacre, what were you thinking?!

by Andrew Maynard May 1, 2010

The politics of science fascinates me – the more so because there are still some naifs who think that science is apolitical. And like all politics, sometimes it gets nasty. I was reminded of this rather starkly while reading an interview with Ben Goldacre this morning in the latest edition of Imperial College’s science magazine [...]

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Power to the people – should citizens be more involved in assessing energing technologies?

by Andrew Maynard April 28, 2010

Does the US need more public participation in assessing technologies and their potential impact on society, and informing decisions on their development and use? Richard Sclove – author of a new report on technology assessment – thinks yes; but only as part of a new paradigm for technology assessment. The report, published today by the [...]

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Public Engagement with Nanotechnology

by David H Guston March 30, 2010

A guest blog by David H. Guston, Director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) has recently put the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) through its biennial paces. Launched in 2000 by President Clinton, authorized in 2003 by the 21st Century Nanotechnology [...]

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Engaging the public on science? Surely you’re joking!

by Andrew Maynard March 10, 2010

I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago where engaging the public (or “publics” to be more accurate) in science came up. In the course of discussions, I mentioned an initiative by Research Councils UK to involve members of the public in developing a call for research proposals on the use of nanotechnology [...]

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New report on Science and Trust emphasizes acknowledging risk and uncertainty

by Andrew Maynard March 8, 2010

A new report released today from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Expert Group on Science and Trust emphasizes the need to address risk and uncertainty in developing and using science and technology within society. “Acknowledging risk and uncertainty” is the second of eight broad aspirations from the independent group, established to [...]

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Poll: Does trust in science need restoring?

by Andrew Maynard February 16, 2010

Prompted by a blog post by Stephen Hill this morning – and a flurry or Twitter responses to it – here’s a quick question on science and trust: More on this in a later blog.

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Science Media Centre briefing on Climate Science in the Media – Don’t Panic!!

by Guest February 12, 2010

A guest blog by Gary Kass, Principal Specialist in Strategic Futures at Natural England The London-based Science Media Centre (SMC) describes itself as “an independent venture working to promote the voices, stories and views of the scientific community to the national news media when science is in the headlines” and sets out its “ultimate goal” [...]

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21st Century Tech Governance? What would Ned Ludd do?

by Guest December 18, 2009

By Jim Thomas, ETC Group A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series For a fresh perspective on how to do technology governance consider starting somewhere else. I suggest York Castle in Northern England – a stark stone tower from the thirteenth century. It was here in 1812 that the English state [...]

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Tim Jones’ Exquisite Corpse of Science – an update

by Andrew Maynard November 15, 2009

Back in July I wrote a short blog about Tim Jones’ Exquisite Corpse of Science project – an innovative project to explore what people think about science and it’s place in their lives and society, through the medium of drawing and film. Four months on, I though it was worth a quick update. One of [...]

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Do scientists encourage misleading media coverage?

by Andrew Maynard October 30, 2009

As scientists, how we love to rail against the incompetence of the media. As self-proclaimed keepers of the truth, we decry – usually rather vocally – the misinterpretation and misuse of our precious studies. And as we commiserate together on the injustices of the world, we inevitably get to thinking that if only journalists could [...]

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Is too much choice bad for the health?

by Andrew Maynard October 11, 2009

Sunday morning breakfast – a croissant, a coffee, and a stress-free morning. But wait a minute… I wonder how healthy all that butter is? When did I last have my cholesterol levels checked? Were they high? Will my crisp, moist butter croissant push me into a French pastry-coronary? And how about the coffee? Didn’t I [...]

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Enough with the nano already!

by Andrew Maynard September 18, 2009

Okay, so I’ve been letting work interfere with my blogging life over the past few weeks, which has led to an interminable series of impenetrable blogs on nanotechnology. I promise I’ll try and lighten up over the next few weeks (although I’m afraid there are still a couple of nano blogs to come over the [...]

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Geoengineering the climate: A clear perspective from The Royal Society

by Andrew Maynard September 1, 2009

Initial reflections on the new Royal Society report “Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty” After many months’ hard work, the Royal Society’s much-anticipated report on geoengineering was published today. Aimed at presenting “an independent scientific review of the range of methods proposed [for geoengineering the climate] with the aim of providing an objective view [...]

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Reflections of a “scientific illiterate”

by Andrew Maynard August 11, 2009

Reviewing Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future, by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum My name is Andrew, and I am scientifically illiterate. Just thought I’d get that off my chest! And before you protest too much, I do have some pretty convincing evidence. Math makes my head ache. I cannot recite the Earth’s [...]

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Anything I can do, you can do better!

by Andrew Maynard July 18, 2009

Art makes a mockery of experts and empowers the marginalized. At least that’s how I feel at the moment! Having broadcast the news of Tim Jones’ fabulous Exquisite Corpse of Science project, I thought it only fitting that I do what I’ve been telling everyone else to do, and get out my Sharpie. And here’s [...]

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The biggest science-art project in history?

by Andrew Maynard July 15, 2009

Okay, so there may be a dash of hyperbole there, but following up on the success of his Exquisite Corpse of Science project (see my previous post), Tim Jones is hatching an ambitious plan to create the world’s largest interconnected montage of drawings representing peoples’ impressions of, aspirations for and concerns about science. The plan [...]

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Celebrity scientists – it takes more than stardust

by Andrew Maynard June 27, 2009

It’s been a few weeks now since the men’s style magazine GQ launched the “Rock Stars of Science” campaign. I’m a staunch advocate of raising science’s profile, but the whole campaign has had me on edge, and I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on why. Was it the exclusive use of white [...]

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A cautious thumbs up for synthetic biology from the UK public

by Andrew Maynard June 18, 2009

According to a new public opinion survey from the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the great British public is cautiously enthusiastic about the emerging field of synthetic biology. Last summer, the Washington DC-based Synthetic Biology Project published a survey of US awareness and attitudes towards synbio. The new study builds on that work by taking [...]

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Science minister’s question time

by Andrew Maynard June 9, 2009

This afternoon, a riveting and possibly ground-breaking conversation evolved in real time on the social media platform Twitter. Yesterday, writer and broadcaster Colin Stuart (@skyponderer on Twitter) raised concerns about the new dual-role of UK Science Minister Lord Drayson – Drayson has just been made Minister of Defense Procurement as part of Gordon Brown’s reshuffle, [...]

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Culture clash – Probing CP Snow’s Two Cultures, part 2

by Andrew Maynard May 5, 2009

Last week I asked a rather trivial (did someone say trite?) question (the 2-second Two-Cultures poll) about perpetual motion machines – as a gentle lead-up to this week’s 50th anniversary of CP Snow’s Two Cultures lecture. So what were the results and what can be learned, if anything, from them? First, here are the data [...]

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Science, society and the Second Enlightenment

by Andrew Maynard February 23, 2009

It’s barely a month since Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place” and already there has been widespread discussion over what this rightful place might be—spurred on in no small part by science and technology provisions in the recently passed stimulus bill. Not surprisingly, the role science should play in 21st century society [...]

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Thank goodness for Sir Robert

by Andrew Maynard February 5, 2009

I’ve been sitting here for over half an hour, trying to work out how to start this blog in an engaging and witty way, but have failed miserably—it’s been a long day! Instead, let me come straight to the point, because it’s quite a simple one—please read Sir Robert Winston’s article “Why turning out brilliant [...]

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Revisiting the Civic Scientist

by Andrew Maynard February 1, 2009

Reading through the various science and technology offerings on the web this morning, I was struck by a conversation between Houston Chronicle reporter Eric Berger and Neal Lane, former National Science Foundation director and science advisor to President Clinton. Not surprisingly, towards the top of the conversation is President Obama’s commitment to “restore science to [...]

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Nanotechnology, science and public engagement—lessons from the UK

by Andrew Maynard January 13, 2009

Public engagement was a key feature in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and has been front and foremost in the transition between the old administration and the new. You only have to check out change.gov to see how ideas are evolving on soliciting and evaluating opinions from a broad swath of the population. The latest is [...]

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Scientific knowledge, and the “pay to play” culture

by Andrew Maynard January 7, 2009

Here’s a bit of trivia to brighten your day: Between 2000 and 2007, Chinese scientists published roughly one nanotoxicology paper for every ten million people in the country. In contrast, US scientists published twenty-five nanotoxicology papers for every ten million citizens. I know this because I have just read a fascinating assessment of nanotoxicology publications [...]

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A "manifesto" for socially-relevant science and technology

by Andrew Maynard December 24, 2008

In 2003, Harvard University’s Sheila Jasanoff wrote about what she termed “Technologies of Humility.” Recognizing the growing disconnect between technological progress and its effective governance, Jasanoff explored new approaches to decision-making that “seek to integrate the ‘can-do’ orientation of science and engineering with the ‘should-do’ questions of ethical and political analysis.” Five years on, her [...]

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Is nanotechnology suffering from “silent rave” syndrome?

by Andrew Maynard October 5, 2008

The silent rave might seem a rather bizarre social phenomenon; a group of strangers converging in a public place and dancing to their own individual iPod soundtracks. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the emerging technology community has been indulging in the new tech-equivalent of silent raves for some time now. These suspicions are [...]

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2020 Science is…

A scientist with an unhealthy interest in the dark side – policy, communication and all that. When not writing and talking about science and technology, he directs the University of Michigan Risk Science Center. More...
2020 Science is…

A personal blog about science and technology in the 21st century. Written by Professor Andrew Maynard it tackles some of the knottier questions raised by science and technology, such as “where is technology innovation taking us?”, “what is the role of science in society?” and “how can science and technology be developed responsibly?” More…
 
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- Here's another acronym I've been dying to write about: MAD, as in Mutually Acceptable Data (an Org for Economic Coop & Dev term!) 13 hours ago
- @physicus Ha - that should be the leading review comment! 13 hours ago
- .@tbeauchamp You nano-atheist, you! 13 hours ago
- Revieweing paper about GOD nanopatricles! Just glucose oxidase-coated particles sadly, but the acronym is throwing up some fun sentences! 13 hours ago
- @hilarysutcliffe Like... "where have you been for the past ten years?!" Re: Guardian nano piece 17 hours ago
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