Citizen Science

A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development

Alan Irwin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134792573
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

We are all concerned by the environmental threats facing us today. Environmental issues are a major area of concern for policy makers, industrialists and public groups of many different kinds. While science seems central to our understanding of such threats, the statements of scientists are increasingly open to challenge in this area. Meanwhile, citizens may find themselves labelled as `ignorant' in environmental matters. In Citizen Science Alan Irwin provides a much needed route through the fraught relationship between science, the public and the environmental threat.

1
SCIENCE AND CITIZENSHIP

Now, what I want is, Facts . . . Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

(Thomas Gradgrind, Esq.)¹

I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about . . . and all the Figures, and all the people who found them out; and I wish I could put a thousand bar rels of gunpowder under them, and blow them all up together!

(Thomas Gradgrind, Jun.)²

Concern over the relationship between citizens, science and technology seems to be characteristic of contemporary society. Right now, for example, various political and social groups (industry, government, environmentalists, scientific organizations, campaigning bodies) are attempting to educate, propagandize or cajole the general public into accepting their own evaluation of a series of technical – or at least technically-related – questions (over the best means of tackling environmental issues, the desirability of new consumer products, the dangers of AIDS, the merits of var ious energy policies and an endless array of social questions such as genetic screening, transport safety and the implementation of new technology). In that sense, we are all barraged with new ‘information’ about developments in science and technology which might affect our lives and also, of course, with exhortations about what different social groups would like us to do about those developments.

In such a situation, it is unsurprising that many accounts have been put forward by scientists and others which describe (or, more usually, lament) the linkage between science, technical knowledge and the wider population. At present, the topic of ‘public understanding of science’ – as defined by, for example, the British Royal Society – has once again focused attention on these issues.

As the first section of this chapter will discuss, there have been certain recurrent elements within these more general accounts – a concern at the ‘scientific ignorance’ of the populace, a consequent desire to create a ‘better-informed’ citizenry, an enthusiasm for making science ‘more accessible’ (but with strict limitations on the extent of this accessibility). Notably also, and as we will discuss, these accounts have represented a commitment to ‘science as progress’ and offer a decidedly ‘science-centred’ (or ‘enlightenment’) view of society. Frequently, the accounts offered by scientists and others reveal an anxiety lest public ignorance should get in the way of scientific/technological progress. Thus, one senior British scientist entitles his book on this subject Is Science Necessary? but provides the answer – before the text even begins – by citing Nehru’s exhortation that the ‘future belongs to science and those who make friends with science’.³

As this chapter will outline, the notion that the ‘future belongs to science’ has underpinned most accounts of the relationship between citizens and science. However, there have also been a number of more critical accounts which draw upon the ‘tragedy of technology’ theme (as discussed in the previous chapter) and on a notion of ‘science as ideology’ in order to ask starker questions about the impact of scientific dissemination on everyday life. It is also possible to portray concerns over the public understanding of science as an indicator of anxiety amongst the scientific community lest it should become marginalized in the post-Enlightenment era. This chapter will begin with a brief historical excursion into these differing accounts of the ‘public understanding of science’ before presenting three case-studies of the contemporary interaction between citizens, science and technology.

Discussion of the role of ‘ordinary citizens’ in ‘technical progress’ extends back to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. In nineteenth-century Britain, for example, there was a lively debate about the general level of science education – which was seen by many as holding back industrial and technical development.⁴ Just as in the late twentieth century, public indifference was viewed as an obstacle to scientific progress. Of special relevance to the themes of this book was the establishment of institutions such as the Mechanics Institutes which represented one attempt to build a bridge between formalized scientific knowledge and working-class people (although, as we shall see, there are differing interpretations of whether the Mechanics Institutes were an attempt to enlighten – or to indoctrinate – the working classes). The Mechanics Institute movement spread across Britain in the 1820s and 1830s and offered a training in science and technology to the skilled working classes.

In the twentieth century, the need for a greater awareness of science became a major theme of the ‘visible college’ of scientists and writers who adopted a socialist perspective on scientific progress.⁵ As J.B.S. Haldane put it in the Preface to his 1939 book, Science and Everyday Life:

I am convinced that it is the duty of those scientists who have a gift for writing to make their subject intelligible to the ordinary man and woman. Without a much broader knowledge of science, democracy cannot be effective in an age when science affects all our lives continually.⁶

Writing immediately after the Second World War, the Association of Scientific Workers expressed similar sentiments. In so doing, they outlined the three most regular justifications – both of that time and since – for an enhanced ‘public understanding’:

• that a technically-literate population is essential for future workforce requirements (‘the present inadequate standards of the available labour’).⁷ This argument had also been important within nineteenth-century debates over working-class technical education;
• that science is now an essential part of our cultural understanding (‘In this age no man can be considered to be cultured who makes no serious attempt to understand and appreciate the broad principles of science’);⁸
• that, as Haldane argued above, greater public understanding of science is essential for democratic reasons.

The Association of Scientific Workers made var ious recommendations for improving public understanding through further education classes and also such media as exhibitions and museums, film, the press and the radio. They also stressed the need for working scientists to become more involved in public activities and in the dissemination of science – a challenge to which scientists such as Haldane and Hogben had already responded through popular publications on science and mathematics.⁹

The Association of Scientific Workers thus offered a model of ‘progress through science’ which resonates strongly with many contemporary statements of the need for both greater public understanding and public acceptance of science: ‘Science offers means to use unprecedented powers with which a finer, more beautiful and happier world then ever before can be built. With mankind using a vigorously developing science for social ends, the future can be bright and inspiring’.¹⁰

However, unusually for a group of scientists, the Association recognized that this new world would require scientists to adopt an explicitly political role in society. The Association was highly critical of those who simply stood on the sidelines of social change. Important decisions needed to be made about the social control of science and industry – it was the responsibility of every citizen to get involved. Meanwhile, science itself is: ‘neither good nor bad; it is organized knowledge and a method, a tool or weapon, which society can use for good or evil. It can confer the highest benefits and it can be used to destroy’.¹¹ Again, this notion of science as value-free has been a regular feature of scientific statements concerning the relationship between citizens and technical change.

Some forty years later, the prestigious Royal Society was to revive these debates in its 1985 report on the ‘public understanding of science’ – suggesting the durability of these concerns but also a perceived absence of real progress. The Royal Society took a distinctly less ‘political’ perspective than the Association of Scientific Workers – its recommendations emanate from a more liberal concern with the well-being of both science and society (and perhaps also from a concern that the value of scientific understanding might be neglected by society – the mid-1980s were a time of great anxiety about the future of public support for science).

Despite this difference in political perspective, the 1985 report of the Royal Society presents an argument which many members of the Association of Scientific Workers would readily have endorsed:

better public understanding of science can be a major element in promoting national prosperity, in raising the quality of public and pr ivate decision making and in enriching the life of the individual. . . . Improving the public understanding of science is an investment in the future, not a luxury to be indulged in if and when resources allow.¹²

The report goes on to cite a number of specific areas where an ‘improved understanding’ would be of personal and national value:

• in terms of national prosperity, a better informed citizenry could appreciate the opportunities offered by new technologies and could provide a better trained workforce;
• in terms of economic performance, wider scientific awareness would reduce ‘hostility, or even indifference’ to science and technology and so aid in the rapid innovation of such product and process changes. There would also be a ‘considerable competitive advantage’ if those in ‘positions of responsibility’ were better informed;
• in terms of public policy, science and technology should be major considerations – for the Royal Society there is a strong case that these decisions would be improved by ‘better understanding’ (we will examine this assumption very closely in Chapters 2 and 3);
• in terms of personal decisions, for example regarding diet, smoking, vaccination safety – ‘an uninformed public is very vulnerable to misleading ideas’;
• in terms of everyday life, a basic scientific literacy is needed just to understand what goes on around us (e.g., how a ball point pen or a television functions);
• in terms of risk and uncertainty (e.g., concerning nuclear power or seat-belt wear), it is important that the public have a better appreciation of the nature of risks and of how to interpret and balance them: ‘Once again it must be argued that better understanding fosters better public and personal decisions’.¹³
• in terms of contemporary thought and culture, any citizen without an understanding of science is cut off from the richness of this important area of human enquiry and discovery.

So far, we have briefly examined two major arguments – from the Association of Scientific Workers and from the Royal Society – for greater efforts to be made by scientists and citizens in the dissemination of technical information and understanding. A typical justification for such efforts has also emerged – generally based on a mixture of economic, political, personal and cultural arguments.

Certain assumptions about the relationship between citizens, science and technology have also started to become clear – assumptions which are implicit in the very concept of the ‘public understanding of science’. Such assumptions include:

• the notion of contemporary ‘public ignorance’ in matters of science and technology;
• the notion that a better understanding of science will lead to better ‘public and personal decisions’;
• the notion that science is a force for human improvement;
• an explicit or implicit notion that science is itself value-free – although there are moral and political choices to be made about its direction;
• the notion that the life of citizens is somehow impoverished by an exclusion from scientific thought;
• the notion that wider exposure to scientific thinking will lead to greater acceptance and support for science and technology.

Of course, there are differences between the accounts offered by these two groups of concerned scientists – with the Association of Scientific Workers offer ing, for example, a more ‘political’ programme (linked to the aspirations of the postwar Labour Gover nment). However, what the two accounts share is a fundamental belief in the centrality of scientific development to the future of society – and a belief (whether as part of a social democratic or more vaguely liberal ideology) that a better informed citizenry can play a crucial (but essentially reactive) role in this development. The future should indeed belong to science.

There is no suggestion in the Royal Society report that the organization of science is open to change or that it should incorporate citizen views within research policy. The goal is to make the public better informed about science but not to encourage a critical evaluation of scientific institutions. For the Royal Society and most of the contemporary apologists of science, science itself is not the problem – the problem is gaining public understanding and hence acceptance of science.

This worldview can be characterized as ‘science-centred’ or (perhaps more accurately) ‘enlightenment’ in its assumptions about science, technology and the wider public. This is not to suggest that all working scientists hold this worldview. However, it does provide a powerful and frequently reiterated case for the centrality of scientific reasoning to social development. Within such a worldview, any problematic relationship between science and citizens must be a consequence of either public ignorance or public irrationality.

This book will argue that a critical perspective on these issues is required and that there are new developments and ways of thinking which suggest that change is indeed occurring. We can begin by contrasting the notions expressed so far of ‘science as progress’ with one account of a nineteenth-century experiment in the ‘public understanding of science’ – the Mechanics Institute movement as discussed by Maxine Berg and others.¹⁴ Berg’s more critical analysis of this movement sets the debates so far concerning citizens and science into a much-needed social and political context.

As already suggested, the Mechanics Institutes appear to offer an excellent example of a highly localized and responsive ‘continuing education’ (to use the modern jargon) for one section of the workingclass community. Institutes were established across Britain and offered technical training at a time when demand seeme...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Science and Citizenship
• 2 Science, Citizens and Environmental Threat
• 3 Science and the Policy Process
• 4 Witnesses, Participants and Major Accident Hazards
• 5 Freeing the Voices: a Science of the People?
• 6 Building Sustainable Futures: Science Shops and Social Experiments
• 7 Science, Citizenship and Troubled Modernity
• Notes