Scientists in Britain tend to exclude controversial 'maverick' colleagues from their community to ensure they do not gain scientific legitimacy.
The research, by Lena Eriksson, a Swedish researcher in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, has shown that British scientists operated with firm boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside' and believed that controversial scientists needed to be placed outside the community so as to not gain scientific legitimacy.
Scientists in Britain tend to exclude controversial 'maverick' colleagues from their community to ensure they do not gain scientific legitimacy.
The research, by Lena Eriksson, a Swedish researcher in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, has shown that British scientists operated with firm boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside' and believed that controversial scientists needed to be placed outside the community so as to not gain scientific legitimacy.
Scientists in Britain tend to exclude controversial 'maverick' colleagues from their community to ensure they do not gain scientific legitimacy.
The research, by Lena Eriksson, a Swedish researcher in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, has shown that British scientists operated with firm boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside' and believed that controversial scientists needed to be placed outside the community so as to not gain scientific legitimacy.
Lorraine Whitmarsh blames the political climate US undermines UK The British and the Swedes do it differently, declares Lena Eriksson The US position of not introducing mitigation Attempts to inform the public about climate change and policies undermines exhortations for Science reporting in Britain has over the last few years featured high-profile controversies, in which scientists who individuals in this country to reduce their have made contentious claims have been ousted from their former research communities. to encourage energy conservation have had little impact energy consumption voluntarily. The credibility on individuals’ understanding or behaviour. of government information is eroded because Treatment of dissent Conclusions it conflicts with widely reported scientific British and Swedish scientists differed on how The research found that the scientists The 2002 British Social Attitudes Survey Nobody else is – why should I? uncertainty and political disagreement over controversial scientists should be treated. interviewed in Britain and Sweden constructed shows that most people are not aware of the Making climate change appear relevant to climate change.3 While the government refers British scientists felt it was crucial to avoid and managed dissent in different ways. Their relationship between home energy use and individuals is, however, not the only challenge to scientific ‘consensus’ and the ‘facts’ of climate giving scientific legitimacy to scientists that differing perceptions of both dissenting scientists climate change, and one in ten people believe facing communicators. The lessons to be change,4 it is clear from my research that the they described as ‘mavericks’. They operated and the larger scientific community fed through mobile phones cause global warming. Overall, learnt from the climate change issue are public is well aware of the uncertainty with firm boundaries between ‘inside’ and to the way they organised and presented energy consumption has changed little in uncomfortable. Our modern lives are surrounding climate change. ‘outside’ and felt it was necessary to distance themselves and their own communities. recent years; car use has actually increased.1 high-consumption and polluting – responding Scientific uncertainty should not be used to mavericks from the scientific community. Scientists’ boundaries of acceptable behaviour, Yet Sir David King, the UK government’s chief to climate change demands that we make justify inaction, but it should not be swept under Arpad Pusztai: perceived as maverick Swedish scientists thought that ousting ‘the right to be wrong’, thus appeared to be scientific advisor, recently claimed that ‘climate sacrifices. Where people highly value the the carpet.The controversy over BSE highlights dissenting scientists only made the problems drawn differently amongst scientists from change is the most severe problem we are freedom, independence, comfort and status the importance of honesty and transparency in Most notable have been the so-called Pusztai worse. Operating with a notion of a scientist different national research cultures. facing today’. The risk of flooding alone is afforded to them by their car, for example, they communicating risks to the public. affair (which is often said to have sparked the who began trying to get the attention of his or The fact that British scientists confine expected to more than double in the next 75 will be unconvinced by arguments to give up The public need to be informed about GM controversy in Britain) and the MMR her peers, but who was gradually driven out of themselves within narrow boundaries may years, costing the UK tens of billions of pounds such a central part of their identity and lifestyle. the risks of climate change and given the controversy. The treatment of the scientists at the community and thus became an outsider, increase the likelihood of scientific controversies every year. In responding to such projections, the And at present, this sacrifice is demanded on a arguments for acting despite the inevitable the centre of these storms can easily give rise Swedish interviewees favoured an inclusive moving into the public domain, as the ousted UK government has set the ambitious goal of largely voluntary basis. uncertainties. We need to know, for example, to conspiracy theories. The issue, it seems, is strategy to avoid the situation spiralling out of scientists are forced to seek new audiences reducing the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions Research I am currently conducting suggests that we will reap social, financial and health partly one of tolerance for, and management control. Outright and detrimental controversy for their claims. A Swedish ‘big tent’ strategy, by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2010. that, when people see others doing nothing to benefits from using our cars less. However, of, dissent in science. could be prevented by organisations having which makes room for marginal views, could The failure to engage the public over climate change their ways, they think there is no point the social and political context fundamentally The most recent high-profile controversy in room for ‘peculiar’ views, they said. The crucial potentially serve to diminish the risk of all-out change is in part because its relevance to in changing their own, and feel under no influences how people understand and respond Sweden was over ‘cancer in crisps’. It broke out factor would be for the scientist to feel that he battles between scientists in the full glare of people’s lives is not made apparent, a point obligation to ‘do their bit’. This relates to what to information, and the fact that people see over the detection of high levels of the chemical or she could be heard within the collective. mass media. made recently in S&PA (J. Lewis,‘Don’t mention Hardin called ‘the Tragedy of the Commons’ – others doing nothing means that they will be acrylamide in certain starch-based foods, such the science’, December 2003, p.22-23 and C. an absence of a sense of community or shared slower to change their own behaviour. as potato crisps and french fries, when they had Publishing science References Adams,‘Science, relevance and recall’, March set of environmental values and denial of been cooked at high temperatures.1 All the institutions had rules for monitoring 1. Atterstam, Inger. 2003. “Akrylamid Ger Inte Cancer”. 2004, p.27). responsibility in relation to a shared resource.2 References Previous research indicates that tolerance outgoing material, whether press releases, Svenska Dagbladet 28 - 01- 2003, Inrikes. 1. Park, A., Curtice, J., Thomson, K., Jarvis, L. & Bromley, C. for dissent might differ in Britain and Sweden.2 conference papers or journal articles. With the 2. Eriksson, Lena. 2004. From Persona to Person: (Eds.) (2002). British Social Attitudes, the 19th Report. I set out to establish whether this was the exception of university research, these rules The Unfolding of an (Un)Scientific Controversy London: Sage; Department for the Environment, case, and to study how this might influence tended to be more elaborate, and taken more (forthcoming). PhD Thesis. Cardiff University. Farming and Rural Affairs (2002). The Environment the public face of science in the respective seriously, in Britain than in Sweden. British 3. The study was sponsored by the Economic and in your Pocket, HMSO. countries. I conducted a one-year qualitative scientists also felt that a breach of the rules Social Research Council, as part of the Science in 2. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. study, interviewing some thirty scientists in would have graver consequences, than did Society Programme The interviewees included molecular Science, 162, 1243-1248. Britain and Sweden, all working with issues their Swedish peers. biologists and biochemists in university, research 3. For example Lomborg, B. The Skeptical Environmentalist; of genetic modification in three different Interestingly, British scientists viewed the institute and industry employment. The British scientists Baliunas, S. & Soon, W. (2003) Not so hot. Panic attack – institutional settings.3 rules about vetting outgoing material as safety worked at Bristol University, Cardiff University, Oxford interrogating our obsession with risk. Conference hosted The results of the study can be summarised mechanisms in place for their own protection, University, IACR Rothamsted, John Innes Institute and by the Royal Institution, London, 9 May 2003. as follows. whereas Swedish interviewees perceived such Syngenta UK; the Swedish scientists at Gothenburg 4. For example the government’s Energy Saving Trust’s procedures as a sign of increasing bureaucracy University, Chalmers University of Technology, The guide, Is your home behaving badly?, states: Perceptions of dissent that risked impinging on their favoured way of Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK), Plant ‘The world’s scientific community is now agreed British and Swedish scientists perceived dissent, working, in which all members should be able Science Sweden, Svalov-Weibull and Syngenta Sweden. that climate change represents a calamitous and dissenting scientists, in different ways. to have their say. threat to our environment.’ British interviewees viewed controversies as These different attitudes appeared to be linked events, caused by pre-existing dissenters within to the respective groups’perception of how the Lena Eriksson the community. The Swedish scientists tended larger scientific community would view prospective is a Research Associate at Cardiff University. Lorraine Whitmarsh to think of controversies as a process, and of contentious research results. British scientists Her PhD research focuses on understandings is a final-year PhD student in the Science fully-fledged ‘mavericks’ as the dangerous wanted data to be absolutely watertight before and definitions of expertise in safety Studies Centre at the University of Bath result of a gradual positioning of disenchanted they published anything, feeling they would evaluations of genetically modified foods psplew@bath.ac.uk scientists who ended up attacking the collective otherwise risk the scientific community – as one ErikssonL@Cardiff.ac.uk they were no longer part of. scientist said – ‘coming down like a ton of bricks’.
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