We should value public scepticism, argues Kevin Burchell

The latest Public Attitudes to Science report described by Saffron Townsend and Suzanne King (1) was launched during the days leading up to Easter. What struck me most strongly at this event, as well as at other recent UK Science and Society (SaS) events, was the way in which the infamous ‘deficit model’ is simultaneously laid to rest and resurrected.

Of course, this general point has been made before, (2) nonetheless the persistence of this passion play is a fascinating aspect of the SaS project that bears further examination.

I would like to identify three ways in which the ‘deficit model’ remains an (unholy?) ghost in the SaS agenda.

A deficient public

The ‘deficit model’ was Brian Wynne’s device for pointing out the extent to which ‘official’ explanations of any problems in relationships between science and society are predicated on the notion of a deficient public. In its original Public Understanding of Science (PUS) format, this was a public cognitive and knowledge deficit which was speculatively linked to negative public attitudes to science, and severely limits the capabilities of citizens to properly participate in contemporary life.

As Wynne pointed out in 2006, overt emphasis of the public cognitive/knowledge deficit has been a mixed picture in the SaS agenda (though it was certainly evident in the rhetoric of an MP and a peer who contributed from the floor at the Public Attitudes event). However, Wynne continues, this has been replaced in SaS by emphasis on a range of public attitudinal deficiencies, in particular of trust and confidence in science. 

More recently, this theme prevails in the 2006 Office of Science and Innovation comments on public dialogue, and is reiterated in numerous speeches by government ministers (though the trust issue comes second to policy issues in the objectives of the government’s Sciencewise public dialogue programme).(3)

Of course, returning to the recent launch event, this concern with potentially deficient and problematic public attitudes to science is a significant driver in the ongoing need for public attitudes surveys. 

Scientific sufficiency

My second point is less often discussed. As well as public deficiency, the ‘deficit model’ is also predicated on notions of scientific and technological sufficiency. In particular, science and scientific knowledge themselves tend to emerge from both PUS and SaS as unproblematic truths, facts or arbiters about the world.

Rarely do we find acknowledgement of the definitional and factual contingencies, negotiations, disagreements, uncertainties and areas of ignorance that characterise science and scientific knowledge (particularly with respect to emerging technologies). Rarely do these agendas recognise the values and interests that inevitably suffuse the use of scientific arguments in decisions about what scientific knowledge should be pursued, which technological choices should be supported, and what kinds of regulation are appropriate. And technological hubris from some parts of government, industry and the scientific community still presents a challenge. 

Activities

My third point relates to the activities that are undertaken in the name of PUS and SaS. In PUS, the talk is of public knowledge through education, communication and information. In SaS, the talk is of public trust (and policy contributions) through engagement, consultation and dialogue. However, the activities of PUS and SaS appear to have more similarities than differences. 

In both PUS-led science communication and SaS-led public engagement, the activities appear to consist largely of public talks and meetings, work with schools, media work, displays and exhibitions in museums and science centres, so-called sci-art projects and the rest. This definitional conflation was summed up best for me by a science communication practitioner who described her job as ‘helping scientists to engage in communication’. Of course, there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, however, it should be noted that these are all contexts within which the deficient-public/sufficient-science dualism is reproduced, to a greater or lesser extent, by everyone involved (including public participants).(4) Perhaps the only circumstances in which this dualism is truly challenged is in the highly deliberative parts of the projects that have been run under the auspices of the Sciencewise programme. 

Mature debate

There is no doubt that much has changed; in particular, the Sciencewise public dialogue programme has great democratic potential. However, the ‘official’ debate can mature further. Technological projects can be ‘officially’ and publicly discussed in all their political, economic and epistemological messiness, rather than as tidy scientifically or medically obvious truths or magic bullets. Any resulting public scepticism should be permitted and valued, rather than tackled as a deficiency.

After all, scepticism is apparently a core value of science, and should surely be a permitted public characteristic in a mature democracy. Maybe then we could all become believers.

References

1. See www.rcuk.ac.uk/sis/pas.htm

2. Brian Wynne (2006) Public engagement as a means of restoring public trust in science – hitting the notes, but missing the music? Community Genetics, 9: 211-20; James Wilsdon et al (2005) The public value of science: or how to ensure that science really matters, Demos: London.

3. For more details, please contact the author

4. Anne Kerr et al (2007) Shifting subject positions: experts and lay people in public dialogue, Social Studies of Science, 37(3): 385–411; Sarah Davies also makes this point in work in development

Kevin Burchell is a Research Fellow in BIOS (The Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society) at London School of Economics, where he works on issues relating to the relationships between science and society