 |
March 16, 2000
Nature
Is there a spin doctor in the house?
Science and Society, a report published this weeik by the select committee
on science and technology of the upper house of Britain's parliament,
the
House of Lords, provides, according to this story, a useful overview of
recent controversies and ways of approaching them, although more could
have
been said about improving researchers' anticipation of the media and
lobbyists.
The report says there has never been a time when issues involving science
have been more exciting, the public more interested, or the opportunities
more apparent, yet public confidence in scientific advice to government
has
been rocked by a series of events.
The committee raises a wealth of suggestions on rebuilding this trust
(see
<http://www.parliament.uk/>http://www.parliament.uk), urging funding
bodies to
reward scientists who
communicate their findings to the public, the government to support websites
giving links to reliable sources of scientific information, and the Public
Understanding of Science movement to adopt a less patronizing title. The
interplay between science and the media is one of the report's strongest
points. That is a relief, because recent pronouncements from the Lords'
counterparts in the House of Commons have been naive and unhelpful.
The Lords committee was quoted as saying, "Science cannot expect
special
treatment from the media. Scientists must indeed take the rough with the
smooth, and learn to work with the media as they are. ... Much more
significant ... is the way in which the facts are used, both by writer
and
reader".
The story says that the frenzy that gripped Britain last year was driven
as
much by public suspicion about the motives of large companies as by unease
about biotechnology. The pressure groups that led the crusade against
genetic modification recognized this, took some contentious results
questioning the safety of GM food, and spun them for all they were worth.
If
scientific institutions are to respond effectively to such campaigns,
they
may need to hire their own spin doctors. Those in the firing line need
better advice on how to present their arguments so that their own words
aren't spun against them. Good spin doctors would have deterred the
government's chief scientific adviser from engaging in an ugly public
row
over GM coverage with the editor of a tabloid newspaper, as Sir Robert
May
did last year. They might also have warned the Royal Society about the
way
pressure groups would spin its criticism of Arpad Pusztai, the researcher
whose unpublished findings sparked the GM scare. In addition to offering
a
scientific assessment of Pusztai's much publicized results, the society
chastised him for talking to the media about research that hadn't been
peer
reviewed. Reasonable enough, but apply a little spin, and the story soon
becomes "pro-GM scientific establishment gags whistleblower".
The House of
Lords committee says little about spin. But this is where important lessons
from the GM experience can be learned if society's confidence in science
is
to be sustained.
|