Public misunderstanding

Nuala Moran

As pictures of lorry loads of dead birds filled television screens, supermarkets reported – oh delicious irony – that shoppers were switching from poultry to (BSE-free) beef, and the UK’s neighbours queued up to ban poultry imports.

And so, another week, another calamity in which public understanding of science was tested and found wanting.

Meanwhile the Framework Programme 7 circus came to town for the UK launch of Europe’s show piece of scientific research. FP7, remember, will be disbursing €54 billion of taxpayer’s money over the next seven years, making the European Union one of the largest spenders on non-military research.

Will this money deliver the scientific returns that Europe needs to jump-start innovation and drive its economy forward? Well, in the UK at least, it will be hard for the woman or man on the street to judge, since the event held for the UK launch, “Global Challenges and Global Opportunities”, attended by 500 insiders, was not open to the press.

The UK government is well aware of how ignorance about scientific issues can frustrate the application of sound, evidence-based policy. Just look at the fall-off in vaccinations when one scientific paper called into question the safety of the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.

The reasons for engaging the public on all aspects of science and science policy are obvious – from providing citizens with the tools to engage in the moral and ethical debates thrown up by advances such as embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, to weighing the risk and benefits of genetically engineered crops, or understanding why they must change their lifestyles to address global warming.

The launch of FP7 is surely an opportunity to celebrate science. Not inviting the media plays into the hands of tabloid headlines that bounce readers from medical breakthroughs to global pandemics, and leaves the public hoodwinked and manipulated by the selective communication of scientific facts.