Science, the public and the missing MPs

I would like to start this post by saying that Dr Evan Harris is someone I have a huge amount of respect for and I write this, partly, in the hope he will read this and let me know what he thinks. At last week's Talk Science Event at the British Library (Twitter #BLTS, podcast), Dr Harris bemoaned the lack of interest in science shown by party leaders and MPs. The cause, he diagnosed, of this disinterest is the broadcast media. Now, it would be hard to say that science has not had it's fair share on TV recently so I assume the theory is that until TV news takes science policy seriously, serious politicians won't either.

Whilst that might be true, the broadcast media does not chose, at random, what to cover. To make it on the News at 10, a story has been judged to be of sufficient interest to enough people. If science policy does not make it onto the news, that suggests to me that too few people find it engaging.

This brings me to another thing Dr Harris bemoaned, Public Engagement. Listening to the recording it appears he is far from convinced that the public should be given a say in how science develops. The argument runs: we elect our respresentatives, and it is they who should make decisions about what science is done, how it is regulated and used, not the unwashed masses. Worse still, the kind of public engagement that gives people a say in science decision making is a drain on researchers, whose time is better spent doing what they do best - research.

Dr Harris is far from unique in holding these views, and to be fair a flick through the Twitter feed of #Talkfest held later in the week suggests he is not completely anti-engagement. However, I find the juxtaposition of these two bemoanments suprising in a man normally so well argued. There are two problems, as I see it:

1. Is parliament capable and legitimate? The lack of interest party leaders and new MPs show in science surely undermines the idea that an elected parliament is an effective forum to debate and then regulate science. Arguably, many MPs are no better informed than your average guy on the street and more susceptible to Daily Mail politics. The cynic in me wonders if a disinterested parliament, which just lets scientists get on with it, would be some people's ideal body to scrutinise science, but I very much doubt Dr Harris is one of them.

More fundamentally, the basis of representative democracy is electing people you believe will represent you and your best interests. If, as we saw, people don't see science as an issue upon which to elect someone and no party was at all detailed on what they would do with science, how can the current parliament claim a mandate to govern science?

2. Getting science on the news. If, as I suspect he is, Dr Harris is right that party leaders will only engage with an issue when it gets onto the news, the real issue must be how to acheive this for science policy. Look at the issues that dominate: health, crime, schools. These are all policies that have a direct and immediate impact on people's lives. More, the link between policy and what happens to you is widely understood.

Science is different, or at least science policy is. Science decisions by a government will, largely, only effect the whole population in the medium and long term and fewer people have a grasp of what research spending means for them. I would argue, then, that to get science policy on the news we must give it more immediacy. And what better way of doing that than to bring it alive, give people more of a stake in decisions and communicate? In otherwords, engage!

I would humbly suggest that more engagement, more dialogue and yes, more real, ordinary, not perfectly informed people having a say in how public money is spent on science is necessary. Without this I fear we will never see science rise up the political agenda and we will forever be at the whim of the disinterested, vulnerable to Daily Mail parliamentarians. Get the public interested, the news and the politicians that watch it, will surely follow.