Lab Work Goes Social,and Vice Versa: Strategising Public Engagement Processes

Midstream modulation is a form of public engagement with science which benefits from strategic application of science and technology studies (STS) insights accumulated over nearly 20 years. These have been developed from STS researchers’ involvement in practical engagement processes and research with scientists, science funders, policy and other public stakeholders. The strategic aim of this specific method, to develop what is termed second-order reflexivity amongst scientist-technologists, builds upon and advances earlier more general STS work. However this method is focused and structured so as to help generate such reflexivity—over the ‘upstream’ questions which have been identified in other STS research as important public issues for scientific research, development and innovation—amongst practising scientists-technologists in their specialist contexts (public or private, in principle). This is a different focus from virtually all such previous work, and offers novel opportunities for those key broader issues to be opened up. The further development of these promising results depends on some important conditions such as identifying and engaging research funders and other stakeholders like affected publics in similar exercises. Implementing these conditions could connect the productive impacts of midstream modulation with wider public engagement work, including with ‘uninvited’ public engagement with science. It would also generate broader institutional and political changes in the larger networks of institutional actors which constitute contemporary technoscientific innovation and governance processes. All of these various broader dimensions, far beyond the laboratory alone, need to be appropriately open, committed to democratic needs, and reflexive, for the aims of midstream modulation to be achieved, whilst allowing specialists to work as specialists.     

Science,Scientism and Imaginaries of Publics in the UK: Passive Objects,Incipient Threats

Two-way public engagement with science is an important modern democratic practice that paradoxically coincides with the intensifications of state surveillance and policing of publics and social movements engaging with issues involving science. This raises important questions about the contemporary anatomies of publics, and what count as legitimate expressions of public concern over scientific stakes within the knowledge economy. Implicit in the tension between inclusion and surveillance are concerns over the social meaning and authority of science amongst both scientific practitioners and publics. Bringing science and technology studies (STS) and social movement studies (SMS) into dialogue offers a means to explore the neglected ontological stakes in the framing of scientific imaginaries of publics, and public imaginaries of science. Post-WWII UK science–publics relations have emerged in three significant modalities, with publics imagined: as passive non-entities, circa 1950–1990 (continuing); as incipient threats due to presumed deficits in their grasp of science 1990–2000 (continuing); and, since circa 2000, as politicised threats requiring state control. Each modality is shaped by elite denial of the normative commitments embedded within science as surrogate politics—scientism. In each mode, scientistic elite emphasis on epistemic issues forecloses engagement with broader public meanings expressing legitimate normative and ontological differences. Fusing the more epistemic focus of STS with SMS's emphasis on meaning and democratic process offers a route to deeper democratic forms of public engagement with what is called science, which would also precipitate more accountability in elite discourses around science and technology.     

A Question of Balance or Blind Faith?: Scientists’ and Science Policymakers’ Representations of the Benefits and Risks of Nanotechnologies

In recent years, in the UK and elsewhere, scientists and science policymakers have grappled with the question of how to reap the benefits of nanotechnologies while minimising the risks. Having recognised the importance of public support for future innovations, they have placed increasing emphasis on ‘engaging’ ‘the public’ during the early phase of technology development. Meaningful engagement suggests some common ground between experts and lay publics in relation to the definition of nanotechnologies and of their benefits and risks. However, views on nanotechnologies are likely to vary according to where actors stand in the technology production/consumption/assessment cycle. Drawing on data from a recent UK-based study, this article examines how scientists (‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’) and policymakers portray the benefits and risks of nanotechnologies, particularly as they relate to two major areas of predicted application, namely medicine/public health and environmental sustainability. The findings reveal that, in the main, scientists and science policymakers held a positive conception of nanotechnologies and see imminent applications, although they acknowledged particular risks, including adverse public reaction. While definitions of ‘benefit’ and ‘risk’ varied, most saw the benefits as outweighing the risks and believed that the risks could be adequately regulated once they were assessed. The difficulties of assessing risk, however, were acknowledged. The study raises a number of questions that will need to be addressed if regulations are to be developed that not only protect people’s heath and wellbeing and the environment but also engender public trust in nanotechnologies.

The Laboratory Revisited

UK science policy now includes ‘upstream public engagement’ as an element in the responsible development of nanotechnology. This paper explores different understandings of the term upstream engagement before discussing in more detail a laboratory-based collaboration between social science and nanoscience aimed at exploring the social dimensions of nanotechnology. The paper concludes that concern with defining what counts as ‘upstream’ can obscure more critical questions about how to make public, and therefore accountable, deliberations about the interrelated social and technical aspects of nanoscience.     

Mismatches between ‘Scientific’ and ‘Non-Scientific’ Ways of Knowing and Their Contributions to Public Understanding of Science

As differentiation within scientific disciplines increases, so does differentiation between the sciences and other ways of knowing. This distancing between ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ cultures reflects differences in what are considered valid and reliable approaches to acquiring knowledge and has played a major role in recent science-oriented controversies. Scientists’ reluctance to actively engage in science communication, coupled with journalists’ reliance on the norms of balance, conflict, and human interest in covering scientific issues, have combined to exacerbate public mistrust of science on issues like the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. The failure of effective communications between scientists and non-scientists has hindered the progress of both effective science and effective policy. In order to better bridge the gap between the ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ cultures, renewed efforts must be made to encourage substantive public engagement, with the ultimate goal of facilitating an open, democratic policy-making process.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Deficit Model,the Diffusion Model and Publics in STS

The start of the twenty-first century witnessed the flourishing of both the biosciences (particularly genomics) and initiatives around public engagement in science, particularly in the UK and USA. STS researchers have both followed and fuelled this latter trend. Hence, it may be helpful to review the genealogy of these recent developments and of STS concern for the publics of science. This provides a way of assessing whether STS activities have been contributing to making the sciences more open and accountable to their publics. One trail returns to the institutionalisation of Public Understanding of Science (PUS) in the mid-1980s. The critique of this movement by STS scholars through reference to the deficit model (of public understanding of science) also figures here. However, less attention has been given to other modes of conceptualising science and publics, including what Cooter and Pumfrey label as the ‘diffusionist’ or ‘diffusion’ model (of scientific knowledge), which they contend entrenched traditional views of scientific knowledge and of publics as receivers of such knowledge. More recently, investigations of the making of science in diverse locations, attention to multiplicity and co-production have taken STS in new directions. Nevertheless, the legacies of both the deficit and diffusion models of science and publics continue to influence STS and its ‘regimes of truth’. Questions remain around STS researchers' persistent failure to acknowledge the diffusion model, in particular, and the consequent retrenchment of traditional views of how science works, limiting prospects for substantial public engagement and more open, democratic modes of science.     

Avoiding Empty Rhetoric: Engaging Publics in Debates About Nanotechnologies

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as 'revolutionising' the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development.     

The Contested Publics of the UK GM Controversy: A Tale of Entanglement and Purification

Ten years ago the UK held one of the largest, most complex and politically charged exercises in the turn towards public engagement in the governance of the biosciences. Called ‘GM Nation’ this experiment arose as an attempt to mediate public concerns in the run-up to a government decision on whether to allow some varieties of GM crops to be commercially cultivated in the UK. Formed to mediate a controversy, ‘GM Nation’ itself became a focus of controversy, with claims that many of its public participants were already engaged in the GM issue and were thus not representative of a general public. In this way, the category of the public became a contested category, with at least two different versions of the public featuring in the GM controversy. Particularly important was the contrast between engaged or issue publics that emerged entangled in and increasingly familiar with the objects and issues of the controversy, and a general public, identified through its distance and disengagement from the GM issue. These different forms of public were articulated through different modes of engagement ranging from engaged publics found in hybrid forums such as local village meetings, to versions of the general public brought into being in some of the closed parts of ‘GM Nation’. Throughout all this, a wider public institutional architecture, improvised to govern the controversy, became the site of complex boundary work that attempted to separate science from politics, a feature that conditioned how these different versions of public would be articulated and received.     

Publics and Populations: The Politics of Ancestry and Exchange in Genome Science

While researchers collect and assemble relevant populations for genome studies, they are also, along with project designers and managers, interested in assembling publics. The public holds significant symbolic and discursive appeal for large-scale genome science. This is particularly the case in projects that collect or study aspects of human genome variation where histories of biological racism continue to cast a shadow over the promises of genomic medicine. In one of Canada's first large-scale biobanks, French Canadians, who are understood as a genetically close or homogenous population, are contrasted with what are referred to as ‘immigrants’ and ‘Québecers from various ethnic and racial backgrounds’ in public engagement and consultation forums. These latter groups, thought to provide a form of diversity, both in their views and their biology, are harnessed in the consultation practices as well as in the branding of the biobank. Within the local area of sample collection, the already constructed and available ways to categorise groups provide a powerful frame to narrate the relationship between the public and genome science. The process of making and consulting niche publics not only naturalises particular narratives of national belonging but also enables forms of exchange and sharing in international genome science. Just as assembling populations forms a central component of genome science, displays of publicness are integral for economies of exchange in genome science.     

Community Engagement to Facilitate,Legitimize and Accelerate the Advancement of Nanotechnologies in Australia

There are increasing calls internationally for the development of regulation and policies related to the rapidly growing nanotechnologies sector. As part of the process of policy formation, it is widely accepted that deliberative community engagement processes should be included, enabling publics to have a say about nanotechnologies, expressing their hopes and fears, issues and concerns, and that these will be considered as part of the policy process. The Australian Federal and State governments have demonstrated a commitment to these ideals, undertaking a number of public engagement activities in recent years. However, despite promises that these community engagement activities will enable policy makers to identify complex and contested community attitudes, and that these will be included as part of the policy making process, a closer look at Australia’s engagement activities reveals something quite different. Through an analysis of a number of Australia’s nano-engagement activities, this paper demonstrates the limits of public engagement related to the development of nanotechnology related policies and regulation in Australia. Our analysis reveals the extent to which industry interests have captured policy makers and regulators, dissenting voices have been excluded from engagement processes, and engagement processes have not connected with actual policy making activities. Reflecting on these limits, this paper concludes with recommendations for improving public engagement processes related to nanotechnologies in Australia.     

Beyond the Conflict: Religion in the Public Sphere and Deliberative Democracy

Traditionally, liberals have confined religion to the sphere of the ‘private’ or ‘non-political’. However, recent debates over the place of religious symbols in public spaces, state financing of faith schools, and tax relief for religious organisations suggest that this distinction is not particularly useful in easing the tension between liberal commitments to equality on the one hand, and freedom of religion on the other. This article deals with one aspect of this debate, which concerns whether members of religious communities should receive exemptions from regulations that place a distinctively heavy burden on them. Drawing on Habermas’ understanding of churches as ‘communities of interpretation’, we explore possible alternatives to both the ‘rule-and-exemption’ approach and the ‘neutralist’ approach. Our proposal rests on the idea of mutual learning between secular and religious perspectives. On this interpretation, what is required is (i) the generation and maintenance of public spaces in which there could be discussion and dialogue about particular cases, and (ii) evaluation of whether the basic conditions of moral discourse are present in these spaces. Thus deliberation becomes a touchstone for the building of a shared democratic ethos.     

Needs, Wants and Goals: Wellbeing, Quality of Life and Public Policy

This paper considers the possible contribution of Quality of Life methods in international development policy and practice. It discusses the role of theories of human needs in how public policy makers and implementors might distinguish between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. There is a good case for extending theories of human need to encompass social and psychological needs, but when we do so the ability of theory to distinguish between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ begins to evaporate. Rather, by virtue of the core relationship between needs denial and harm, it is argued that a theory of human need can provide a framework for reasoning about what constitute needs. Empirical quality of life data can then assist policy makers to identify what constitute needs satisfiers in particular societal and cultural contexts. They also can provide important information to enable processes of public reasoning about the relative societal importance of different needs claims. The paper uses data generated through the application of two Quality of Life methods in Southern and Northeast Thailand, which were employed as part of a comprehensive study of the social and cultural construction of wellbeing in developing countries, to illustrate its arguments. The paper concludes that if routinely incorporated into local policy process, such quality of life methods have a possible contribution to make to effective democratic governance for development.     

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Puzzles about persistence and change through time, i.e., about identity across time, have foundered on confusion about what it is for ‘two things’ to be have ‘the same thing’ at a time. This is most directly seen in the dispute over whether material objects can occupy exactly the same place at the same time. This paper defends the possibility of such coincidence against several arguments to the contrary. Distinguishing a temporally relative from an absolute sense of ‘the same’, we see that the intuition, ‘this is only one thing’, and the dictum, ‘two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time’, are individuating things at a time rather than absolutely and are therefore compatible with coincidence. Several other objections philosophers have raised ride on this same ambiguity. Burke, originating what has become the most popular objection to coincidence, argues that if coincidence is possible there would be no explanation of how objects that are qualitatively the same at a time could belong to different sorts. But we can explain an object’s sort by appealing to its properties at other times. Burke’s argument to the contrary equivocates on different notions of ‘cross-time identity’ and ‘the statue’. From a largely negative series of arguments emerges a positive picture of what it means to say multiple things coincide and of why an object’s historical properties explain its sort rather than vice versa – in short, of how coincidence is possible.     

Shifting Loyalties: Reconsidering Psychology’s Subject Matter

Schwarz (IPBS: Integrative Psychology & Behavioral Science 43:3, 2009) cogently demonstrates that in conjunction with scientific conventionalism psychology has developed a rather deficient view of their subject matter: the human being. Psychology based on an impoverished notion of empirical has rendered subjectivity or ‘the measuring apparatus man’ invisible. As his story implicitly demonstrates, psychologists supported by a positivistic view of science (in part to be empirical) and notion of ‘objectivity’ have learned to trust their ‘rigorous’ methods instead of their participants as capable of revealing important and interesting phenomena. If we are going to take subjectivity and experience seriously there should be a cultivation of a new attitude or orientation regarding psychology’s subject matter (i.e., the human being) and science. This commentary discusses Mark Freeman’s (2007) argument that the first requirement of science should be ‘fidelity to the phenomena’ and elaborates on the implications for psychology grounded in this view of science.     

信息哲学与未来中国科技哲学的基础

The research programme of the philosophy of information (PI) proposed in 2002 made it an independent area or discipline in philosophical research. The scientific concept of ‘information’ is formally accepted in philosophical inquiry. Hence a new and tool-driven philosophical discipline of PI with its interdisciplinary nature has been established. Philosophy of information is an ‘orientative’ rather than ‘cognitive’ philosophy. When PI is under consideration in the history of Western philosophy, it can be regarded as a shift of large tradition. There are three large traditions at large, known as Platonic, Kantian and Leibniz-Russellian. In the discussion of the position of the possible worlds, we have modal Platonism and modal realism, but both of the theories are made in the framework of Western philosophy. In this essay, it is argued that possible worlds could be seen as worlds in information, which is then an interpretation of modal information theory (MIT). Our interpretation is made on the basis of Leibniz’s lifelong connection with China, a fact often overlooked by the Western philosophers. Possible world theory was influenced by the Neo-Confucianism flourishing since the Song Dynasty of China, the foundation of which is Yijing. It could be argued that Leibniz’s possible world theory was formulated in respect to the impact of the thoughts reflected in Yijing, in that one of the prominent features is the model-theoretic construction of theories. There are two approaches to theory construction, i.e., axiom-theoretic and model-theoretic. The origin of the former is from ancient Greece and the latter from ancient China. And they determined the different features of theoretic structures between the oriental and occidental traditions of science and technology. The tendency of the future development of science and technology is changing from the axiom-theoretic to the model-theoretic orientation, at least the two approaches being complementary each other. To some extent, this means the retrospective of tradition in the turning point of history, and some of the China’s cultural traditions might become the starting points in formulating the future Chinese philosophy of science and technology.     

How To Engage With Experimental Practices? Moderate Versus Radical Constructivism

A central question in constructivist studies of science is how the analyst should deal with the material objects handled by scientific practitioners in laboratories. Representatives of ‘radical constructivism’ such as Knorr-Cetina and Latour have gone furthest in exploring the role of these ‘non-humans’ but have also maneuvered themselves in untenable positions due to a fatal conflation of different meanings of the term ‘construction’. The epistemological and ontological commitments of ‘moderate constructivism’ especially of the Strong Program defended by Barnes and Bloor, are more suitable for dealing with the task at hand. While radical constructivists treat the domains of nature and human society as largely coterminous, an alternative ontology stresses that natural reality is never fully absorbed into the world of culture but only interacts with the latter at localizable interfaces such as practices and artifacts. This perspective promises a more relaxed relationship with current forms of scientific realism. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Keeping quiet on the ontology of models

Stein once urged us not to confuse the means of representation with that which is being represented. Yet that is precisely what philosophers of science appear to have done at the meta-level when it comes to representing the practice of science. Proponents of the so-called ‘syntactic’ view identify theories as logically closed sets of sentences or propositions and models as idealised interpretations, or ‘theoruncula, as Braithwaite called them. Adherents of the ‘semantic’ approach, on the other hand, are typically characterised as taking them to be families of models that are set-theoretic, according to Suppes and others, or abstract, as Giere has argued. da Costa and French (Science and Partial Truth. OUP, Oxford, 2003) suggested that we should refrain from ontological speculation as to the nature of scientific theories and models and focus on their appropriate representation for various purposes within the philosophy of science. Such an approach allows both linguistic and non-linguistic resources to play their appropriate role (see also French and Saatsi, Philosophy of Science, Proceedings of the 2004 PSA Meeting, 78:548–559, 2006) and can be supported by recent case studies illustrating the heterogeneity of scientific practice. My aim in this paper is to further develop this ‘quietist’ view, and to indicate how it offers a fruitful way forward for the philosophy of science.     

Defensive dining: notes on the public dining experiences in Singapore

This paper examines the relationship between an individual’s degree of religiosity (or piety) and his/her participation in everyday life in a secular, cosmopolitan and multicultural society such as Singapore, by focusing on the practice of public dining. Given that Islam has dietary restrictions (‘halal’), this paper hypothesizes that a devout Muslim might be placed in a situation of considerable unease when dining publicly, as the external environment may conflict with these restrictions. The research for this paper involved interviews with 20 Singaporean Muslims, who have described themselves as being ‘devout’ and ‘practicing’, asking about their views on dining at public food courts or hawker centers. It finds that rather than choosing to avoid these situations, they engaged in a series of defensive strategies to accommodate their religious obligations as well as intercultural interactions, to a certain degree. This paper concludes that because deeply religious Muslims in Singapore implement ‘defensive dining,’ concerns about self-exclusion, isolationism and separatism are probably unfounded, as these individuals appear willing to participate in multicultural and cosmopolitan everyday life.     

Valuing Values: Better Public Engagement on Nanotechnology Demands a Better Understanding of the Diversity of Publics

As public attitude research evolves, often becoming more complex and variable, we are coming to understand that public attitudes are also more complex and variable than can often be captured by a single opinion poll, and more sophisticated forms of analyses are needed that look not just at a breadth of attitudes, but at a breadth of publics. The Australian Department of Industry undertook a public attitude study in 2012 that was not only longitudinal, looking at changes in attitudes towards nanotechnologies, but also looking at the values or worldviews that influence attitudes. The findings allowed for a segmentation of the public, into four key segments, with distinct homogenous attitudes. This allows for not just a deeper understanding of the diversity of views that exist and the worldviews that influence them, but challenges engagement practitioners to ensure they have a broad representation of participants with different attitudes and do not favour one or two segments only.     

On Nanotechnology and Ambivalence: The Politics of Enthusiasm

The promise of scientific and technological innovation – particularly in fields such as nanotechnology – is increasingly set against what has been articulated as a deficit in public trust in both the new technologies and regulatory mechanisms. Whilst the development of new technology is cast as providing contributions to both quality of life and national competitiveness, what has been termed a ‘legitimacy crisis’ is seen as threatening the vitality of this process. However in contrast to the risk debates that dominated the technological controversies of the late 1990s the vitality of technological innovation is now cast as vulnerable to lack of public confidence and trust in the regulatory and governance structures upon which such innovation depends. In order to address this deficit in public trust, science policy has increasingly turned to the social sciences, suggesting that public values might be incorporated into the development of nanotechnology at an early stage. Public ambivalence therefore constitutes the problem addressed by the increasingly central role that public engagement and participation play in contemporary science policy. Although the recent proliferation of public engagement activities is premised on the need to address this ambivalence through direct engagement, we re-interpret ambivalence as an engaged – rather than passive – mode of relating to technological determinism. Whilst the move toward forms of direct public engagement might be regarded as symptomatic of the emergence of affective mode of governance we interpret public ambivalence as a nested set of enthusiasms and anxieties. Accordingly we suggest that public engagement might be re-thought, utilising ambivalence as a creative resource, rather than as the problem.