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Two frontpage headline stories in today’s Guardian catch the eye. The bigger headline is ‘Drug experts in mass revolt over sacking’. The smaller one is ‘World leaders accused of myopia over climate deal’

Both report controversies over the proper relationship of scientific evidence to political action. In the first story, two experts have resigned from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs following the sacking from the same body of Professor David Nutt by the home secretary, Alan Johnson. Nutt was angered by the fact that decisions on the classification of drugs did not follow the evidence of harm presented by the Advisory Council. When Nutt publicly quarrelled with the decisions he was asked to go.  ”You cannot have a chief adviser at the same time stepping into the public field and campaigning against government decisions”, said Johnson, “You can do one or the other, but not both”.

In the second story, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which collates and channels scientific advise on global warming, accused politicians of “political myopia”: “I gave all the world’s leaders a very grim view of what the science tells us and that is what should be motivating us all, but I’m afraid I don’t see to much evidence of that at the current stage”.

Why do I feel Nutt is wrong and Pachauri is right, when both complain that politicians are not following a clearly expressed scientific consensus?

In the drugs case, there is a clear distinction between science and politics. I think it is absolutely right that the advisers present their scientific findings and then the home secretary can take a decision on classification that is contrary. The decision is a political one. It would help if the definitions of what the classifications (class A, class B etc) are were clearly political rather than partly physiological, but that is another matter. I don’t believe that the scientific consensus has not been fairly considered, it’s just that the political factors (for example not upsetting the editor of the Daily Mail by appearing to be soft on drugs) are more important. However, Johnson is in the wrong to complain that independent academic scientists, especially those who are privileged to be able to offer direct advice, should not also speak publicly. His reaction was a hot-headed misfire - a worrying one from a politician I had previously identified as future prime minister material. I wouldn’t like to see such decisions made in the heat of anger if the question was whether to declare war or not… 

In the global warming case, I don’t think that many of the world’s politicians are fairly considering the scientific consensus. Therefore, in this critical period in the run up to Copenhagen, Pachauri is entirely justified in speaking out.

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** STS Blog Prize 2009-2010 **

A prize is being offered for the best contribution to the STS Observatory blog. The competition is open to all STS students (undergraduate, masters and PhD).

To be considered for the STS Blog Prize, a contribution to the STS Observatory blog must be submitted Friday 30th April 2010.

The website of the STS Observatory is:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/sts-observatory/

If you do not already have a username and password then contact Jon Agar (ucrhjea@ucl.ac.uk)

The prize is £50 in book tokens and the title “Winner of the STS Blog
Prize 2009-2010″.

The prize will be awarded in May 2010 to the best blog entry as rated by a panel of judges according to the following criteria (in no particular order):

- informative
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- timeliness

Any questions, contact: Jon Agar (ucrhjea@ucl.ac.uk)

UCL’s upper management likes to taut the idea of “Planck’s Club”. In the words of our Provost “Almost all the great scientific discoveries came unexpectedly from the work of a relatively few pioneering researchers such as Planck, Einstein, Avery, Townes, Crick and Watson, Huxley, Perutz, and perhaps 300 others of similar calibre - the “Planck Club” - whose discoveries usually won them Nobel Prizes or other prestigious awards. However, their modern successors are not as free, and constraints such as peer review in particular inhibit challenges to conventional wisdom.” (19 October 2009 e-mail newsletter to all staff)

This idea has recently been promoted as part of a wide ranging criticism about academic funding. Simply put, modern funding is too bureaurocratic, institutionalised, slow, and focused on tiny bits of routine science. It doesn’t encourage radical and out-of-the-box thinking.

The idea behind a “Planck’s Club” is based on lousy history (meaning, it’s false) and lousy problem formulation (meaning, it’s built on lousy premises). It also perpetuates dangerous biases (meaning, it stacks the deck in favour of certain things and against others). In the end, it’s simply pick-and-mix heritage in which big names are plucked from thin air and put to work by someone who wants justification for a position they already had.

I’m not saying the approach is wrong: benefactors should be able to offer money however they want to offer it. And I’m certainly not saying modern patronage by government agencies for science is the best organised it can be. But Provosts at top universities need to be smarter in their choice of words and not get sucked into somebody’s game of “I’m too good to be bound by your rules.”

Janez Potočnik is a Slovenian politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Science and Research. The European Commissioner for Science and Research is a portfolio within the European Commission. The portfolio is responsible primarily for research and improving the conditions in the Union for researchers. Potočnik has stated that he believes trading knowledge and the development of an information society to create prosperity is as important to Europe as trading steel and coal to create peace was 50 years ago. He aims to develop the European Research Area. Potočnik is also the commissioner responsible for Directorate-General for Research and Joint Research Centre.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janez_Poto%C4%8Dnik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commissioner_for_Science_and_Research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate-General_for_Research_(European_Commission)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate-General_Joint_Research_Centre_(European_Commission)

An English industrialist, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Branson formed Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Blue, Virgin Trains, Virgin Healthcare and many other technology-related companies.

Branson announced the signing of a deal under which a new space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, will license the technology behind Spaceship One to take paying passengers into suborbital space. He also founded Virgin Fuels, which is set to respond to global warming and exploit the recent spike in fuel costs by offering a revolutionary, cheaper fuel for automobiles and, in the near future, aircraft.

On 21 September 2006, Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains in research for environmentally friendly fuels. The investment is estimated to be worth $3 billion.
On 9 February 2007, Branson announced the setting up of a new Global science and technology prize—The Virgin Earth Challenge—in the belief that history has shown that prizes of this nature encourage technological advancements for the good of mankind. The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.

Sir Richard appears at No. 85 on the 2002 list of “100 Greatest Britons” (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public). Sir Richard also ranks No. 86 on Channel 4’s 2003 list of “100 Worst Britons”. Sir Richard was also ranked in 2007’s Time Magazine “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World”. In 2009, Branson was voted the UK’s “Celebrity Dream Boss” in an opinion poll by Cancer Research UK.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson

As the ministry of defence’s chief scientific advisor Prof. Mark Welland provides direction to the MoD’s research and development, which has an annual budget of £2.6 billion.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/SeniorOfficials/ChiefScientificAdviser.htm

Although church attendance has dropped, the Church of England still carries much influence with the Archbishop’s opinions well publicised by the press and evaluated by politicians. As someone who is perceived by the public as standing up for moral rights, his views are important in influencing public views on scientific endeavour. Dr Williams has issued statements about creationism, teaching of science in schools and genetic and embryonal research. In 2008 he said that “Man playing God is not a problem about science. It’s a problem about our decisions about the results of science and we shouldn’t be so much afraid of science as we should about our own inability to have a clear moral perspective on these matters.” This reflects statements made by the Pope about protecting the humanity of individuals.

www.archbishopofcanterbury.org

Being the Environment and Science correspondent, David Shukman has particular control over the scientific bulletins which reach both the six o’clock and ten o’clock news programmes. With the BBC being arguably one of the greatest sources of impartial information and with its ability to reach a wide and diverse audience, the choice as to which stories do and do not qualify for broadcast undoubtedly has huge sway on public awareness and reaction. On his BBC biography David Shuckman is portrayed as having particular interest in environmental stories and climate change (interestingly), despite having no clear previous association with science himself and with his previous experience being more related to international political affairs.

Dr Evan Harris is the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Minister in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Shadow Minister for Science. He has campaigned for free speech, anti-discrimination and the separation of religion and the state. Dr. Harris has been a member of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee and Oxfordshire Health Authority’s Research Ethics Committee.

Further Info: http://www.libdems.org.uk/people_detail.aspx?name=Evan_Harris&pPK=a5530410-402e-4092-a07e-29373e654fe5

Dr Margaret Chan is the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). She is responsible for overseeing, organising and guiding the activities of a body tasked with raising the health level of all people. The WHO influences research around the world by providing reliable statistics, raising awareness of quickly-spreading diseases, co-ordinating efforts between research groups and funding research. The WHO funds both research and data-gathering projects in the UK, such as at the George Institute in Bloomsbury.

The WHO influences pharmaceutical and non-profit R&D through the publication of the World Health Report and the International Classifcation of Diseases.

Margaret Chan, copyright Agência Brasil released under Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil

(Written by Luke Goodsell)