Humanising science

Whenever someone flicks through a newspaper, notices a headline along the theme of “Scientists now say X or Y is safe”, and exclaims, “Looks like the scientists have done another U-turn again”, it’s a bang-head-against-wall moment right there: another one's fallen into that blackhole of misunderstanding the fundamental nature of science.

Theirs is the kind of thinking that says, “Oh, those scientists tell you one thing, then claim it’s the opposite. Don’t listen to them.” Unfortunately, this misses the point that science evolves, with trial and error simply being the nature of the beast.

Sadly many don't realise that it's not all eureka moments, with scientists slamming their fists on the table shouting, “By George, I’ve got it! Where’s my Nobel?!” In reality, it’s a lengthy, time-consuming, often frustrating process. After all, we’re not talking about completing a crossword puzzle or finding that elusive rollo hidden down the back of a sofa - it's about foraging into the unknown to search for an intangible something, sometimes not quite knowing whether that something even exists.

Hopefully the British Library’s new Oral History of British Science will go some way to rectifying this. The three-year project will see the library record interviews with hundreds of scientists who have either completed important work in Britain or are of British origin.

Each interview will be between 10-15 hours long, although there will be edited clips available, in a bid to record for posterity the personal stories of 200 scientists.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Material World, Dr Katrina Dean, curator of the project, said: “We want to look at early influences, their education, who they worked with, but also, something we don’t get from published papers, is the day-to-day experience of science. What do people actually do when they’re in the lab and the field? What dead ends do they come to?

“We want to bring out some of the human story too.”

The project will give people an insight into science, and, with any luck, help them realise that getting it wrong is as much a part of it as getting it right.

And it could help enlighten people who might have become disenchanted with science thanks to over-exaggerated, or just plain wrong, media coverage, which often tends to view a scientific result as The Final Answer, rather than just the best answer we have so far.

The project also highlights the fact that several key scientists have passed away without leaving any archived recordings. Alan Turing, renowned code-breaker and early pioneer of the computer, is a notable figure among these.

Scientists, both emminent and lesser-know, will be able to talk about what makes them tick, those moments when they really thought their investigation was up the creek, together with anecdotes and lab banter.

To listen again to the interview with Dr Katrina Dean, it's available on BBC iPlayer apparently until 2099, so you've still got time.

Last swing for Rosetta

As the Rosetta comet-chaser swung by Earth one last time yesterday morning before heading out for its date with the comet, scientists are hoping the mission will help unravel the mysteries of how the solar system evolved.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) mission controllers confirmed yesterday that its spacecraft Rosetta had skimmed past our planet as planned to pick up another gravity boost before heading out for its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Rosetta depends on these gravity boosts in order to reach speeds it would not be able to achieve otherwise, and has previously done two swing-bys of Earth and one of Mars in order to reach its speed at the time of its swing-by yesterday of 13.34 km/s.

By 2014, at a distance of almost 700 million kms from the sun, Rosetta will then release its Philae lander onto the icy nucleus of the comet by using a harpoon to prevent it bouncing off, and which will then begin a series of experiments on its surface.

The Rosetta spacecraft, meanwhile, will orbit the comet for about a year as they both head towards the sun.

Analysing the comet is hoped to unlock secrets about the beginnings of life in the universe. As ESA said, "As the most primitive objects in the solar system, comets carry essential information about our origins. Their chemical compositions have not changed much since their formation, therefore reflecting that of the solar system when it was very young and still ‘unfinished’, more than 4600 million years ago.

“By orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and landing on it, Rosetta will allow us to reconstruct the history of our own neighbourhood in space. Rosetta will also help to discover whether comets contributed to the beginnings of life on Earth. Comets are carriers of complex organic molecules, delivered to Earth through impacts, and perhaps played a role in the origin of life.”

It is also hoped Rosetta will shed some light on what is causing spacecraft to mysteriously accelerate when they perform these swing-bys, which gain more speed than expected. These accelerations have led some scientists to propose that an “exotic new physics” is the cause, involving modifications of Einsteins’s general relativity.

The video below, courtesy of ESA, helps visualise these swing-bys (although apologies for it being so small).

I think a comment piece on the Guardian today makes a good point of applauding those who got the Rosetta project going for their ability to play the long game:

"Rosetta is a wonderful example of the long view.

"The scientific pay-off from Rosetta could be huge. But contemplate the generosity of vision that made the mission possible. Some of those who lobbied for Rosetta will have died by the time the first results are delivered. Some young scientists who will build their careers on the data from Rosetta were not born when the mission was conceived. If, as Harold Wilson famously observed, a week is a long time in politics, Rosetta is a reminder that we can also think on a celestial timescale."

Top image of Rosetta's second Earth swing-by, by C. Carreau, courtesy of ESA.

"Changing the law" is the only answer to libel in science journalism

How should journalists deal with libel law? “Change the laws”, was the resounding answer from most of the panellists at last night’s Science Fact: Science Journalism and Libel Law public debate hosted by City University. The debate, held to celebrate the launch of the university’s Science Journalism MA course, brought together a panel comprising science journalists, campaigners, and even a lawyer (brave fella). Among the panellists was science writer Simon Singh, who is currently being sued for libel, Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre, and Sense About Science’s Tracey Brown.

The debate comes at a particularly apposite time in a week where libel has been hitting the headlines. On Tuesday, law firm Carter-Ruck had to back down on its super injunction on behalf of Trafigura after gagging The Guardian and others and impinging on parliamentary privilege. Also this week, Singh successfully won his bid to appeal against a libel ruling made against him.

However, he is currently facing costs in excess of £100,000 and yet another battle against the British Chiropractic Association.

“With libel, it’s not so much the damages as the costs involved,” said Singh. “And the problem with libel in England is that it is expensive and that the laws are unfair.”

Despite this, Singh is hopeful about the state of libel in the UK. “I honestly believe in the next 10 to 12 months there’s a real opportunity to change the libel laws,” he said.

Goldacre, who with the Guardian successfully fought a libel case earlier this year (but which still left the newspaper around £200,000 out of pocket), said the threat of libel is particularly bad for medical reporting.

“Medicine is almost unique in that it’s possible to do a great deal of harm while meaning to do good,” said Goldacre. “It is possible with medicine, even with the best of intentions, to kill. That is why the practise of criticising is so important in medicine. When that process is stifled, you put the public at great risk. You are exposing people to bad quality information.

“Every time someone criticises your practises, they are doing you a favour. But to create a culture where no one is able to speak is murderous.”

And this kind of environment is becoming more pervasive, said Brown, adding: “What Simon’s case has shed light on is the atmosphere of fear.”

But Brown fears editors will use Simon's case as another cautionary tale and be even more reluctant to publish. What's more, journals are now also living under the shadow of libel.

“Do we want to live in a world of euphemism?,” she asked. “All this lawyering is sanitising discussion. This is pushing us into a world where you no longer say what you mean.”

The fact that American states now feel the need to indemnify themselves against UK judges just highlights how bad our libel laws are, said fellow panellist John Kampfner, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship.

Commenting on the Carter-Ruck injunction, Kampfner said: “This has been an astonishing week for libel in the UK. But the danger is that once that fear has been seen off, politicians and others will forget about it. Almost more chilling is the misuse of article 8. Corporations are now using the Human Rights Act for any form of inquiry. There are several high profile cases happening right now and no one is allowed to report on them.

“Unless we change the body of law, we are facing down the end of a barrel.”

However, libel lawyer Duncan Lamont said: “Compared to continental law, we have a wonderful tradition of ‘publish and be damned.’

“Libel is evolving, maybe not as quickly as I would like. But one should never forget that if a journalist gets it wrong it can have disastrous consequence.”

The audience were then invited to put questions to the panel, with one asking what practical advice they would give to working journalists to avoid being exposed to the dangers of libel law.

Brown’s advice was clear: “The only advice I can give is to change the law.”

Kampfner agreed, saying, “They are seriously shocking libel laws, because they are restricting our freedom of expression. I’m not advocating removing our libel laws. You can have some horrible lies said about you, and you are entitled to a defence. You do need strong, robust libel laws. But you need good libel laws.

“Nothing beats getting the facts right. The better your facts, the better your investigation, the more you should be unleashed.”

Singh said journalists ran the risk of making the story bland. “In my case, if I had not mentioned the BCA, I probably would have been ok. But I thought they had a case to answer for. We’ve now got to a point where journalists just have to take out and take out in order to protect themselves.”

Another audience member asked the panel whether or not a newspaper should, if facing a crippling libel suit, let themselves go to the wall in order to prove a point and raise awareness about libel.

“Why don’t newspaper fall on their swords, well, that would mean hundreds of jobs," answered Goldacre. "And it’s not the newspaper who should be making that sacrifice. It’s not the newspapers who should carry the can.

"I could just as easily say, ‘why don’t you sacrifice your job, your house’. But what you really need to do is campaign for a change in the law. The stifling effect doesn’t just hit journalists and newspapers, but it affects everyone’s access to information.”