Think through the appliance of science

JUST imagine it. Some crazy scientist comes up with a wacko idea for a souped-up new form of personal transport that can whisk you effortlessly from place to place in a tenth of the time normally required. The only drawbacks: it relies on the controlled explosion of a highly inflammable liquid for power; it has a side-effect of slowly poisoning the air we breathe, and it's so fast it is dangerous. Hundreds, no thousands, will be killed every year using it.

It would never be allowed, would it? Of course it is! It's called the car.

"If somebody tried to introduce a technology where you pump petrol today, it would never get passed!" says Steven Yearley with a dry, slightly donnish smile.

It says a lot about how in the past we have tended to press ahead with new technology without ever suspecting what the full implications may be. But it is also a neat example of the kind of mixed-up standards many of us apply when it comes to thinking about 'controversial' science and technology.

As a nation we have fallen in love with mobile phones, and think nothing of letting our kids spend hours chatting on them - despite real concerns about the possible effect of mobile phone signals on our brains.

And nothing on God's earth would make us give up our cars - even though they are known to be one of the biggest killers around.

Yet even a whisper of a suggestion that a combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) may be linked to onset of autism in babies and we panic.

Similarly with GM crops - they may hold out the possibility of untold benefits, but the tabloid media have dubbed them 'Frankenstein foods' and many of us regard them with a mixture of horror, distrust and suspicion that no amount of Government reassurance will change.

Prof Yearley, head of the sociology department at York University, says there appear to be some risks associated with science and technology that we see as 'clean' and others we view as 'sinister'.

So, certain things, (GM technology, health scares, worries about the environment), produce fear and anxiety, others (cars, mobile phones and alcohol) generally do not. Perhaps it's because the 'clean' risks are those that are built into our everyday lives - they have become familiar, so we have the illusion of being in control.

The sinister risks are more distanced from us - shadowy and threatening, the perceived benefits not so immediate.

Governments ignore our concerns about these 'sinister' risks at their peril. You only have to look at the immensely damaging political fallout from the BSE crisis and our continuing resistance to GM food and the MMR vaccine to realise that.

A Government that continues to try to steamroller us into accepting technology we are afraid of risks losing our trust.

In many ways it is right that it does. Professor Andrew Webster, director of the science and technology studies Unit at York, says he can see there are public health reasons for encouraging parents to have their children innoculated with MMR, because the vaccine only builds up widespread immunity (called 'herd immunity') in the population as a whole if about 85 to 90 per cent of children are vaccinated.

"But I would also say you can see that people are anxious and uncertain," he says. "It is important to work with, rather than against, the grain of the public view."

Prof Yearley agrees - and not just on MMR, but on new and controversial science in general. "People have a democratic right to have a say in whether we use this or that technology or not," he says.

But how can we be involved, when sometimes the things we worry about or don't worry about are so irrational? During the next few days, more than 450 scientists and social scientists from all over the world will be in York to discuss just such issues.

The Responsibility Under Uncertainty conference at York University will be looking not just at ways of ensuring greater public involvement in decision-making on science and technology - but also at ways of better understanding the possible consequences of new science.

That is perhaps more important now at the beginning of the 21st century than ever before, argues Prof Yearley. The explosion of knowledge in areas such as genetics and bio-engineering means we have powers we have never before had.

But with that power is coming an increasing recognition of the 'uncertainty' of science. Our ability, for example, to manipulate the genetic make-up of plants and animals - and ultimately people too - is bound to have consequences we cannot yet foresee.

By its very nature, science doesn't deal in certainties. It deals in probabilities - which is why a scientist will never give a straight yes or no answer and why governments often find themselves in difficulties when trying to reassure the public.

Science has to be open and honest about the fact it doesn't know all the answers, says Prof Webster. And, precisely because of the uncertainty involved, there needs to be a much more rigorous attempt to think through the consequences of new scientific and technological developments before they are put into practice.

"We need to try to anticipate the implications before they happen," he says.

It's not just about the Doomsday stuff - scientific research opens up ethical problems too, that will profoundly challenge our view of ourselves as human beings. At what point does an embryo become a human being? Should we accord rights to 'stem cells' taken from aborted foetuses?

There are no easy answers - but the questions need to be asked.

Increasing public participation in decision-making on science issues does not mean each of us being personally consulted over whether or not stem cell research using cells from aborted foetuses should be permitted or use of GM crops expanded, of course.

Better general education and wider public debate about science is important. But the key is that the bodies which advise the Government on application of new science and technology need to take more account of public attitudes and concerns.

So it shouldn't just be scientists doing the advising, says Prof Webster. Different voices need to be consulted, too - social scientists who can take a critical stance towards science, among others.

He stresses it is not about wanting to 'pull the plug' on science. There have been Luddites around for as long as there have been scientists, and the opposition to science they represent contributes to healthy debate.

In fact, if we have learned anything from the past, says Prof Yearley, it is that it is when science proceeds too quickly rather than too slowly that problems arise.

"The problem has been more scientific arrogance than that scientific opinion has been over-ridden," he says.

The possible benefits to human health and happiness offered by bioscience and our new understanding of our genetic make-up are immense. But there are risks and dilemmas too.

It is only right that we should think about them before rushing blindly ahead.

Updated: 10:21 Wednesday, July 31, 2002