Under the Microscope / Prof William Reville: One principal reason I write this column is to foster public awareness and understanding of science. I believe it is vitally important for people to feel easy with science in a world that runs on science-based technology. Also, from a cultural point of view, everyone has the right to know something of the wonderful knowledge that science has produced about how the world works.
Mainstream science sees few problems with several technologies that are, to varying extents, unpopular with the general public, for example, genetically modified food (GMF), incineration of waste, and MMR vaccination. Governments and the scientific community hoped that enhancing the public understanding of science would greatly reduce anxieties on these issues, but this has not proved to be the case.
A thin smattering of understanding is not sufficient to allay deep anxiety. Public trust in science is critically important in this regard. Efforts to enhance the public understanding of science must patiently continue and, slowly but surely, public trust in scientific pronouncements in these controversial areas will grow - that is, of course, assuming that scientists continue to be guided uncompromisingly by scientific truth.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science recently conducted a survey to assess public attitudes to GMF. Some 40,000 people took part in the survey and the great majority of them declared that they were deeply concerned about GMF. Only 8 per cent would be prepared to eat GMF without worry.
Another exercise was carried out in-tandem with the attitude survey. A broad range of people were divided into 10 discussion groups across the UK and each group agreed to spend a couple of weeks deeply studying GMF issues. All participants were interviewed about their views before and after their in-depth exercise.
The results showed that the more people learned about the issues involved, the more worried they became. Many people turned vague misgivings at the start into concrete arguments against GMF at the end of the exercise. And, after a two-week study of the issues, nobody felt that they knew enough to make a final decision either way. The conclusions reached after this public debate have been published and can be consulted in full at www.gmpublicdebate.org/
GMF is a complex scientific issue. In order to attain a discriminating grasp of the matter one would have to understand Mendelian genetics, molecular genetics, genetic recombination, plant breeding and ecology, and agricultural economics. Only a sub-set of scientists is expert enough to have fully informed opinions on GMF.
Even though I am a biochemist, I am expert only on certain aspects of muscle biochemistry and I am not competent to definitively pronounce on GMF from my own expertise. I rely on the veracity of pronouncements by experts on GMF who have published their research findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals to demonstrate that certain GM foods pose little or no risk to human health or to plant ecology. I accept these conclusions because I trust the scientific process.
Now, consider a member of the general public who is intensively exposed for a couple of weeks to the science and issues of GMF. While the basic level of the science learned will undoubtedly help one to better understand GMF issues, it will also highlight how complex this area is and give some indication of the complex mountain of science that lies at the heart of this technology, whose nature, ramifications and consequences of use can only be fully understood by experts. The question then resolves itself into - can the experts be trusted? Clearly, the general public, on certain issues, does not automatically trust the scientific establishment.
Some scientific bodies react to this by dimming enthusiasm for the public understanding of science. This is a mistake. As I said before, there are several reasons for advancing the public understanding of science besides winning over public opinion on controversial issues.
The lack of public trust in science on the GMF issue is closely tied up with lack of trust in big business. The major developments in biotechnology are now driven by big business. The public understandably wonders how impartial scientific pronouncements on GMF are when made by scientists whose research is funded by big business.
Speaking as an insider, I have confidence that the scientific process is robust enough to resolve most of these conflicts of interests in favour of an honest outcome. However, the scientific process is operated by scientists who are not immune to human frailties and who, in a minority of cases, may make unwise compromises.
The public trusts science on most issues, but not on some. In order to win trust, scientists must continue to engage frankly with the public, which means taking some risks - "Faint heart never won fair lady". In this respect, the recent public debate in Ireland on embryonic stem cell research was not encouraging. With very few exceptions, academic scientists, the very people who carry out stem cell research, took no part in this public debate. This did not go unnoticed, and quite a number of people are wondering why this was the case.
William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and director of microscopy at University College Cork