Public Understanding of Science recent issues

Modest witnessing and managing the boundaries between science and the media: A case study of breakthrough and scandal

Haran, J., Kitzinger, J. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

This article works with the figure of the "modest witness" and the concept of "virtual witnessing" to explore the case of the South Korean scientist, Hwang, whose stem cell breakthroughs are now regarded as hoaxes. We analyze the rhetorical techniques used by the scientific establishment and news media to first endorse, and then disavow, Hwang’s work. In particular, we focus on how the rhetoric of disavowal operates to maintain a dominant understanding of the normal relationship between science and the media. We highlight how journalists and scientists framed the original breakthroughs in ways which obscured the mediation of these events, but, once the scandals emerged, began to foreground the media as a problem. This retrospective acknowledgement of mediation also subtly (re)assigned the problem to the world of celebrity scientists and fictional genres and narratives. This lets news reporting, and routine science—journalist relations off the hook.

The Korean press and Hwang's fraud

Park, J., Jeon, H., Logan, R. A. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

This case study explores why South Korean journalists overlooked allegations of scientific misconduct against South Korean scientist Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and even indirectly defended him in 2005—6. Nineteen journalists, who covered Hwang’s story for five of South Korea’s leading daily newspapers, were interviewed. The interviewees added insights about the news coverage of the Hwang scandal not identified in previous literature, such as the difficulties among journalists to suspend their personal disbelief about the criticisms and evidence against Hwang. The findings suggest the news judgments that occurred in Korean newsrooms during the Hwang scandal reflected a socially constructed process of negotiation among news media professionals and between journalists and scientists. The findings also suggest it may be best to consider journalistic mores within a multidimensional framework that includes journalistic perceptions of socio-cultural norms, internal newsroom standards for evidence, newsroom competence and training, normative journalism ethics, news gathering techniques, perceived dissonance and professed risk avoidance.

Public feeling for science: The Hwang affair and Hwang supporters

Kim, J. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

This ethnography investigates how the Hwang affair occurred, how Dr. Woo Suk Hwang attracted supporters, and how groups supporting Hwang evolved. Instead of interpreting Hwang supporters as abnormal people with psychological problems, this study situates them in concrete, messy, and ambiguous contexts in which they struggle to understand the Hwang affair. Distrustful of scientific authorities and official institutions, they have linked Korean nationalism with the hopes and dreams of stem cell research, created conspiracy theories to explain Hwang’s fall, and criticized Korean elites. In particular, this paper emphasizes how Hwang supporters are motivated by admiration of a Korean scientist with humble beginnings (Dr. Hwang), the hope of curing disease through stem cell research, and the desire to build an advanced nation through science. In describing this process, I pay attention to how public feeling for science is produced and how it has evolved in the interactions among government, media, and the Hwang supporters’ organizations. In addition, I argue that institutional incompetence deepens public distrust and as a result fuels the formation and activities of Hwang supporters.

Representations of the stem-cell cloning fraud: from scientific breakthrough to managing the stake and interest of science

Augoustinos, M., Russin, A., LeCouteur, A. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

The meteoric rise of Professor Wu Sook Hwang who had claimed to have successfully cloned embryonic stem cells in two landmark papers published in Science (2004, 2005) came to an abrupt end when it was discovered that the findings reported in both papers had been deliberately fabricated. Given the heightened expectations associated with therapeutic-cloning advances and their potential for alleviating a range of illnesses, this recent case of scientific fraud generated considerable controversy and public interest across the world. This paper examines a sample of texts taken predominantly from the British newsprint media that reported on both the so-called scientific "breakthrough" (as it was initially reported) and the subsequent fraud. Using Gilbert and Mulkay’s analysis of scientists’ discourse as a theoretical framework, our analysis focuses on how competing repertoires of science were mobilized by the media and the scientific community to account for the fraud. Specifically, we demonstrate how the empiricist repertoire of science was repeatedly mobilized in the initial reporting of the stem-cell "breakthrough" which functioned to warrant the scientific veracity and promissory potential of the findings. In contrast, when this so-called "breakthrough" was discovered to be fraudulent, a contingent repertoire was invoked to construct Hwang as a "bad apple," who was unrepresentative of the scientific community in general. We also detail the use of a Truth-Will-Out rhetorical device which in a similar way functioned to warrant the practice of embryonic stem-cell research specifically and the institution of science, more generally.

Understanding public support for stem cell research: media communication, interpersonal communication and trust in key actors

Liu, H., Priest, S. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

This paper analyzes data from a 2005 telephone survey of 1200 people in the US that included questions about attitudes toward stem cell research and a broad range of communication variables. After all controls, trust in university scientists and religious leaders, exposure to national television news, familiarity, and religious service attendance produced statistically significant main effects on perception of research benefits, together explaining about 31% of the variance. Interpersonal communication may also have contingent effects.

Embryonic stem cell: A climax in the reign of the Brazilian media

Jurberg, C., Verjovsky, M., Cardoso Machado, G. d. O., Affonso-Mitidieri, O. R. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

In the last few years, embryonic stem cell research has been widely debated in Brazil and a "star" in the national media. Because of the notoriety of the issue, the media have sometimes been criticized for oversimplification, exaggeration and distortion. In this context, we analyzed the media during an important time: in 2008, the Federal Supreme Court held historical hearings to decide whether Brazilian scientists could continue using embryonic stem cells. First, we focused on letters sent by readers to one of the most popular newspapers, O Globo. Second, we analyzed the Brazilian news coverage of embryonic stem cells during a crucial week in the public debate. At the end of May 2008, under pressure from Brazilian media and society, the Ministers of the Supreme Court approved research using embryonic stem cells.

Believing in both genetic determinism and behavioral action: a materialist framework and implications

Condit, C. M., Gronnvoll, M., Landau, J., Shen, L., Wright, L., Harris, T. M. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

A disparity exists between studies reporting that genetics discourse produces deterministic or fatalistic responses and studies reporting that the majority of laypeople do not hold or adopt genetically deterministic views. This article reports data from an interview study (n = 50), and an interpretation of those data grounded in materialist understandings of discourse, that explains at least part of the disparity. The article employs a detailed reading of an illustrative transcript embedded in a quantitative content analysis to suggest that laypeople have incorporated two sets of public discourses—one that describes genetic causation and another that describes behavioral causation. These different discourse tracks are presumed to be encoded in different sets of neural networks in people’s minds. Consequently, each track can be articulated upon proper cueing, but the tracks are not related to each other to produce a discourse for speaking about gene—behavior interactions. Implications for the effects of this mode of instantiation of discourse in human individuals with regard to genes and behavior are discussed, as well as implications for message design.

Assessment of Slovene secondary school students' attitudes to biotechnology in terms of usefulness, moral acceptability and risk perception

Crne-Hladnik, H., Peklaj, C., Kosmelj, K., Hladnik, A., Javornik, B. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

Quantitative and qualitative studies among 469 high school students of average age 17 years were conducted. The students’ attitudes to four practical applications of biotechnology were examined: genetically modified plants (Bt corn), genetically modified animals (salmon), and hemophilia germ line and somatic gene therapy. Each of the four applications was examined from three different viewpoints: usefulness, moral acceptability and risk perception. Bt corn production proved to be the most acceptable in terms of both usefulness and risk perception. Values for genetically modified salmon and germ line gene therapy were comparable, but much lower than those for the other two applications; this was true for both usefulness and moral acceptability. In addition, students found genetically modified salmon to be ethically much less acceptable than Bt corn. Significant gender differences were observed in the case of germ line gene therapy and genetically modified salmon.

Scientific controversies in museums: notes from a semi-peripheral country

Delicado, A. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:55:01 PDT

This research note discusses the representation of scientific controversies in museums in a particular national context, Portugal. Despite the recent development of the national scientific system and the field of science museums, the connection between science and society has remained weak. The description of the content of scientific exhibitions, namely about controversial issues, shows that science is still portrayed as beyond dispute and unequivocally beneficial and the public is dismissed as irrational and in need of enlightenment. The role of museums as forums for debate and exchange of ideas is yet to be fulfilled.

Coping with uncertainty: Assessing nanotechnologies in a citizen panel in Switzerland

Valerie Burri, R. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

The policy shift towards "upstream public engagement" requires dealing with a lack of individual and stabilized scientific knowledge that accompanies any early stage of research and development. This article examines how actors cope with this epistemic uncertainty when deliberating emerging technologies. Analyzing the arguments of the participants in a Swiss citizen panel on nanotechnology, the article explores how actors form their opinions in an epistemically nonstabilized situation. The article shows how actors develop a strategy to handle this situation: analogies, such as to other risk technologies or "nature," and personal experiences as patients and consumers are used as interpretive patterns and serve as tools to cope with the unknown. Focusing on the ways uncertainty is handled, this approach is differentiated from other models to explain public attitudes toward emerging technologies, such as the "scientific literacy model" or the "cognitive miser model."

Opening the black box: scientists' views on the role of the news media in the nanotechnology debate

Petersen, A., Anderson, A., Allan, S., Wilkinson, C. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

Increasingly, scientists and policy makers have come to recognize that if nanotechnologies are to achieve wide public acceptance, it is essential to engage publics during the early phase of technology development. The media, situated at the interface between scientists and lay publics, possess the potential to play a significant role in public engagement in this field. This article, drawing on data from a recent survey and interview-based study, examines how scientists perceive and evaluate the production and coverage of news on nanotechnologies. Scientists acknowledged the significance of the media in shaping public perceptions of nanotechnologies and saw a role for the media in public engagement efforts. Most had criticisms of media coverage and offered suggestions as to how it could be improved. However, their comments often revealed a one-dimensional conception of science mediation that overlooked the influence of their own claims. Any efforts to enrich public dialogue about nanotechnologies must endeavor to advance understanding among scientists about the operations of the media and their own role in news production.

Evolving scientific research governance in Australia: a case study of engaging interested publics in nanotechnology research

Katz, E., Solomon, F., Mee, W., Lovel, R. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

This paper examines the prospects for integrating social context questions within science and technology research and development governance. While the use of public engagement to investigate social aspects of emerging technologies is increasingly accepted, incorporating social understandings into research and development processes is far less developed. The paper outlines two Australian public engagement workshops in the social issues of nanotechnologies, and a third workshop with nanoscientists, which explored governance options for incorporating social context questions within research processes. Our research suggests that in Australia we are still some distance from integrating social issues into nanotechnology research and development governance. In part, this is because the difficulties of prediction and control of nanotechnologies, together with particular characteristics of scientific cultures and institutions, make both prospects and outcomes of integration difficult to assess.

Religiosity as a perceptual filter: examining processes of opinion formation about nanotechnology

Brossard, D., Scheufele, D. A., Kim, E., Lewenstein, B. V. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

Using national survey data, we examine how people use science media, factual knowledge related to nanotechnology, and predispositions such as strength of religious beliefs, to form attitudes about nanotechnology. We show that strength of religious beliefs is negatively related to support for funding of the technology. Our findings also confirm that science media use plays an important role in shaping positive attitudes toward the technology. Overall public support for funding nanotechnology is not directly related to levels of knowledge among the electorate, but on risk and benefits perceptions and the use of media frames. However, knowledge about the technology does tend to be interpreted through the lens of religious beliefs and therefore indirectly affect levels of support.

Informing, involving or engaging? Science communication, in the ages of atom-, bio- and nanotechnology

Kurath, M., Gisler, P. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

Science communication has shifted considerably in Europe over the last decades. Three technology controversies on atoms, genes, and nanoscale sciences and nanotechnologies (NST) turned the style of communication from one-way information, participation and dialogues to the idea of an early and more democratic engagement of the public. Analyzing science communication developing over the three controversies, this article shows that what happened in one technology field fed forward to and contributed to shaping the subsequent field and that communication was initiated at a progressively earlier stage of technology development. The article concludes with an empirical analysis of six public engagement projects in NST, saying that the shift towards more democratic engagement of the public hasn’t been as profound and complete as has been thought. This is particularly due to the continuing adoption of a simplistic contrast structure that opposes science and the public as two self-contained, antagonistic social entities.

"The post-antibiotic apocalypse" and the "war on superbugs": catastrophe discourse in microbiology, its rhetorical form and political function

Nerlich, B., James, R. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

Discourses evoking an antibiotic apocalypse and a war on superbugs are emerging just at a time when so-called "catastrophe discourses" are undergoing critical and reflexive scrutiny in the context of global warming and climate change. This article combines insights from social science research into climate change discourses with applied metaphor research based on recent advances in cognitive linguistics, especially with relation to "discourse metaphors." It traces the emergence of a new apocalyptic discourse in microbiology and health care, examines its rhetorical and political function and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. It contains a reply by the author of the central discourse metaphor, "the post-antibiotic apocalypse," examined in the article.

Bias in the exchange of arguments: the case of scientists' evaluation of lay viewpoints on GM food

Cuppen, E., Hisschemoller, M., Midden, C. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

Most perspectives on public participation share the notion that dialogues should be open, allowing participants to articulate and evaluate different views and knowledge claims. We hypothesize that participants’ evaluation of claims may be biased because participants have a preference for a particular type or source of a claim. This would hamper an open dialogue. We tested the effect of three variables on scientists’ evaluation of claims of the general public about GM food: the claim’s favorability towards GM food, the phrasing, and the source of the claim. Results are based on a survey-experiment among 73 biotechnology-scientists. Biased processing occurred when scientists evaluated claims. Claims that were corresponding with the attitude of the scientists and that were phrased in a cognitive way were evaluated more positively than claims that were contrasting the attitude of the scientists and that were phrased in an affective way. Contrary to our expectation, scientists evaluated claims of the public more positively than claims of experts.

An analysis of the Public Scientific Literacy study in China

Fajun Chen, , Yumin Shi, , Fei Xu, — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

In March 2006, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued The Outline of the Action Plan for Improving Scientific Literacy for All (From 2006—2010 and then 2010—2020) (the Scientific Literacy Outline), in which the official notion of scientific literacy named "Public Scientific Literacy in China" was put forward for the first time in the history of China. Subsequently, the program of "Study on Measurement Indicators of Scientific Literacy of Chinese Citizens and its Demonstration" was funded by the China Association for Science and Technology the following September. However, the notion as well as its measurement indicators still need more clarification. After reviewing some relevant literature and introducing the historical background to the concept of "Public Scientific Literacy in China" along with a detailed interpretation of its connotation, the authors do a closer examination of the measurement indicators established by the Research and Development Center for Science Communication at the University of Science and Technology of China, based on a systematical analysis of the sample surveys.

Publics performing publics: of PiGs, PiPs and politics

Michael, M. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:06:30 PDT

This theoretical paper considers the ways in which the "publics" of public understanding of science and public engagement with science perform themselves not only in relation to science knowledge and scientific institutions, but also in relation to other publics. Specifically, through a survey of the literature, there is an exploration of the processes of differentiation and identification amongst publics. Two broad rhetorical categories of public are identified: Publics-in-General (PiGs) and Publics-in-Particular (PiPs). The means by which they are variously differentiated, and the performative uses to which these can be put are considered. Implications for both the implementation of public engagement processes, and the critique of such engagement, are discussed.

Editorial

Bauer, M. W. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:49 PDT

Believing is seeing: laypeople's views of future socio-economic and climate change in England and in Italy

Lorenzoni, I., Hulme, M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:49 PDT

Cross-cultural studies are particularly relevant in the context of climate change, given its pervasive character and the growing demand for climate change mitigation at both global and local levels. This paper reports on findings from comparative cross-cultural mixed-methods research eliciting perceptions of the future among citizens in Norwich (UK) and Rome (Italy). The paper explores how individuals at the two locations interpret socio-economic and climate scenarios, and how they relate environmental change to human behavior. Attitude segmentation was found to be similar in both localities. Although most participants in both locations realized the benefits of a future centered on sustainable resource use and societal welfare, individuals' attitudes and considerations about the future were not largely influenced by the scenarios. Discussions revealed that the credibility of the projections depended on individuals' prior beliefs and their trust in the science portrayed.

What's in a name? Commonalities and differences in public understanding of "climate change" and "global warming"

Whitmarsh, L. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

This paper reports on findings from a survey of public understanding of climate change and global warming amongst residents in the south of England. Whereas much previous research has relied on survey checklists to measure public understanding of climate change, this study employed a more qualitative approach to reveal participants' unprompted conceptions of climate change and global warming. Overall, the findings show a tendency for the public to dissociate themselves from the causes, impacts, and responsibility for tackling climate change/global warming. This research gave particular attention to how terminology is understood by the public. The findings point to important qualitative, as well as quantitative, differences between public understanding of "climate change" and public understanding of "global warming." Furthermore, the latter term was found to evoke more concern than the former. As discussed in the article, these results have important implications for both researchers and communicators.

Global warming--global responsibility? Media frames of collective action and scientific certainty

Olausson, U. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

The increasing interconnectedness of the world that characterizes the process of globalization compels us to interlink local, national, and transnational phenomena, such as environmental risks, in both journalistic and academic discourse. Among environmental risks of global scope climate change is probably the one receiving the most attention at present, not least in the media. Globalization notwithstanding, national media are still dominated by a national logic in the presentation of news, and tensions arise between this media logic and the transnational character of environmental risks that call for a collective responsibility transcending the borders of the nation-states. This article presents results from studies of the construction of global climate change in three Swedish newspapers. It discusses the media's attribution of responsibility for collective action along an axis ranging from local to national to transnational, and highlights the media's reluctance to display any kind of scientific uncertainty that would undermine the demand for collective action. The results underline the media's responsiveness to the political setting in which they operate and the growing relevance of the transnational political realm of Europe for the construction of news frames on global climate change in European national media.

Two normative models of science in the public sphere: human genome sequencing in German and US mass media

Gerhards, J., Schafer, M. S. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

The public sphere and particularly the mass media have become increasingly important for the legitimation of science. Many publications on the issue explicitly or implicitly deal with the question of how science should be treated in the mass media, putting forward normative models of an ideal "scientific public sphere." In this article, we first present two ideal types of normative models identified in the literature: the "science-dominated scientific public sphere" and the "contextualized scientific public sphere." Whereas the first model calls for scientific dominance in mass media debates, the second model argues that science should be contextualized also with non-scientific actors and arguments. The second part of the article outlines how these two models translate into specific demands for mass media debates and proposes how to measure whether concrete cases of science coverage correspond with one of the normative models. We confront the two normative models with the example of media coverage on human genome research in Germany and in the United States in the third part of the article. Our findings show that the mass media debate on this issue is dominated by bio-scientists, affirmative positions, and scientific and medical frames in both countries. Hence, human genome research as an empirical case corresponds to the demands of the scientific dominance model, while failing to meet the demands for more contextualized mass media coverage.

Reassessing the concept of a medialization of science: a story from the "book of life"

Rodder, S. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

The changing relationship between science and the mass media has been characterized in theory as a medialization of science. This paper argues that the concept of medialization should be further focused by differentiating two dimensions, an increasing media attention for scientific issues on the one hand and an increasing orientation of science towards the media on the other hand. This allows for observing changes with regard to science and the media separately. The concept is then supported empirically for the field of human genome research. British and German print media coverage of the final phase of the human genome sequencing has been studied using a quantitative content analysis. Triggered by its far-reaching implications, its "Big Science" nature and the competition of publicly and privately funded scientists to finish the first drafts of the human genome, human genome research is indicative of the medialization of science. It is therefore likely that the rationalities of the media system gain an influence on the research field or even beyond it.

In quest of publicity: the science--media partnership of the Galathea Deep Sea Expedition from 1950 to 1952

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

The Galathea Deep Sea Expedition from 1950 to 1952 combined oceanographic research with simultaneous science reporting and strategically seeking publicity. In effect, the expedition organizers ventured into a science—media partnership. From the beginning, reporting scientific exploration to the general public at home and abroad was considered an essential part of the expedition. Combining scientific objectives with publicity concerns, the expedition built on boundary work performed by boundary workers separating science from the media. Several boundary objects were mobilized to facilitate interactions across the cultural border between scientists and journalists. In particular, the mythological sea serpent domesticated by scientists and fully adopted by journalists played an important role in aligning the scientific aspects of the expedition with publicity and science reporting. The historical narrative of the expedition feeds into contemporary discussions about the dominant discourse on science and the media.

The value of the use of biotechnology: public views in China and Europe

Lan Lu, — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:55:50 PDT

This study contrasts public views of the value of biotechnology applications in China and Europe. The most striking result is that biotechnology applications get more consistent acceptance and support in China than in Europe. The Chinese people are extremely positive in their evaluation of the usefulness and moral acceptability of various applications of biotechnology, whereas the European public has broader and firmer understanding of the risks involved. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the public's perception of benefit might be a prerequisite to supporting the development of biotechnology; nevertheless, moral acceptance is the key to gaining public support. Conversely, public perceptions of high risk may not necessarily reduce the level of support.

Media, scientific journals and science communication: examining the construction of scientific controversies

Brossard, D. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

This paper analyzes the role of the media in the construction of the "water with memory" controversy. It demonstrates that the universality of the canons of the scientific enterprise transcends the scientific publications' domain and can also influence mass media coverage of scientific controversies. Mass media can play a crucial role in scientific controversies. This role goes way beyond acting as secondary sources of news created in the scientific arena. The case study illustrates how media in times of crisis can assume the rhetorical role traditionally imparted to scientific journals, the latter adopting a passionate and sensationalistic approach usually attributed to mass media. The case study demonstrates that mass media's role in science communication cannot be studied in isolation, and that scientific journals and mass media work in interaction in the construction of scientific controversies.

Boundary-work and the human--animal binary: Piltdown man, science and the media

Goulden, M. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

The infamous Piltdown hoax offers an excellent opportunity to study how a figure that straddled the human—animal boundary (both figuratively in its positioning as a "missing link," and literally given its post-hoax status as a modern human skull and a modern orangutan jaw) was made to fit dichotomous understandings of it. The process of making this figure human reveals how scientific claims in the disputed border zone between humans and non-human animals are shaped by the cultural themes upon which the division stands. Nationalism, race and species classification became enmeshed in the efforts to lead Piltdown from its liminal position to more conceptually stable ground. The result was a stretching of human-ness, that brought Piltdown closer to us whilst modern-day "savages" were moved further away. The paper's theoretical framework shifts Gieryn's boundary-work model from an ontology of culture to an ontology of nature. Transplanting Gieryn's model in this way is useful not only because of the parallels specifically between the science—culture and human—animal boundaries, but also as it serves as a reminder of the strong relationship between the categorization of the social and natural worlds.

Public fiction as knowledge production: the case of the Raelians' cloning claims

Ingram-Waters, M. C. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

In this article, I follow the construction of the public fiction of the 2002 Raëlians' cloning claims as a site of liminal, or transitional, space for scientific knowledge production. In 2002, the Raëlians, a new religious movement, announced the successful birth of Baby Eve, allegedly, the first clone. Baby Eve was quickly denounced as a hoax. Within the media frenzy that led up to and followed Baby Eve's birth, the voices of a core set of pro-cloning scientists emerged as experts in constructing human cloning. These experts used the Raëlians' claims to settle several controversies about human cloning: reproductive cloning was unethical while therapeutic cloning was desirable; scientists who advocated reproductive cloning were immoral; and human cloning was too complex to be achieved by anyone working outside mainstream scientific institutions. Though Baby Eve is undoubtedly a fictional construct, she offered the world an important opportunity to engage the science fiction-like implications of human cloning as if they were real.

Stem cells and the embryo: biorhetoric and scientism in Congressional debate

Lynch, J. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

Opposition to embryonic stem (ES) cell research in the United States has focused on the status of the embryo and used discursive strategies based on the rhetorical figure of the "public fetus" created in abortion debates. The public fetus is an example of biorhetoric, and the biorhetorical component of it is intensified because political and scientific-technical developments render the extension of it to the ES cell debate problematic. This essay examines the development of debates about life, conception and the status of the fetus/embryo in Congressional hearings. Arguments from both sides focus on definitions of "the embryo," and ultimately transform the biorhetorical appeal into a form of scientism.

Visualizing nanotechnology: the impact of visual images on lay American audience associations with nanotechnology

Landau, J., Groscurth, C. R., Wright, L., Condit, C. M. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

Developments in nanotechnology are attracting the attention of scholars of science communication who can play a strategic role in understanding technology adoption by the public. This paper begins to address a critical gap in that research by studying the impact of visual images on lay American audience associations with nanotechnology. An inductive qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews about participants' general knowledge of nanotechnology and their reactions to two different visual images of nanotechnology revealed 10 themes, which were sometimes valenced positively or negatively: science, (medicinal) machines, technology, very small, sky, motion, (childhood) toys, bodily blood, injecting (disease), and foreign (insect). We argue that these findings illustrate a specific "visual" domain of "science" images, that this domain is organized to contain polarities, and that this leads to volatility in public attitudes but also flexibility in responses to a range of visual images of new sciences such as nanotechnology.

Discussing dialogue: perspectives on the value of science dialogue events that do not inform policy

Davies, S., McCallie, E., Simonsson, E., Lehr, J. L., Duensing, S. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

While theoretical work and empirical research have examined science policy-informing "dialogue events," dialogue events that do not seek to inform public policy are under-theorized and under-researched, even though they are common and growing in popularity in the UK. We describe how, from a critical perspective, it may initially appear that such events cannot be justified without returning to the deficit model. But with this paper, we seek to open up a discussion about these non policy-informing events by arguing that there are in fact further ways to understand and frame them. We deliberately draw on different literatures and seek to make use of practitioner expertise within our discussion, in order to display several perspectives on the value of non-policy dialogue on science as sites of symmetrical individual or small-scale learning —rather than institutional learning—through social processes .

Unruly ethics: on the difficulties of a bottom-up approach to ethics in the field of genomics

Felt, U., Fochler, M., Muller, A., Strassnig, M. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

This paper explores the difficulties of addressing ethical questions of genome research in a public engagement setting where laypeople and scientists met for a longer period of time. While professional ethics mostly ignores public meaning, we aimed at a bottom-up approach to ethics in order to broaden the way in which ethical aspects of genomics can be addressed. However, within this interaction we identified a number of difficulties that constrained an open discussion on ethical issues. Thus, we analyze how ethical issues were approached, framed, debated, displaced or closed. We then elaborate on the possibilities and limits of dealing with ethics in such a participatory setting. We conclude by hinting at what should be taken into consideration when approaching issues of science and ethics more "upstream."

Book review: Daniel S. Greenberg, Science for Sale: the Perils, Rewards and Delusion of Campus Capitalism (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 288pp, ISBN: 9780226306254, $25.00 (hbk)

Amorese, V. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

Book review: Joan Haran, Jenny Kitzinger, Maureen McNeil, and Kate O'Riordan, Human Cloning in the Media: from Science Fiction to Science Practice (London: Routledge, 2008), 256pp, ISBN 9780415422369, $160.00 (hbk)

Jensen, E. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT

Book review: Daniel Gardner, Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear (London: Virgin Books, 2008), 355pp. ISBN 9781905264155, {pound}17.99 (hbk) [published in the USA as The Science of Fear: Why we Fear the Things we Shouldn't--and put Ourselves in Greater Danger (New York: Dutton, 2008), 352pp. ISBN 9780525950622, $24.95 (hbk)] Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Panicology: What Are You Afraid Of? Two Statisticians Explain What's Worth Worrying About (and What's Not) in the 21st Century (London: Viking Penguin, 2008). 304pp. ISBN 9780670917013. {pound}18.98 (hbk)

Berube, D. M. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:29 PDT