RecQuery
23-May-12, 08:22
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/05/why-geeks-should-be-invited-to-the-policy-party.html is a review of a book called 'The Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters'
I found it quite interesting, as it's sort of the same thing I've been saying for a while, review also posted below:
In The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson pleads for citizens who value science to force it onto the mainstream political agenda and other main walks of life
THE UK House of Commons contains only one member of Parliament who has worked in scientific research. Starting with this statistic in The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson unleashes a depressing roll call of institutions and people who have let down science. Former science editor at UK daily The Times, Henderson doesn't shy away from naming names, even rapping his own knuckles for a negative news story he once wrote about the Large Hadron Collider.
But this book is not simply about cataloguing bad science; it is a rallying cry. What the UK needs, he argues, is for those citizens who value science to rise up and force it onto the mainstream political agenda.
His use of the word "we" throughout leaves no doubt that he is appealing to fellow geeks. In a chapter on education, he urges us to take up science teaching in schools. In others, he presses his scientific comrades to critique government policy on crime and nuclear power. To anyone who regularly reads British newspapers, his case studies will sound familiar - the false link between the MMR vaccine and autism, for instance, or environmental concerns over GM crops. But the purpose of this book seems not so much to surprise, as to provide ammunition for those who think that society could use a good deal more of the scientific method.
Researchers who are wary of dirtying their hands with politics should be encouraged by recent successful campaigns on blogs and social networks, he says. In 2010, for example, more than 2000 people rallied in Westminster under the banner "Science is Vital", protesting against proposed 30 per cent cuts to public spending on science. A subsequent petition gained more than 33,000 signatures. It seems to have worked: the UK science budget was frozen for the next four years.
Mobilising geeks into a voting bloc that achieves large-scale change, however, may be an uphill battle, especially when voters are already worried about funding of public services.
But even if we don't see protesting crowds waving bright orange copies of his book before Parliament, it is impossible not to admire Henderson's focused anger at the lack of science in policy-making and his passion to change things. If this inspires just one more scientist to enter politics, it will have done its job.
I found it quite interesting, as it's sort of the same thing I've been saying for a while, review also posted below:
In The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson pleads for citizens who value science to force it onto the mainstream political agenda and other main walks of life
THE UK House of Commons contains only one member of Parliament who has worked in scientific research. Starting with this statistic in The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson unleashes a depressing roll call of institutions and people who have let down science. Former science editor at UK daily The Times, Henderson doesn't shy away from naming names, even rapping his own knuckles for a negative news story he once wrote about the Large Hadron Collider.
But this book is not simply about cataloguing bad science; it is a rallying cry. What the UK needs, he argues, is for those citizens who value science to rise up and force it onto the mainstream political agenda.
His use of the word "we" throughout leaves no doubt that he is appealing to fellow geeks. In a chapter on education, he urges us to take up science teaching in schools. In others, he presses his scientific comrades to critique government policy on crime and nuclear power. To anyone who regularly reads British newspapers, his case studies will sound familiar - the false link between the MMR vaccine and autism, for instance, or environmental concerns over GM crops. But the purpose of this book seems not so much to surprise, as to provide ammunition for those who think that society could use a good deal more of the scientific method.
Researchers who are wary of dirtying their hands with politics should be encouraged by recent successful campaigns on blogs and social networks, he says. In 2010, for example, more than 2000 people rallied in Westminster under the banner "Science is Vital", protesting against proposed 30 per cent cuts to public spending on science. A subsequent petition gained more than 33,000 signatures. It seems to have worked: the UK science budget was frozen for the next four years.
Mobilising geeks into a voting bloc that achieves large-scale change, however, may be an uphill battle, especially when voters are already worried about funding of public services.
But even if we don't see protesting crowds waving bright orange copies of his book before Parliament, it is impossible not to admire Henderson's focused anger at the lack of science in policy-making and his passion to change things. If this inspires just one more scientist to enter politics, it will have done its job.