• Question: Do you think that science will play a huge part in the up and coming developing world and if so how ? Also as scienctists yourself do you feel that they are acknowledged more and more these days or are they just starting to be forgoten about, ive heard some people refer to scientists as old outdated would you agree ( i dont by the way i adore the work of scientists) :)

    Asked by nunu96 to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 21 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      I think science is definitely playing a massive role in developing countries. I can’t remember where I heard it now, but there’s some stat somewhere that shows the amount of smartphones being used in developing countries – it’s massive – they’ve been able to utilise this technology to help communicate with others to share information on weather fronts, movements of livestock etc and all this is helping them to develop their communities greatly.

      Emerging economies, such as Brazil, are also steaming ahead in scientific output. It seems that science is seen as a real indicator of the strength of a country and Brazil created an astounding number of scientific papers last year – they’re also building numerous light sources (particle accelerators that accelerate electrons which then emit a type of strongly focused radiation, like x-rays) which are fantastic facilities (we have one in the UK called the Diamond Light Source – it’s pretty cool!).

      I think science, scientists, and the role of science in general life, is getting far more media coverage at the minute than it ever has done in my liftetime (or maybe I just didn’t realise it before?) there are many popular science programs on TV, and the neutrinos going faster than light experiments seem to really have captured the publics imagination, making it front page news – this can only be a good thing!

      As regards scientists being old and outdated, well, I’m sure some are old – some proportion of each profession will be old! There was a 17% increase in applications to study physics at University this year – so hopefullly that’s a lot of new scientists coming through the ranks, so if we are a decidedly old bunch (which I don’t, personally, think we are – not in my experience anyway) then that should begin to change in the coming years!

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      I typed a very long answer to this, then my computer decided to log me out randomly and I lost it! Sometimes I DO hate technology!

      Luckily, Hayley has said much of what I did. In the developing world many countries have ‘leap-frogged’ developed countries when it comes to technology, with mobile phones being common and land-line phones being pretty much non-existent. In some countries in Africa, for example, you can pay for your groceries with your phone credit, something we have been thinking about for years but never done!

      On top of this, the science we do is helping to develop our economy, keep the world safe, and challenge some huge problems society has. A huge number of people are employed in science.

      As for the perception of scientists and the work we do, I agree with Hayley. In the past the scientific community has been very bad at communicating our ideas and what we do to the public. This led to suspicion and fear of the work of science – when you don’t understand something it is normal to be suspicious of it. Despite this, a survey of Americans still found that scientist is one of the professions that the public hold in high regard – only doctors (I think!) were above us.

      Communicating science has improved a lot however, and you are taking part in one such project! I will give three examples how the outreach of science:

      1) Prof Brian Cox. Yes he is on TV but he is a real scientist, who does real research, and believes that everyone can understand the basic principles of the things in his programmes. This is so great, and vast improvement on the scientists on TV before, who were either old and making things sound complex, or not real scientists! (do you remember Dr Gillian McKeith, she isn’t a doctor, yet made a whole programme advising people on health). He is charismatic and relates to people. The next step is to find the next generation of science television stars! Overall the BBC were recently praised for their very good output of science.

      2) Comedy shows showing the real life (perhaps exaggerated) of the life of a scientist. The Big Bang Theory may not exactly be what we get up to all the time, but at least it shows the human side of science!

      3) YouTube and the internet. Where old outreach shows used to explain something to a group of 100 people, a video on youtube can get 100,000 views. A great example of this is the Periodic Table of Videos.

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      The idea that scientists are outdated is surely nonsense… science is everything. Every time someone invents something new, they’re doing science. Every time someone improves something, they’re doing science. Every time someone looks at information to determine what’s going on, they’re doing science.

      For that reason I have no doubt that science will play a significant part in the developing world.

      Up until recently, the knowledge and resources of the world have been geographically isolated, but the world is growing more and more connected and people everywhere will rightly want enjoy everything that human kind is capable of. But, this can’t be done with things as they are now: the devices we use, the rubbish that we produce, the resources we waste can’t be continued on a global scale by 6 billion people.

      The only way we can combat this is with science… making more efficient devices, reducing the impact of our live on the environment, re-using things we would otherwise have thrown away… all of this needs science to achieve.

      Science is also about knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge grows and improves society as a whole… as the world grows more connected, peaceful collaboration in this way will become more and more an important part of a cohesive global society.

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      Hehe… interesting question. I think society has changed a lot and there is a growing culture of anti-intellectualism that we need to fight to prevent. Join us in the fight! 😀 I think people can often feel threatened by people with logical rational arguments because of the agressive way it can come across. I think it is important that we scientists engage in a non-condescending manner at all times because it takes a while to build up peoples confidence in an area they feel weak in but just one negative comment and all that hard work will be undone.

      Scientists are easy targets for the press too. ‘Climategate’ is a perfect example of the media wanting to portray scientists as untrustworthy. The US public’s trust in global warming dropped by 20% after that but when it turned out that there was no scandal and when it was shown that the data was correct the press wasn’t interested… why?… because telling people that some clever people were right all along doesn’t sell newspapers.

      What can we do about it? Well we are all scientists and we can all communicate the science we know in a patient and clear manner so as to make the subject less scary. Science is everyones 🙂

      I think science is our only hope for the future of the planet… the developing world needs better political government which i can only see science offering by developing technologies to remove the power of certain area… getting away from the dependance on coal and oil and rare earth metals.

      I do agree with what Hayley, Andrew and Daniel have said… all except ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith who i think has only done science harm by pretending to be a scientist, giving terrible dietary advice and condescending people people at the same time. Diet is so important for health and it really saddens me that bad information is still around.

      Great question!

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