Hola.
Las implicaciones de las ideas expresadas en el mensaje de
abajo son muy profundas para la sociedad moderna. A mi no
me cabe la menor duda de, poco a poco pero con firmeza, seran
una exigencia y una practica en el futuro. ?Que tan civicos
son los contados investigadores latinoamericanos que se
forman en una sociedad tan necesitada de produccion, difusion
y pupolarizacion de ciencia?
?Que es un fisico o un biologo civico? ?Conocen ustedes alguno?
Ligia
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 21:40:20 -0000
Reply-To: "Ian Pitchford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [evol-psych] Wanted: 'Civic scientists' to inform the public,
press and policy makers
FOR RELEASE: 16 FEBRUARY 2001 AT 12:00 ET US
Stanford University
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/
Wanted: 'Civic scientists' to inform the public, press and policy makers
Fewer than one-third of all Americans understand the term "DNA."
Fewer than 15 percent understand the term "molecule."
Only about 50 percent know that humans didn't live at the time of the
dinosaurs.
-Science & Engineering Indicators 2000, published by the National Science
Foundation
Scientific illiteracy is a big problem in this country, and scientists have to
do something about it, said two Stanford faculty members who were part of a
Feb. 16 panel called "Cultivating the Civic Scientist" at the annual
meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Because of this problem, many people fear things they don't understand, the
press legitimizes inaccurate and erroneous pseudo-science, and the government
sometimes promulgates wrongheaded and dangerous public policies, said Lucy
Shapiro, a microbiologist.
Scientists need to write and teach about science whenever and however they
can,
be connected to the news media and advise policy makers when an important
scientific question arises, she said.
"A civic scientist is one who is willing to engage in a dialogue about the
nature of science, the future of science and its potential impacts on
society,"
said Michael Riordan, a particle physicist. "The highest expression of the
term
'civic scientist' refers to a scientist who disinterestedly makes his
expertise
available to further the welfare of the country."
On issues from missile defense to antibiotic resistance and breast cancer
policies, the government needs the advice that only scientists can provide.
Riordan and Shapiro both fulfill that civic obligation, but also educate the
public through their writing and speaking.
"People are hungry to hear this stuff," Shapiro said, referring to the
public's
appetite for clear explanations of science. "Newspeople consistently
underestimate the curiosity of a typical TV audience and their tolerance for
learning something." About 15 years ago, she decided she had to do something
about it. "I lecture whenever I can because I'm a clear speaker," Shapiro
said.
"Not everyone can do it, but those who can should."
Riordan agrees that the popular press isn't capable of covering the more
difficult scientific stories. That's one reason he has written four books,
with
a fifth on the way. "The more complex stories may have to be written by
scientists themselves," he said.
The civic physicist
Riordan was a member of the team that discovered quarks at the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the early 1970s. But his career has taken a
different path in the last 15 to 20 years: He writes books for the general
public about science, the history of science and science policy. Moreover, he
teaches a course on the history of 20th-century physics in Stanford's Program
in History and Philosophy of Science.
He also gets calls from the press on a regular basis and often is quoted in
newspapers and magazines. His own stories for the New York Times and New
Scientist and Science magazines have covered such topics as the discovery of
neutrinos, the search for the Higgs boson and the need for a major new
American
particle collider.
During his career, Riordan has worked closely with a number of people he
considers great civic scientists. He points to SLAC's Wolfgang Panofsky and
Sidney Drell, whose contributions to nuclear arms control are widely known.
Riordan himself served on a panel that drafted the American Physical Society's
recently published official position on the technical viability of a national
missile defense system, urging the United States not to deploy such a system
unless it is proven effective against anticipated countermeasures.
But Riordan says scientists don't have to be bigshots to play important roles
in public life. "To become a scientist involved in policy, it helps to spend
time on committees getting to know the policy issues and the policy
makers," he
said. Federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission and the State Department all need science advisers.
Scientists also play an important role in civic life when they interact with
the press. Unfortunately, Riordan said, many scientists are leery of the
press.
"They see that reporters don't always get things right and leave out
complexities and qualifiers scientists feel are necessary to explain their
work."
Nevertheless, scientists have to overcome their fears and distrusts and learn
to tell the public, through the news media, why it's important to do what they
do, he said: "The press is the conduit to a large and influential audience."
The civic biologist
Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research in
the
Department of Developmental Biology, is a laboratory scientist, first and
foremost. But about 15 years ago she decided she could also be a civic
scientist. It's hard to do both in early stages of a scientific career, she
said. When she was an assistant and then associate professor, she was too busy
getting grants, running a lab and starting a family.
"But there comes a time in your career when you can do more," Shapiro said.
She
could have written a textbook or started a company, but making science
accessible to the public was the best fit for Shapiro's strength: public
speaking.
"I'm just a run-of-the-mill scientist trying to make people less frightened
about technology," she said. "To make intelligent decisions, there's no
substitute for real information."
The talks she gives to the public often reach only a few people, but on
occasion she speaks to policy makers. At one point, Shapiro was invited to the
White House along with several other scientists to speak to President Clinton
and his Cabinet about the risks biologically altered pathogens pose to
national
security and the food supply.
After a period of scripted presentations, the Cabinet members were getting
sleepy. When she stood up to speak, Shapiro went off-script.
"Do you know what genetic engineering is?" she asked.
"Why don't you tell us," Clinton said.
As she spoke, Clinton shooed away aides, who were peeved because Shapiro had
made him late for other appointments.
So Shapiro taught the Cabinet members that genetic engineering goes on in
nature all the time: Bacteria can pick up genetic material from other bacteria
and add it to their own, all without human intervention. In fact, she said,
nature added a toxin gene to the E. coli that made killers out of some Jack in
the Box hamburgers in the '90s. And it is nature that encourages the evolution
of bacteria into antibiotic-resistant forms. The lesson: We have more to fear
from nature than from international terrorists.
During a videotaped talk to the National Academy of Sciences, Shapiro
delivered
the same message. The videotape is one of the most commonly requested in the
academy's collection.
Before she began speaking to the public, Shapiro "worked very hard to do it
right." Early on, she practiced her speeches on her physicist husband, who had
to stop her "every two seconds to ask what a word meant." She eventually
learned that she need not use complicated lingo to get the information across.
Though her research involves bacteria, Shapiro also speaks about other
scientific subjects. A few years ago she decided to address people's fears
about breast cancer. She made it her business to learn everything she could
about breast cancer, and she started speaking to groups of women about it.
"This is what is real," she told the women. "Only 5 percent of breast
cancer is
inherited."
And in the early '90s, she reached out to educate even larger audiences about
science and scientists. Along with other board members from the Scientists'
Institute for Public Information, she met with John Lithgow and other
prominent
Hollywood figures. "We told them to stop presenting images of mad scientists
and to make them human," she said. "It didn't work, but we tried."
By Katharine S. Miller
CONTACT: Dawn Levy, News Service (650) 725-1944;
COMMENT: Lucy Shapiro, Developmental Biology (650) 725-7678;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Michael Riordan, SLAC (650) 926-3990; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
EDITORS: This release was written by science writing intern Katharine S.
Miller. Drs. Riordan and Shapiro will participate in the symposium
"Cultivating
the Civic Scientist" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science on Friday, Feb. 16, from 9 a.m. to noon PT at the
Hilton
San Francisco & Towers, 333 O'Farrell St., San Francisco, CA 94102. Photos of
Riordan and Shapiro are available on the Web at
http://newsphotos.stanford.edu/.
Relevant Web URLs: http://www.aaas.org/meetings
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ligia Parra-Esteban
Directora
Fundacion VOC de Investigacion de la Comunicacion Entre Cientificos.
Apartado Aereo 86745 Bogota. Colombia.
http://www.mox.uniandes.edu.co/voc
Telefono (+) 571-6242075 Fax (+) 571-6139654 Zona Postal 1102
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Secretario Junta Directiva
Luis H. Blanco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Laboratorio de Investigaciones Basicas.
Bloque 9 Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Camilo Torres.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
=============================================================================
Si necesita retirarse de la lista envie un mensaje a:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
con una unica linea :
unsubscribe r-caldas
Para inscribirse en la lista envie un mensaje a [EMAIL PROTECTED]
con una unica linea :
subscribe r-caldas
Los mensajes que circulan en la lista los puede consultar en :
http://www.mail-archive.com/r-caldas@colciencias.gov.co
