Across our lives science is presenting us with new choices. Advances in reproductive medicine are confronting young people with moral choices unimagined by their parents. Our workplaces are being transformed by new technology, our jobs re-bundled into new sets of tasks or replaced completely by artificial intelligence and robotics, pitting economic arguments against social needs and throwing the meaning of work into question. Biomedical research is offering the possibility of extreme longevity.
Indeed, it is at the intersection of science and society, where scientific advances have the potential to transform daily life, that the greatest challenges lie.
This, of course, is not new; scientific advances have long had an impact on human lives. From before the upheaval of the industrial revolution, through the health advances brought by modern medicine, to the more recent digitalisation of daily activities, our lives have been transformed by science.
Yet it is clear that the changing political and economic contexts have now, more than ever, created the need for more open and critical public debate and a wider understanding of the practical, ethical, moral and social implications of science.
Science is vital to solving many of the most significant challenges that the world faces. But it is also essential that the wider public is encouraged and supported to participate in an informed manner in evidence-based debates and discussions.
For example, while science might be able to test the efficacy of two different drugs at both the individual and the population level, scientific evidence alone cannot support which drug, if any, should be legalised for medicinal or recreational use. That requires ethical and moral reasoning, and social and economic input into the public and policy debate.
First, the broad dimensions are clear. Scientific research has made considerable advances in communicating to, and engaging with, the public. Yet while many non-scientists now grasp the outcomes of research, we academics have not been as successful in conveying the process of science, leading to a lack of understanding, or even misunderstanding, of the complexities of data analysis and the frequent ambiguity and opacity of findings.
Second, the interaction between research, policymaking and public engagement is now key. There is a recognised need within government and wider policy circles for the use and sharing of evidence in policymaking, and recognition of the advantages of this evidence being open and transparent.
Third, there is a clear social and political dimension to these issues, in the form of a growing lack of public trust in experts and evidence. We have to engage scientists and non-scientists in an open and balanced debate to ensure that the benefits of science, and its negatives, are understood and owned by all of us.
In today’s complex world, we can no longer work in silos. How 21st-century scientific advances shape the lives of our grandchildren will depend not just on progress in science, but on the public environment in which future generations understand both the process and the implications of these endeavours. It will depend on how and whether we enable the use of evidence in policy, and on our willingness to trust those in power to use the evidence to the best advantage of individuals and society.
This article was originally published in Research Professional, 14 June 2017.
About the Author
Sarah Harper is Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, Co-Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College. She was appointed as the new Director of The Royal Institution in April 2017.
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