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Archive for May, 2010

Is a science career open to anyone?

Mon 31st May 20107 Comments »

The UK ambitions for a high skill science and innovation economy will fail if we cannot attract people to science careers. The scale of the challenge is daunting: estimates of the numbers of new STEM skilled employees vary from 324,000 by 2014 and then upwards to 500,000 or more, with 20,000 each in the health and environment sectors. There are already documented shortages in some areas, particularly for technicians. There is a positive message about the wealth of career opportunities at all levels in science, from science, as a scientist, and using science. So it doesn’t make any sense that the sector faces problems recruiting.

At a time when we need to attract more we are just about treading water on the numbers. For some reason, today’s young people don’t want to join the ranks of scientists and engineers even though there is evidence that they accept that scientists play a valuable and important role in life. The ‘not for me’ response has been with us for ten years or more so I think it’s time we did some honest self reflection in the science community about why this is still happening.

Recently I chaired the Science for Careers Expert Group which published its report in March. There are lots of external issues that seem to have an impact on recruitment, including educational pathways, but in the report we concluded that it was possible that we should stop ‘blaming’ others and look at whether we had created a profession that now seemed unattractive and unwelcoming in today’s working world.
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RSA Animate – The Secret Powers of Time

Mon 24th May 201033 Comments »

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world. View the full video of Professor Philip Zimbardo’s talk at the RSA.

So, how big is the big society?

Fri 21st May 2010No Comments »

In the wake of one of the most interesting election campaigns for many years it hard to believe it is just weeks since polling day. The collective voice got what we asked for – an unclear outcome – and this has resulted in radical changes to the political landscape. While the campaign now seems ages away, people are still talking about it.

Part of that is down to the outcome; the obsessive watch for cracks in the coalition, the Labour leadership campaign that will take months to come to fruition. But it also because the campaign itself animated ordinary people. On the one hand it was an election dominated by the national TV debates watched by millions. On the other, the results demonstrated that the power of a local base, that little can replace the dogged decent local politician working the streets.

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Dangerous Rhetoric

Mon 10th May 201022 Comments »

In Plato’s time they would regularly hold competitions between a skilled rhetorician and an experienced doctor to see who could convince a crowd who was the better doctor. Apparently the rhetorician would always win and if we consider the implications of that for the climate change debate it raises some serious concerns.

It is commonly claimed that there are four key rules of successful rhetoric: charm, simple arguments, false dichotomies and cheating. It is clear from this that scientists start off at a significant disadvantage. They are rarely great communicators of their expertise and generally work with a very high level of integrity that would not stoop to use the last two tricks. By contrast the sceptics that oppose them are frequently very effective rhetoricians. I believe this is one of the reasons that the climate change debate has moved so slowly.

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RSA Animate – Empathic Civilisation

Thu 6th May 201042 Comments »

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society. View the full video of Jeremy Rifkin’s talk at the RSA. Download a transcript of this video (pdf).

A new conversation about drugs

Tue 4th May 201011 Comments »

Politicians do not have a reputation for taking an objective approach to drug use. We only have to take a look at the recent decision around the classification of Mephadrone to see how far from common sense our politicians can drift. While there was a media storm for a legislative solution, this was not based on evidence to suggest that making Mephadrone illegal would reduce harm. Quite the reverse.

Politicians’ desire to echo what they suppose to be popular opinion of drugs and drug users – as dirty, criminal and dangerous – does not easily lend itself to developing a rational and humane approach to this most pervasive of social problems. Yet humanity and rationality is exactly what is needed. We know that simple solutions – whether they be “legalise everything” or “flog ’em and hang ’em” – are unlikely to get much traction: this is a problem that even at a conservative estimate directly or indirectly affects over six million people across the UK from a wide variety of backgrounds who experience a wide range of problems as a result of their drug and alcohol use.

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