Uncertainty is part of science but it’s no excuse for indecision, according to Chandrika Nath, scientific advisor at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

Scientists know that uncertainty is intrinsic to scientific investigation whether as a result of inherently variable natural systems, incomplete knowledge of complex mechanisms, or statistical probability.

Uncertainty drives science forward, and keeps scientists looking for answers. Policymakers, however, like to have definite answers, especially around controversial choices on the environment. So where uncertainty drives scientists into action, it can lead policymakers to indecision, delaying in the hope of eliminating uncertainty or providing an excuse not to make unpopular decisions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has developed a “likelihood scale” that can help link probabilities to everyday language. For example, when the IPCC reports states that “it is extremely likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate”, they mean there is a “more than 95 per cent probability” of that being the case.

Scientists often have limited control over how policymakers use their findings but they must still communicate clearly and openly about any uncertainty in the information they present. Making sure that uncertainty is communicated clearly with policymakers should mean that, over time, they become more familiar with the concept, and more confident about making decisions despite it.

Text adapted from an article on the Science and Development Network website.

Sense About Science will be holding a Standing up for Science media workshop at the University of Manchester on Friday 23rd March. This full day event is free and for early career researchers in all sciences, engineering and medicine (PhD students, post-docs or equivalent in first job).

The workshop will combine discussion about science-related controversies in media reporting with practical guidance and tips for how to deal with the media. Please find further information here.

These workshops are very popular and places are limited. To apply send a CV and cover letter explaining your reasons for applying and stating any affiliations you hold to Victoria Murphy.

Closing date for applications is Friday 9th March.

Sense About Science will be holding a Standing up for Science media workshop at the University of Glasgow on Friday 18th November. This full day event is free and for early career researchers in all sciences, engineering and medicine (PhD students, post-docs or equivalent in first job).

During the workshop we combine discussion about science-related controversies in media reporting with practical guidance and tips for how to deal with the media. Further information is available here.

These workshops are very popular and places are limited. To apply send a CV and covering letter explaining your reasons for applying and stating any affiliations you hold to Victoria Murphy.

Closing date for applications is Friday 4th November.

Consumers, voters and patients should demand evidence for scientific and medical claims to counter a tide of misinformation, say leading scientists and public figures.

Derren Brown, Jonathan Ross and Dara Ó Briain have joined with representatives of Mumsnet, patient groups and science bodies to back a national campaign, launched on 14th September by the science education charity Sense About Science. Its aim is to get more members of the public asking advertisers, companies, government bodies and other organisations to set out the evidence they have for their claims.

The public are bombarded with scientific and medical information: on advertising material, product websites, advice columns, campaign statements, celebrity health fads and policy announcements. Even where there is some regulation, in advertising or trading standards, claims that are not based on good evidence keep reappearing. The only way to address this is to equip people to ask questions about evidence for themselves. Over 5,000 scientists and hundreds of organisations are now on hand to help.

Tracey Brown, Director of Sense About Science, said: “We have been working with scientists and the public for some years to challenge misinformation, whether about the age of the earth, the causes of cancer, wifi radiation or homeopathy for malaria. It’s often very effective but no sooner is attention turned elsewhere than misleading claims creep back up again. To make a permanent difference, we need the public to be evidence hunters. We are delighted to have so many high-profile people asking their audiences to do this. Organisations that seek to persuade people about products or policies should expect questions about their evidence.”

Lord Krebs, Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, said: “Everyone should have a mental tool kit for interpreting what they read in the media, see on TV, hear on the radio, or hear politicians or ‘experts’ claiming. A key part of the toolkit is asking for the evidence, and understanding how good the evidence is. Does prison deter re-offenders? Does wearing a cycle helmet help to reduce your chance of serious injury? Does culling badgers help to control TB? Does class size influence the academic achievement of pupils? Confident assertions are often made in the evidence-free zone, or are based on very weak evidence.”

Derren Brown, Illusionist, said: “To not just mindlessly believe what we’re told, but to know how to question and test a claim, has lifted us from the Dark Ages. And when the untested assertions of health products and celebrity endorsements, of psychics and faith healers, of politicians, religious leaders and journalists go routinely unquestioned, we are put at risk. But we need the understanding and the tools to question these claims in order know what we should believe. This campaign offers those resources to anyone wanting to know how to find out the truth.”

Síle Lane, Sense About Science: “In our experience, patients and consumers have been very effective at holding organisations to account for what they claim. People don’t, for example, have to become an epidemiologist to ask searching questions about the status of claims regarding mobile phones and cancer. They can ask whether evidence exists, how conclusions have been reached, whether there has been a fair test, whether results have been peer reviewed, replicated or challenged.”

The campaign is being launched alongside publication of results from an Ipsos MORI study conducted for Sense About Science, which found that over half of the British public understands that science is a process of testing and questioning.

The ThinkBIG report, which was released this week, is designed to provide information for local authorities, land managers, farmers and communities as to how they can contribute to the move towards landscape scale conservation outline in the Natural Environment White Paper, which was released earlier this month. ThinkBIG was written jointly by the statutory bodies, NGOs, land owners and farming communities that make up the England Biodiversity Group. The report in support of the move towards landscape scale conservation and ecosystem approach outlined in the recent Natural Environment White Paper provides advice on how to implement these ideas by reviewing case studies of landscape scale conservation and highlighting the lessons learned.

Maintaining and repairing ecosystems needs to be the focus of environmental projects and planning if ecosystem services are to continue benefiting the economy and society. Every sector of society and the economy has a role to play in landscape scale conservation, no matter how small their contribution is perceived to be.

The report gives some excellent examples of how landscape scale conservation can work in practice, demonstrating how each situation is different and requires a slightly different solution. Some of the most interesting and varied include:

Moors for the Future – This is a moorland restoration project in the Peak District and South Pennines, delivering a variety of ecosystem services such as erosion regulation and water regulation, and improving biodiversity of ground nesting birds and plants.

The Victoria Business Improvement District – This is a business led partnership to improve prospects for local wildlife, businesses and communities by expanding and enhancing green infrastructure. The project has reduced pollution, carbon dioxide emissions and flooding whilst simultaneously supporting invertebrate diversity and several bird species.

Cambourne New Town – Landscape scale conservation can also be included in new development projects such as Cambourne New Town which was built on agricultural land in Cambridgeshire. Careful planning has ensured that local residents are able to benefit from being reconnected with nature, whilst creation of new habitats has re-introduced several species that were once extinct in the area.

Although uniform guidelines to implement this sort of project would be hard to construct the report emphasises several fundamental components that must be in place for projects to be successful. These include accurate information on the current state of the environment, partnership and co-ordination between stakeholders and those involved in implementing the project, incentives and regulations, sensible strategies at the appropriate level, and conflict management. Connected and enhanced wildlife sites which are effectively protected and buffered from human activity are most likely to be successful. The success of many of the initiatives outlined in the Natural Environment White Paper will depend on the extent to which these general principles are adhered to.

The document is intended to provide background and supporting information for local authorities, land managers, farmers and communities, and highlights what different groups of people can start doing now to achieve the aims set out in Lawton’s review of protected areas ‘Making Space for Nature’, and the Natural Environment White Paper, including supporting the work of local conservation charities, managing farmland and woodland more sustainably and collaborating with others within local and national government to help ensure the success of environmental projects.

The British Ecological Society’s Policy Team attended a meeting at the building of the National Assembly for Wales on Tuesday, for a day of presentations from academics working in applied research across the country. The event, ‘Science at the Assembly, was organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, in partnership with others including the Society of Biology and Campaign for Science and Engineering. Presentations were followed by a networking reception attended by Assembly Members.

One of the most interesting presentations during the day was from Prof. John Harries, appointed Chief Science Advisor to the Welsh Government in 2010. Prof. Harries, alongside a Science Advisory Committee, is drafting a science strategy for Wales, which will launch in the autumn of this year. In response to questioning from Dr Hilary Leevers of CaSE, Prof. Harries confirmed that this will set out a 10-year framework for science, engineering and technology in Wales – a step beyond the Westminster Government which has resisted calls for a long-term science and innovation investment framework.

Prof. Harries outlined the ‘grand challenges’ upon which the science strategy will focus: health and life sciences; energy, environment and low carbon; advanced engineering and materials. Alongside these three themes there will be an emphasis on education and STEM outreach activity, on digital infrastructure and the economy, on intellectual property and on blue-skies reasearch.

Prof. Harries was clearly enthusiastic about the prospects for research in Wales, seeing research and development as one of the few ways to build Wales into a more prosperous economy. He stressed that researchers needed to look beyond other institutions within Wales when considering the formation of collaborative partnerships, needing to look across Europe. Realistically, he said, this would mean partnerships with centres of excellence in England, highlighting Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial as important centres for collaboration.

Although a large protest outside the Assembly building may have kept Members away from the scientific content of the day, a number were in evidence in the evening. Opening the evening through brief speeches it was clear that those AMs present were looking to the scientists and scientific organisations present to provide them with advice and information. This was a welcome call to the learned societies and others represented, including this BES, which will be sure to capitalise upon this invitation.

Dr Deborah Harvey has been invited to deliver the prestigious Charles Lyell Award Lecture at this year’s British Science Festival. Organised by the British Science Association, the British Science Festival is the largest event of its kind in Europe. This year the Festival takes place in Bradford from 10th – 15th September.

Dr Harvey, from Royal Holloway University of London, was nominated for the award by the BES for her work on stag beetles, Lucanus servus, one of the UK’s rarest but most spectacular insects. Dr Harvey has developed a novel means of monitoring the beetle, by using ginger. Finding a cheap and ubiquitous bait for beetle traps, like ginger, is important because most monitoring is done by dedicated but unfunded amateur beetle hunters. The BES featured Dr Harvey’s work in a press release earlier this year.

Using live and mounted specimens, Dr Harvey will use this year’s Charles Lyell Award lecture to give a fascinating insight into the secret world of stag beetles – which have more in common with stags than just their horns – its ecology, the challenges it faces, how people can get involved in its conservation and how her work can help understand other species that live on dead wood.

The British Science Festival’s Award Lectures offer a rare opportunity to honour five professional scientists or engineers in the early stages of their career, who show outstanding skills in communication to a non-specialist audience. The Award Lectures aim to promote open and informed discussion on issues involving science and actively encourage young scientists to explore the social aspects of their research.

The Royal Society of Medicine hosted the Sense About Science Annual Lecture yesterday evening. The lecture, entitled ‘Epidemics and refuseniks: the birth of state responsibility’ was led by Professor Richard Evans, a historian from the University of Cambridge and attended by 250 delegates from relevant disciplines. Prof Evans talk discussed the most effective way to “contribute to the communication of common sense about science” and noted the mistrust between scientists and politicians by using a number of illustrative case studies on public health.

The first example was that of the 19th century cholera outbreak, which was facilitated by the opposing beliefs about the cause of the disease. Some were convinced cholera was caused by an infection, while political influence led others to believe it to be the result of a vapor. Prof Evans then went on to discuss the failure of South African government to acknowledge and tackle Aids by initially claiming that medication actually caused Aids, invoking public skepticism and hindering treatment. Since then, the number of retro-viral treatments given to those infected can be indicative of political circumstances and beliefs. In Britain, Evans explored how those advising action on BSE (Mad Cows Disease) in the 1980’s were slow to respond due to the demand for a high level conviction in their research results from politicians, which was at the time, not possible. This created a “massive public distrust in scientific opinion”, and created scope for future misplaced opinions such as the perceived health risks associated with being given the measles, mumps and rubella (MRR) vaccine in 1990’s. The case of MMR was exuberated by media reports which focused on worst case scenarios that were still scientifically uncertain, and have since been showed to be false. The result was a decrease in the number of children being given the vaccine, and a subsequent increase in MMR (1348 cases) resulting in 2 documented deaths which may have been preventable.

These case studies demonstrated that scientific uncertainty, political agenda, and the media’s pursuit of a good story often hinder attempts to explain scientific research. The complex relationship between government, science and society can result in politicians choosing to support science that suits their own ideology, scientists that expect people to trust them despite uncertainty, and society being caught between the two. The influence of the media on the public also contributes to a lack of trust and understanding as journalists are most likely to base their reports on the worst case scenario of a predicted event, making for a more high impact story which can sometimes lead to unnecessary panic. It was clear from the lecture that scientists need to continue to improve communication between science, policy and the media, and that the way in which those parties deal with uncertainty needs to be addressed.

After two days of exciting policy engagement training in London, the Policy Training Workshop organised by British Ecological Society (BES) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has come to a close.

The event was attended by thirty NERC funded PhD students and early career scientists working in policy relevant research areas who wanted to further their skills in order to influence environmental policy through the effective communication of scientific information.

The workshop met these needs by providing participants with useful knowledge about how the policy-making process works, how scientists can engage with policy-makers and helped improve personal communication skills in order to influence decision-makers.

Training was packed with discussions, questions, networking opportunities and presentations on how to link science with policy, and the challenges and opportunities scientists face in doing so. Participants were also assigned a number of skill building tasks, culminating with the group exercise of creating a hypothetical policy briefing and then presenting the idea to a decision-maker. This exercise proved to be very helpful, giving participants a real insight into the do’s and don’ts of science communication, and preparing them for future interactions with politicians.

The BES and NERC knowledge exchange learning and development workshop on science policy interactions commences today. The workshop will involve participants from a variety of backgrounds including government, academia, and focus on improving science policy communication within ecological and environmental disciplines.

The two day workshop will feature presentations, case study exercises and group working with the overall aim of improving policy development within the participating organisations, and forming a network of “ambassadors” from the scientific community for policymakers to approach. The policy workshop is also an opportunity for scientists to share their experiences from the policy environment. This is the third annual policy training workshop aimed specifically at early career researchers (no more than 12 years since finishing their PhD).