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controversy in events

To engage an audience in a dialogue about science issues is no small matter. Of primary concern is the question of how can we encourage people to talk about science issues, and why should they want to spend time in discussion with us?

By focusing on controversy, we can benefit from what is a natural occurrence in everyday life; controversy provokes dialogue. As a door into a discussion, controversy enables the audience to find a voice and access a topic through their own opinions. This document seeks to outline a model for controversy as a fundamental motivator in any dialogue event.

summary

The Dana Centre at the Science Museum has a mission to be a place where public and scientists engage in open, challenging dialogue about contemporary science issues of public interest. Evaluation of past exhibits has shown that the public engages with, enjoys, and is challenged by controversial subjects. However, in the past, the Science Museum has produced controversial material by accident rather than design. By defining exactly what a controversial issue is; we can formulate a strategy for why and how we deal with controversy as an institution. This strategy can be informed by distinguishing between two types of science controversy: 'scientific-fact' controversy and 'science-based' controversy. It is 'science-based' controversy that we should concentrate on as we develop dialogue events in the museum.

By assessing the inclusion of certain values associated with controversial issues, a model emerges that can be used in the planning and evaluation of controversial events . This document suggests parameters that can be used to both gauge and maximize the controversial nature of a science topic to ensure that a stimulating and engaging event is achieved through design, rather than by accident.

introduction to dialogue events

The Dana Centre mission statement is as follows: 'To be a lively venue that encourages the public and scientists to engage in open, challenging dialogue about contemporary issues of public interest.' In order to achieve this, we have determined that we will be a platform for debate, dealing with controversial issues that matter to our target audience. A combination of evaluation and open feedback will establish what these constantly changing controversial issues are, ensuring that we address issues that the audience find controversial, rather than what the museum deems controversial.

controversy and science communication

In the Science Museum we have had experience of actively seeking to cover controversial topics in exhibitions such as the Who am I? gallery, Talking Points Euthanasia Machine, Future Foods and GeneticChoices exhibitions . These have provided us with a great deal of experience and knowledge about controversial subjects.

We know from the results of our exhibition evaluation that controversy is appealing to our visitors, that it attracts publicity and a wider audience of non-scientists. Evaluation feedback clearly indicates that there is a demand for more information regarding controversial issues to be given to our visitors. However, it is widely recognised now that our museum does not actually 'do' controversy very well - we do controversial exhibits by accident and not by design. This verifies our intention to evaluate our future Dana Centre events. By a running a tightly structured program of events for the Dana Centre we intend to be able to deal with controversy in a proactive, and more importantly, a premeditated manner, conducting controversial programming by design rather than by accident.

controversy - defining its meaning

'In general, a controversy is not a dispute involving one person, nor one that is over rapidly. A controversy exists over a longer period of time and divides groups of people.'
(Thomas Brante 1993, Controversial Science From Content to contention edited by Brante, Fuller and Lynch)

For the purpose of ourselves as an institution - the way we handle any criticism we may incur, who we invite to convey these controversies and how we handle the difficult issue of our own perceived 'neutrality' - we must first define what controversy is. Controversy is a dispute which contains the following elements:

  • Differing opinions between stakeholders regarding a common concern
  • Which is displayed and broadcast by a public medium e.g. the media or even a museum display itself
  • Which involve 'experts' i.e. individuals who have specialist knowledge or vested personal interest/experience in the topic concerned
  • Contains destabilising knowledge i.e. the potential for the received wisdom to be changed
  • It has a certain endurance in time and space
  • A controversy creates interaction

Brante makes a distinction between two types of science controversy, Scientific fact controversy and Science-based controversy. Scientific facts controversy primarily concerns contending knowledge claims where the parties have scientific status. A science-based controversy typically includes several factors with a heavy ethical or political overlay. This distinction is extremely useful for us to formulate a strategy for dealing with controversy in the Dana Centre.

scientific-facts controversy

In scientific facts controversy it is only the results of scientific study that can inform the debate and the science may not be clear-cut. Two examples of this type of controversy are:

  • Did Western doctors cause the HIV pandemic in Africa in the 60s by injecting children with the polio vaccine grown in monkey cells? Thereby inadvertently encouraging SIV virus to change to the virulent human strain?
  • Do Higgs-Boson particles really exist?

These debates can be hot, even damming, for relevant scientists within their fields. They are essentially debates that can be held only between experts with differing opinions and knowledge base. The general 'lay' public will not be informed enough to join in the debate.

In the case of the HIV debate, the vested interests of the non-expert audience are global - a health issue like HIV effects everyone to a lesser or greater extent. This type of scientific-fact controversy has huge public interest and is the type of event that can be included in the Dana Centre. These events will feature different experts and the main protagonists of the debate. The visitor is invited to participate and to seek knowledge and understanding from the experts or mediators. The visitor is then invited to make up their own mind on the issues. This is essentially a learning process, what is commonly called 'informed debate'. An example of this kind of debate was held in Paris at La Cite des Sciences about BSE (commonly known as 'Mad Cow' disease). This type of model is one the current PUS (Public Understanding of Science) establishment are working to improve in their recent movement towards 'dialogue' events. However, their emphasis is still on 'informed' debate.

However, examples of scientific-fact controversy such as the Higgs Boson debate, though hotly disputed between scientists, only appeal to a select non-scientific public audience. These debates are often only interesting as a spectator sport and have limited public appeal. These types of scientific-fact controversy should not be included in Dana Centre series of trailed events.

NB See the section below: 'Subverting a 'scientific-facts' controversy into a 'science-based' controversy,' for an example of a model for testing the 'controversial' nature of a topic and it's public appeal.

science-based controversy

A science-based controversy can be defined as 'scientific disputes with a heavy ethical or political overlay.' (Brante 1993) Our modern welfare societies are riddled with this type of controversy. For example 'Are mobile phones are bad for our health?', 'The embryonic stem-cell debate, is this the slippery slope?' etc. These controversies necessitate the use of scientific experts, but also incorporate non-scientific experts who have parity in knowledge - on the understanding that science is not the only knowledge base that can provide input into the dispute. These types of issues can include the following elements:

  • Issues often centred on risk, on issues relating to the environment, politics, finance or medicine.
  • Issues that are newsworthy, current and relevant/interesting to the lives of our target audience.
  • Issues that are timely and relevant to a social context and are varied for different target audiences e.g. cyber nannies are not interesting to university students, foot and mouth disease is more relevant to farmers than to nurses.
  • Ethical issues which effect our visitors personal experiences and feelings: a sense of right or wrong, just and unjust, Godly or ungodly.
  • Moral issues which effect our visitor's sense of social consciousness, this knowledge base is one that is often built on legal rulings, codes of conduct practice, political rules, governments and religions.

It is these types of controversy which should form the majority of the debate and activity in the Dana Centre: science-based issues that are relevant and worrying to our visitor. Science-based issues are also of the type which have no clear 'expert' base. Scientists and the PUS movement have often conflated 'scientific-facts' and 'science-base' controversies in the past, thus automatically excluding the non-scientist from the debate. By distinguishing between the two types of controversy, and stating that science-based controversy involves different stakeholders with a knowledge base other than science, we see that all relevant parties have parity in the debate and the Dana Centre's mission statement can be achieved.

subverting a 'scientific-facts' controversy

In most cases we can put a spin on a particular topic to engender a greater sense of inclusivity, to ensure that the visitor understands that they can have a relevant opinion, even though they are not an expert in the particular area. A Science Museum exhibition Drugs in Sport, for example, covered a topic which is controversial in a wider social context, especially as the exhibition coincided with the Olympics. The topic was dealt with by the Museum's Antenna team by providing a large amount of information about the physiological effects that performance-enhancing drugs can have on the body of athletes, the dangers to long term health as well as improved performance. Essentially the exhibition was treating the subject as a 'scientific expert-based' controversy. The information was well received and past experience has shown us is that our visitors do require information about the topic, they what something they don't know already. However, this exhibition was not controversial. By presenting the information in terms of 'science-fact' we did not involve our visitors, or allow them to include their knowledge base and to engage in the exhibition. By using the five science-based controversy parameters set out above, we can test the way the topic of drugs in sport was handled to score a sense of controversy:

  • 'Issues often centred on risk' - the medical content yes, however the risk was confined to athletes not the visitors' health - low score
  • 'Newsworthy, current and relevant/interesting to the lives of our target audience' - newsworthy in terms of the Olympics - high score
  • 'Timely and relevant to a social context and are different for different target audiences' - high score
  • 'Ethical issues which effect our visitors personal sense of ethical knowledge and feeling' - we were not asking our visitor if taking drugs in sport was fair or unfair and gave some richer nations, with more advanced scientific knowledge a unfair advantage - low score
  • 'Moral issues which effect our visitors sense of social consciousness, this knowledge base is one that is often built on legal rulings, codes of conduct practice, political rules, governments, religions.' - the museum did not take a particular stance , it could have asked, for instance, whether drugs should be made legal, thereby allowing open access to the drugs, or if sport is now merely a competition of the pharmaceutical companies rather than a matter of training, a will to win and a dose of good genes - low score

Drugs in sport are only controversial if you present the issues in such a way as to appeal to the non-experts' sense of ethics. A method of achieving this would have been to cover aspects such as fairness, risk - is it worth it, would you take this drug if you were an athlete and risk dying at 40?, are drugs in sport morally right or not and should we change the law?

conclusion

By using the above parameters we can test the level of controversy in a particular topic or give it a controversial spin if required. This will ensure that the topic is not just controversial to us as an institution, but that is controversial to our audience. A debate formulated around 'science-base' rather than 'scientific-fact', is one in which everyone has a right to an opinion regardless of their experience. In this way it is possible to present controversy not by accident, but by design.