Beyond the lab
Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive, Medical Research Council,U.K. Photo: N. Balaji
ARE YOU the kind that prefers doing extra hours at the lab than participate in extra-curriculars? If you are, then better hone your public interaction skills.
Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the medical research council, United Kingdom, who was in Chennai recently to deliver a lecture at the Madras University on the topic `Science and Public,' believes that good scientists and researchers must be more than just bookworms or lab aficionados. "Scientists and researchers in receipt of public funds have a duty to explain their work to the general public," he said.
Dwelling upon the history of popular science in Britain, Prof. Blakemore said the concept of popularising science evolved only in the late 1980s when the public started demanding information on what kind of research was happening using public funds. The Royal Society, Britain's independent scientific academy, had until then been very conservative but started opening up to the public by way of science fairs and lectures.
Though there had been efforts to popularise science and technology and break down complicated concepts into the common man's language, Prof. Blakemore said, a lot remained to be done. He pointed out that there were still a lot of imaginary fears in the minds of the public on various topics ranging from AIDS to nuclear energy to cloning to mad cow disease to even mobile telephony.
"There is a lot of unnecessary paranoia that could be avoided if only the public are informed properly."
He pointed out that recently the public in the United Kingdom were drawn into a controversy on a vaccination programme for infants. There was large scale fear that the drug called MMR vaccine, meant to protect the infants from mumps and German measles, could increase the chances of epilepsy. These reports were later proved wrong. Such incidents could be prevented if only scientists and researchers communicated better with the public Prof. Blakemore said.
Karthik Subramanian
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