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Bringing Science Back Into culture When the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks was asked what was the purpose of the Café Scientifique he immediately replied 'To bring science back into culture.' His response is reminiscent of a campaign by the Spectator magazine of London, whose aim was to bring 'philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses'. But the Spectator campaign dates from 1725 - almost three hundred years ago. Why does science, (or 'natural philosophy'), need to be discussed in public places now? After all we have newspapers, magazines, popular science books by the tonne, radio, TV and the internet. Surely it is reasonable to assume that the idea of sitting around in cafes belongs to a bygone age? My own experience suggests otherwise. In part, the genesis of the Café Scientifique in Britain, in 1998, was due to my profound irritation with television. Almost weekly, it seemed to me, I was reading about challenging ideas in and around science which were not reflected on TV. I had 25 years experience of science and medical programmes, from the popular end of the spectrum to the most esoteric. Ideas had always been the mainstay of such material, but ideas were getting increasingly difficult to sustain in argument, in the face of concerns about demographics, publicity and 'impact' - the language of television executives. A revelation had occurred to me in 1988, when I watched a presentation, by the BBC Education Department, of a selection of material the BBC had screened on DNA, in chronological order. It started, five years after the discovery, with a masterly explanation by Maurice Wilkins, the Nobel Laureate, standing beside a life-size model of the molecule. Speaking for seven minutes without notes he gave a clear and uncompromising account of its importance. This was followed, some years later, by sequences of Swedish schoolchildren dancing in intertwined helices - clearly the age of co-productions had commenced. Then, in later years, came a graphics sequence where 'we go deep inside the molecule' - nice pictures and music but not much explanation. After that came a baroque interlude where Darwin interviewed a modern scientist about genes and evolution. The final piece was a clip from 'Life Story' the drama about Crick and Watson. DNA hadn't changed at all, but the presentation showed a brief history of television and of changing attitudes to science. Whereas in the 1970's the public had been presented head-on with the scientist and the explanation, 15 years later they were provided with a story, in dramatic form. Whereas in the 70's the public believed science to be true, with an optimistic message, 15 years later they were given a fiction, and saw it as entertainment. Was this due to the media, or to the public, or to a mixture of both? I don't know the answer but it was clear to me that the relationship between science and the public was in constant flux. At around the same time I realised science itself was coming under scrutiny from a variety of academic disciplines - sociology, philosophy, history and even literature. By coming at science from different angles they were undermining the received wisdom about science - that it is an objective, disinterested account of nature. Science was no longer being taken on its own terms, but was being challenged and questioned in illuminating ways. At this stage it became clear to me that television was out of touch, not just with the intellectual ideas of the time, but also with the social attitudes of the viewers, who no longer saw science and technology as unquestionably admirable, but as powerful and possibly dangerous forces. Frustrated, I wasn't sure what to do until I read the obituary of Marc Sautet who founded the Cafés Philosophiques in France. Cynically I postulated that the British do not consider philosophy a subject of serious consideration, but they are serious about science. I invited a speaker along to the local wine-bar, put a poster in the window and hoped for an audience - that is how the British Café Scientifique started. The first speaker was a philosopher who was sceptical that ideas like 'the selfish gene' could explain human social behaviour. The second speaker, a month later, was Alan Sokal, the physicist who had tricked a post-modern magazine into publishing a fake article about the deconstruction of modern physics. The two speakers had very different views about the nature of science. In the months that followed it became clear that the attitude of the audience was open-minded to the subject and that the discussion that followed was disinterested, in the best sense of being reasonably unprejudiced but thoughtful. Changing the location changes the agenda. In an academic environment people expect to be lectured to; in a television studio the content and style is dictated by the production team; in a cafe the audience is at home, and feels that the playing field is reasonably level. Whereas in the eighteenth century the coffee-house was a place where gentlemen discuss the matters of the day (including science), and in the nineteenth century the scientific societies were vehicles for self-improvement, in the late twentieth century the audience was there to participate and be heard. But why are people so eager to discuss science in an informal setting? The obvious answer is that science is becoming more important in health, global politics, government planning and a host of other social and economic areas. However I suggest there is a deeper, more pressing reason, and one that is cultural rather than political. For four hundred years science has addressed the natural world. Now it is examining human nature - with dramatic results. Sciences like genetics, neurology, evolutionary psychology and pharmacology are giving new accounts of human behaviour and calling into question beliefs about free-will, causation and altruism. These accounts are very different from those we have received from history, religion, philosophy, literature and even the social sciences - in other words the rest of our culture. So we all need to come to terms with these new ideas and make up our minds what they mean to us, and how to integrate them into our lives. This is why Oliver Sack's purpose for the Cafés makes sense now. · This article by Duncan Dallas will be appearing in a collection of essays published by the Copenhagen Café Scientifique |
