It's not national. In fact, its Birminghamal. The date is
Monday July 17th. The time is 1900h. The venue is
the ICC Birmingham. The excuse is the 18th International
Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress
"Beyond the Genome". The event is a debate about the New
Genetics. It will be kicked off by Jenni Murray.
The aim is to bring together the good people of
Birmingham, conference delegates from across the world, and
you, of course, Andy. And as many of all you others that
lurk out there, just beyond the reach of my cybertorch. It
would be a good opportunity to talk about how this dialogue
is actually going to be initiated, conducted and its
outcomes fed into the science policy making/science funding
process.
On Tue, 4 Jul 2000 14:26:07 +0100
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Just back from a brief sabbatical to study the "Speckled Monster" and I'm
> embarrassed that I missed it.
>
> Not the "completion" of the genome, of course. You couldn't miss that
> anywhere on this planet. There were tons of articles and the week was a real
> bonus to those who believe the performance of science should be measured in
> column inches of press coverage and verbiage of Radio 4 presenters.
>
> But I missed the debate, at least any real debate. I saw and heard lots of
> journalists and scientists commenting. But no real national debate. Is Lord
> Jenkin (or at least his report) dead? Have we not missed a unsurpassed
> opportunity to engage in that post-Jenkins dialogue to which most of us now
> subscribe? After all, there was nothing new announced. It was an elegantly
> artificial date when an arbitrary amount of the genome had been licked and
> posted in the stamp book of life. The date was reasonably predictable but we
> seem to have missed it.
>
> Why was this not a momentous occasion to engage the public in the biggest
> debate of our lives? Why are we now not engaged in a year long programme to
> celebrate the genome by helping understand our attitudes to how it will
> change our lives?
>
> Is it that we have become too comfortable in our public understanding
> bunkers? Do we too much love the set piece events, the science centres, the
> controlled press release? Are we more comfortable at engaging the public on
> our terms not theirs?
>
> Andy
>
>
----------------------------------------
Dr Frank Burnet MBE
Principal Lecturer in the Public Understanding of Science
School of Interdisciplinary Sciences
UWE
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QY
e-mail [log in to unmask]
tel 0117 976 3879
fax 0117 976 3871
mobile 07881 580523
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|