Today's edition of 'The Times' includes an interesting news article on
page 9, reporting the comments of Jocelyn Bell Burnell ahead of her
Faraday lecture this evening at the Royal Society:
Pay us for exploding scientific myths, says leading physicist
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
Scientists need greater incentives from funding bodies and universities
to communicate their work to the public, one of Britain's leading
physicists will say tonight.
Efforts to engage lay people with research should be recognised and
rewarded so that the careers of scientists are enhanced by their
communication activities and not hindered, according to Dame Jocelyn
Bell Burnell.
In the Royal Society's Faraday Lecture, the astronomer will explain how
pseudoscientific scare stories about the end of the world in 2012 have
gained widespread credence and popularity despite being preposterous
from a scientific perspective.
Speaking before the lecture, which is given by the winner of the Faraday
medal for science communication, she told The Times that scientists
needed to take responsibility for communicating their work so that such
misperceptions occur less often. "I find it very depressing that so many
people have so little trust in basic science that they can't see through
a fraction of these theories that have been proposed," she said.
"Certain funders like the research councils are starting to recognise
the importance of communicating science, but it needs to be better
recognised, better rewarded. I think the trends are there already, but
they need to be confirmed and accelerated."
When Dame Jocelyn was a postgraduate student in 1967, she became the
first astronomer to identify a pulsar - a kind of star that emits
regular pulses of radiation as it rotates. Her supervisor, Antony
Hewish, shared the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery with
Martin Ryle, though Dame Jocelyn was not recognised.
Tonight's lecture will be followed by the Royal Society Rolex Awards
Scientists Meet the Media Party, for which The Times and New Scientist
magazine are media partners.
Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer
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