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Dr Douglas Holliday comments: > We are all good at communicating to our peers and colleagues about our > most recent research discoveries. We are altogether less able to > communicate with a more general audience. I witness the decline in the > number of students wishing to study Physics at University and also a > reduction in those continuing their studies to a PhD level. In order to > reverse these trends we need to be communicating to all ages and > abilities that science is relevant, exciting and has had a profound > impact on the society in which we live. Any suggestions ? You are right, of course. More and better communication is always desirable. But I think that there are broadly two other, interrelated, reasons why science has these problems. One is the relatively poor salaries which scientists can generally expect, compared with medicine, law, IT etc. Realistically, salary prospects do affect public perception of professions and their status, and if the subject is also perceived as difficult and time-consuming to learn (which physics and chemistry generally are), they are not a career choice except by those who find the subject so interesting that other considerations don't matter. The only Prime Minister we've ever had with a science degree reinforced this by the speed with which she got out of chemistry, into tax law and thence to politics! The other is a longstanding cultural problem in Britain which affects how science and scientists are perceived. There is still a noticeable persistence of the 18/19th century attitude that it's an OK activity for gentleman amateurs and eccentrics, but not as a real job. A great deal of excellent work is done by individuals and organisations to communicate the real importance, interest and relevance of science to the public, but despite this and the popularity of such writers as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, the idea that there are "two cultures" which are equally intellectually valid has never really caught on. The engineer is still the bloke with the oily rag, the chemist makes bangs, pongs and toxic waste, physicists invent particles with stupid names and fire them expensively and pointlessly at things....and so on. In keeping with the recent introductions, i am a Clinical Scientist in the NHS. We do try to communicate what we do, but it does seem that the public generally aren't aware of our existence! Dr MJ Pearson Department of Chemical Pathology & Immunology Old Medical School Leeds General Infirmary (Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust) LEEDS LS1 3EX Tel 0113 392 3945 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%