CAFE SCIENTIFIQUE GOES INTERNATIONAL

Café Scientifique is holding an international conference in Newcastle on
Friday/Saturday May 21/22. Started almost simultaneously six years ago in
the UK and France, the idea of the Café Scientifique is to take discussion
of science, medicine and technology out of the universities and labs and
into café-bars and public spaces. Capitalising on public concern about, and
fascination with, the ways in which science and technology are changing our
lives, the idea of open, informal discussion with scientists and public in
congenial surroundings has proved to be unusually successful.

There are now over two dozen café scientifiques in cities throughout the UK
and about the same number in France, each meeting once a month, with
audiences ranging from 50 to 100 people, and subjects ranging from cloning
to the evolution of sex. Recently, other countries have followed suit, and
the conference will be attended by organisers from Japan, Argentina,
Brazil, USA, Canada, Poland and the Scandinavian countries, as well as by
British Council representatives.

This is the first truly international conference of Café Scientifique and
discussion will centre round several key issues.
1) Café Scientifique is a grass-roots movement, bottom-up rather than top
down, and unafraid to ask difficult questions of science and scientists.
How can it maintain its own independence and help to shape public
discussion of scientific issues?
2) The idea of informal and unprejudiced public discussion of science seems
to be universally popular. How can a citizen’s network like this help
people world-wide to make informed choices about new sciences and
technologies?
3) In France, and the UK, Junior Cafes Scientifiques are being set up in
schools. How might these change scientific understanding and teaching for
the next generations?

Mary Midgley, philosopher and author, will address the conference dinner on
Friday night.

The conference is being held at the Thistle Hotel and the Centre for Life
in Newcastle, organised by PEALS at the University of Newcastle, and is
sponsored by the Wellcome Trust.


Contacts
Dr. Tom Shakespeare  tel 01912418650 [log in to unmask]
Duncan Dallas   tel 01132371199  café[log in to unmask]
Teresa Anderson  tel 07984013040 [log in to unmask]

Background details
Café Scientifique network www.cafescientifique.org
PEALS    www.peals.ncl.ac.uk

**********************************************************************

1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example,
send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message:

set psci-com nomail

2. To resume email from the list, send the following message:

set psci-com mail

3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message:

leave psci-com

4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive,
can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html

5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science
and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk
**********************************************************************