Dear All,
The first London PUS Seminar of 2016
will be taking place at 4.15pm on
Wednesday 27th January 2016, in room QUE3 28/29 at LSE. We
will be pleased to welcome Elizabeth Jones (UCL), who is working on celebrity
science and ancient DNA. Her abstract is
below.
Subsequent seminars will take place on 24th February, 23rd March and 25th
May 2016. In February, Professor
Martin Bauer will speak about his new book “Atoms, Bytes and Genes – public
resistance and techno-scientific responses”.
Looking forward to seeing you in 2016
Jane Gregory
Martin Bauer
Simon Lock
Melanie Smallman
27 January 2016, 4.15pm, Room QUE
3 28/29 LSE
Elizabeth Dobson Jones, UCL: Celebrity Science -How Does Ancient DNA Research
Inform Science Communication?
In this talk, I argue that the history of ancient DNA
research is a history of celebrity science. The search for DNA from fossils has
a short but sensational history. It started in the 1980s and evolved over the
last thirty years from an exploratory to an established scientific and
technological practice. However, I argue that ancient DNA research has
developed under the influence of intense public interest and extreme media
exposure as it coincided with and was accelerated by the book and movie
Jurassic Park. I argue that attention from the popular press has actually
affected the development and direction of the science. Much media has focused
on our fascination with the resurrection of ancient and extinct creatures from
dinosaurs to mammoths. In the case of ancient DNA research, a subject that
frequently finds itself and its specialists at the intersection of celebrity
and science, I suggest this has important implications for understanding both
the process of science and science communication.
I argue that ancient DNA research – as a celebrity
science – can be understood as a trading zone. As a trading zone, ancient DNA
research showcases the process of science and science communication in a world
of modern media. I suggest that this trading zone includes interactions among
researchers from disparate disciplines. For example, in the early years
archeologists, paleontologists, and molecular biologists engaged in the
stimulating but challenging founding of an innovative and speculative field.
However, I also suggest that this trading zone includes intersections with
media. From the start, ancient DNA research was a science in the spotlight, and
researchers and reporters created a dynamic dialogue as a consequence. Here, I
show evidence for the role of news value in science and media and how they
conflict or coincide in the development of a discipline into a celebrity
science. Ancient DNA research is an example of a trading zone where science and
science communication exist and evolve into one another.
Through original and personal interviews with over
fifty scientists who work in and around the field, I use oral history to reveal
the intricate relationship between science and the popular press. I show how it
both helps and hinders the advance of a particular science, , and most
importantly, how the rise of celebrity culture has influenced – and will
continue to influence – the process of science and science communication.
Overall, this talk attempts to engage my work in the history of science with
literature in sociology of science and science communication studies. It is an
attempt to explain the making of a celebrity science and its implications for science
communication.