Abstract
Physics professor and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili talks about the freedom to teach science, blasphemy laws and why scientists should spend more time with politicians to Index on Censorship editor
His academic credentials are pretty impressive, from a postdoctoral research fellowship at University College London, then on to Surrey to teach and adding science broadcasting to his CV, picking up a host of prizes and accolades along the way, including honorary fellow of the British Science Association and the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday prize for science communication. There’s also a shelf full of books to his name. Clearly Al-Khalili is not one of those scientists who are rarely seen outside a lab. In fact he believes strongly that scientists have to spend a lot more time speaking to politicians and helping them understanding science research; and working with them on policy. He is also pretty keen on scientists spending more time talking to the media.
When it comes to science and restrictions on debate, discussion and development, there are several things on his mind. He worries about blasphemy laws and fear of religious offence being used to preclude debate or even teaching about science, particularly evolution.
“If you don’t have the policies and laws in place to protect rationalism and science and freedom to question, it’s hard for individuals to say: ‘I do have the right to say this.’”
It shouldn’t be up to individual scientists to have to defend the right and freedom to teach about scientific research, he believes. “The fact is I don’t think it should be down to individuals to have to stand their ground.” He says the right to teach should be entrenched in the policy of countries, with a separation of science and religion.
The University of Surrey professor also worries about attitudes to science in parts of the Islamic world. Al-Khalili, who grew up in Iraq, says science can be interpreted by some as a Western construct. “They have to see not just the benefits of science to society, more than that they have to understand that doing science is about having the freedom to ask questions about the world around you without worrying about whether it’s going to influence or affect your religious thinking.”
Above: Six scientists and one government official were convicted of manslaughter after failing to predict the strength of an earthquake near L’Aquila, Italy in 2009
Credit: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
Al-Khalili remembers growing up in Iraq and as a child talking about evolution much more freely than he believes would be the case today. “Colleagues of mine are finding it tough in a way that maybe they didn’t 20 years ago.” He hears from teachers saying that their students, particularly those from Muslim countries, won’t accept evolution.
The MMR scare would not happen today as far more scientists would join the discussion
There are other worries. In 2012 six scientists and one official were convicted of manslaughter in Italy for not predicting the strength of the devastating earthquake in L’Aquila that left more than 300 people dead. The ramifications of the convictions could lead to scientists refusing to make any predictions of environmental impact, because of fears of legal action. “In that sort of environment you’re not gong to say anything, and yet it’s vital that scientists continue to engage with politicians.” One of Al-Khalili’s big beefs is scientists failing to communicate with the public and policymakers.
“The bottom line is, if scientists do retreat because they feel under threat then it will just make matters worse, because they will be seen as lacking in transparency, hiding the truth from the public.”
Traditionally scientists have not done enough to reach across the divide between politics and academia. “Scientists can no longer leave all the talking to the politicians, there are not enough that are scientifically trained, scientifically literate people.”
“What scientists can do is offer the scientific evidence and say: ‘On the basis of this we think you should do this, we think you should have a policy on this’.”
“They are acknowledging that politicians make choices based on all sorts of things, not just scientific evidence, shame though that is, because they look at economics, they look at culture, public acceptability, and sometimes there’s a tension. But scientists have to be there, they have to provide the evidence, they have to explain to policy makers, the importance of evidence-based policies.”
As an academic and as a communicator, he is clearly an enthusiast. “We have to be open, we have to be transparent. We have to say this is the evidence and this is what we can, and what we can’t, say because these are the risks.”
Fear and loathing might describe the relationship between scientists and the media in years gone by, but Al-Khalili believes this is changing. Scientists used to be suspicious of any of their own who even spoke to the media, and felt they were selling out. But at the heart of that struggle, he believes, the two professions didn’t understand what each other was seeking. He thinks that gap is being bridged. Although an earlier comment about the science community’s reaction to a television programme suggests it hasn’t gone away totally.
Al-Khalili says one of the biggest struggles for scientists today is getting politicians to worry about the long term. “The real challenge is for scientists to engage with governments and get them to take some of these things seriously, rather than just thinking about saving their own skin for the next year or two, to take seriously what might be coming down the line in the next decade.”
“I think the big challenges that are facing the world are obviously climate change, water, energy, food supplies. Science can play a huge role in mitigating against the worst effects of those.”
So how does he think scientists can influence politics and politicians to put a greater emphasis on thinking and acting to protect the decades to come? The answer, he believes, is not with the politicians but with the public. If the public care (because they or their children will suffer the consequences), then they will put pressure on the politicians to act. “So it’s not just the politicians that need convincing but the wider society.”
Above: Professor Jim Al-Khalili
Credit: University of Surrey
“For most people it’s just natural to have a keener interest in the immediate. I want to be able to put my central heating on. I want to be able to drive my car. I don’t want to change my lifestyle.”
He acknowledges that it is not easy and scientists are often seen as alarmist. Despite the scientific evidence about climate change, Al-Khalili feels there is still a huge struggle ahead to convince the public that climate change is real. “I’m not quite sure why there is still such a large fraction of the population and politicians who are sceptical about what’s happening, despite all the evidence.”
So where are scientists on the GM debate and why does scientific evidence not necessarily persuade the public? “A lot of the worries are unfounded but that doesn’t mean they are not rational, based on what the world sees.”
He adds: “We eat GM foods all the time. Anything we import from North America is likely to be a GM food. We’ve been genetically modifying crops for thousands of years. It’s just that we’re doing it now with more knowledge.”
Al-Khalili doesn’t believe the MMR scandal, which left hundreds of thousands of parents scared to have their children vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella, would happen today, as more scientists would join the discussion. The MMR scare stories related to science research published in the medical journal The Lancet, which led to headlines in newspapers, about the risks of the combined MMR vaccine, but the research was eventually discredited. Back then, he says: “Scientists, those working in the health service, just weren’t prepared to engage. It was ridiculous that they weren’t going to get involved with the discussion.”
Reports from the US and Canada recently showed scientists were worried about public funding cuts and impact on their freedom of expression as well as their ability to continue their research. The argument from the US was that research was being held back as scientists were seeing grants for travel to conferences and to complete research cut back. This was particularly heightened during the recent government shutdown. Al-Khalili has referred previously to worries that Peter Higgs would not get the funding today that set the course towards the discovery of Higgs boson, for which he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013 alongside François Englert. Increasingly, science grants are not based on ideas or researching theories but on outcomes, and with a need for an explanation of direct benefits to society, he argues, and that is something society should worry about. “We might miss out big discoveries simply because we’re only focusing on what we think has immediate applications. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history came about just because people were curious about the world.”
And it is obvious that Al-Khalili is going to put his great passion into making sure that discussions about science and discovery continue to be as open as possible.