May 2007
Summary
Réalités industrielles
Sharing scientific knowledge : Issues and risks
Complete issue
This issue was coordinated
by Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa
This issue was coordinated
Editorial
By François Valérian
Rédacteur en chef des Annales des Mines
Avant-propos : Faire voir ou faire savoir, les nouveaux enjeux
By Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa Amble consultants
par Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa Amble consultants
Enjeux et risques des débats publics sur la science
Can scientific knowledge legitimately be brought before public opinion?
By Olivier Godard
Directeur de recherche au CNRS, Professeur à l'Ecole Polytechnique
The demand to submit science to public debate sometimes covers manipulatory strategies for validating claims that have not stood the test of scientific criticism. Administrations, manufacturers, NGOs, etc., tend to use science and its expertise for their own purposes. More openness and accountability in scientific appraisals would help pacify the relations between science and society, but there are risks…
Silencing fears about food safety : Information about the risks
By Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle
Directeur exécutif de l'European Food Safery Authority (EFSA)
Circulating scientific information is especially important in matters of food safety. The European Authority of Food Safety has to provide independent scientific appraisals to the EU institutions that manage health risks. This assignment is caught in the crossfire between the complexity of science and public anxiety.
L'expertise scientifique dans l'espace public
Scientific expertise in public debates : Thoughts drawn from the French experience
By Pierre-Benoit Joly
INRA/TSV
It is not easy to bring scientific expertise into public debates. The expert’s advice no longer immediately arouses confidence. It has been necessary to set up procedures for adapting the communication of knowledge to the requirements for a “democracy of opinions”. In the light of problems and the adjustments to them over the past twenty years, several models can be distinguished in the relations between science and politics.
Open science but without distorting it
By Georges Debrégeas
Physicien, Vice-président de l'association Sauvons la recherche
Science can open toward firms and the public, but this should be done without sacrificing the accuracy of scientific work.
The dynamics of knowledge and innovation
By Florence Charue-Duboc
Centre de Recherche en Gestion, Ecole polytechnique
Research departments must produce original products or processes, and a whole stream of new knowledge. And they must also manage a stock of knowledge accumulated by scientists from their training, experiments and networks. Research must be organized so as to manage this interrelation between the stock and flow of knowledge. Temporary structures should put the knowledge capitalized by permanent structures at the service of a project.
From poles of growth to poles of competitiveness : A new way to share cognitive resources
By Bernard Pecqueur
Professeur Université Grenoble 1
The driving force underlying the economy differs from, and sometimes contradicts, the rationales of local authorities. During the “thirty years of mutation” that have followed “the thirty glorious years” of economic growth in France after WW II, many local areas have suffered from increasingly “global” developments in the economy. The “poles of competiveness” set up in France are trying to attract global economic development in specific fields and fit it in with the local context.
The regional press and scientific and technological knowledge
By Jean-Jacques Rouch
La Dépêche du Midi
Toulouse, the “technopolis” in southwestern France, is a home to several prestigious regional newspapers. It is no surprise that scientific knowledge and public information are closely related in this region. Journalists try to develop contacts with experts. These relations raise problems, there as elsewhere, as proven by the AZF accident.
Cognitive blockages in perceiving nanotechnology
By Alexei Grinbaum
CEA Saclay, Laboratoire des recherches sur les sciences de la matière
Most people know nothing about nanotechnology. This is annoying since this field, so fertile in scientific developments, has such a potential for changing our lives. Given this ignorance and fear, the first targeted message will carry the most weight. How to formulate it? How to deliver it?
Circulating scientific knowledge : Realizations and reflections
By Alexandre Moatti
X-Mines, président de la Société des amis de la Bibliothèque de l'Ecole polytechnique
Scientific knowledge during the 20th century underwent acceleration — unlike its circulation in the public sphere. Internet and modern means of communication open possibilities for a widespread sharing of knowledge; but they also raise new problems. Overshadowed by the often lively discussions about its applications, basic science is toiling to find a way to reach the mainstream public.
Popularizng science : Marvels, wonders and information
Learning while playing : A cultural creed?
By Serge Chaumier
Professeur à l'IUP Denis Diderot, CRCM, Centre de recherche sur la Culture et les Musées, Université de Bourgogne
Centers for scientific exhibitions have appropriated the idea, much lauded in 1968, of learning while playing. This new creed is a unanimously shared commonplace. Despite the warm feelings underlying it and its justified criticism of stern, grim methods for acquiring knowledge, it has had deviant effects. Problems in the school system cannot be separated from a cultural crisis. An over-reliance on the “teach through play” creed risks turning cultural institutions into playgrounds or recreational theme parks. This trend draws attention to questions about conveying scientific knowledge.
Scientific knowledge : A machine for weaving dreams
By Florence Belaën
chercheur associé au C2SO (Culture, Communication et Société) de l'ENS-Lyon
The institutions for popularizing science and technology have become full-fledged firms that have to find a place in the trend toward the industrialization of culture. An overview of the recent history of planetariums in France illustrates current tendencies in the relations between science and society. More than ever, the choice is a dilemma : should science be a part of culture, or be put on show?
Rolling up our sleeves : Renovating education in the sciences
By Pierre Léna
Professeur émérite à l'Université Denis-Diderot Paris 7 Membre de l'Académie des sciences et délégué à l'éducation et la formation
Ten years ago, strong actions conducted by the Academy of Sciences along with several partners sought to renovate scientific education in French primary schools. Given its success, several other countries were soon associated with this undertaking, first outside and then inside Europe. Today, a new project is being launched in middle schools — the weak link in the French school system — with the aim of decompartmentalizing scientific education, bringing science and technology together, and correcting pupils’ too often erroneous perceptions.
The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie and the circulation of scientific and technological information
By Jean-François Hébert
Président de la Cité des sciences et de l'industrie
The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris is both a museum, a center for meetings, and a place for staging “happenings”. Its success is amazing given how young it is. It can probably be set down to the huge need for the diffusion of scientific and technological knowledge and to the Cité’s role as a middleman between advances in knowledge and public expectations.
"Curiosity is leaven for the mind, resourcefulness is leaven for action" : The Petits Débrouillards
By Pascal Desjours
ancien rédacteur en chef de l'Association des Petits Débrouillards
et Jean Matricon
physicien et membre du Comité des "agitateurs scientifiques" des Petits Débrouillards Midi-Pyrénées
The linkage between human intelligence and experimentation has been recognized since Ancient times, but scientific education sometimes tends to overlook it by emphasizing theory. Young people want to learn from concrete experiences; their curiosity springs out of their resourcefulness. This is the idea underlying the Petits Débrouillards. Having spread from Quebec to France, this movement is trying to prove that science can be studied “manually”.
Cosinus and increments in French education
By Louis Faton
Editions Cosinus
Mathematics holds a very important place in French education. Some pupils are happy about this while others toil at learning a discipline that seems so cut off from the real, material world. How to reconcile young people with math? By showing them how theorems and proofs can be put to practical use…
Assosciences Midi-Pyrénées : Science for the city and region
By Paul Costa
Président d'Assosciences
How to impart knowledge to those who lack it while showing that it is subject to controversy? Assosciences in Toulouse, France, has apparently managed to do this. The choice of topics is not always easy, given that atomic power and genetically modified organisms stir up intense feelings rather than lending themselves to calm discussions. Treated by competent lecturers, most topics enlighten the public and bring diverse groups, ranging from secondary school students to retirees, into contact. The science thus put into circulation is pluralistic, subject to question and exchanges.
Science as a tale
By Francine Pellaud
Docteur en Sciences de l'éducation, Laboratoire de Didactique et Epistémologie des Sciences (LDES), Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, Université de Genève
Richard-Emmmanuel Eastes
Professeur agrégé de Sciences physiques - Président de l'Association Les Atomes Crochus, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure
Nathalie Sené
Professeur des Ecoles
et Bérénice Collet
Comédienne et metteur en scène, Les Atomes Crochus
Scientific tales originated in a meeting between literature, psychoanalysis, science and education. Designed in the purest fairy tale tradition, their primary objective is help nonscientists understand certain phenomena. Beyond the pleasure of play, these tales turn out to be powerful educational tools.
The Santa Clause effect in the relation between science and society
By Richard-Emmanuel Eastes
Professeur agrégé de Sciences physiques - Président de l'Association Les Atomes Crochus, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure
et Francine Pellaud
Docteur en Sciences de l'éducation, Laboratoire de Didactique et Epistémologie des Sciences (LDES), Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, Université de Genève
Given its need for both rationality and marvels, society has an ambiguous relation with science. When it is too rationalistic, the popularization of science deviates from science. When it is too esoteric, it blurs the message. In both cases, it risks succumbing to parascience. How to make the need for wonders and marvels compatible with the necessity of conveying exact, rational scientific information? The “Santa Claus effect” shows how necessary it is, in the effort to build a “scientific culture”, to make room for a sense of wonder, for dreaming and the imagination.