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Democracy in the contemporary life sciences

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Abstract

In this article I reflecton the contemporary arguments for democratisation of science, in light of the work of the historian of the life sciences Ludwik Fleck. I explore some possible reasons for the current demands for ‘responsibility’ among scientific researchers, and briefly consider this in the context of the various arguments that have made a link between democracy and science, or considered the role of science in a democratic society. I conclude by considering some recent proposals for opening up the secluded spaces of scientific research and truth finding, and suggest that, far from destabilising scientific truth, such developments might actually address the well known failures of ‘translation from bench to bedside’, and make scientific truth claims in the life sciences more robust when they leave the lab and enter the world of everyday life.

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Notes

  1. This is a revised and corrected version of the article given, in a shorter form, at the Science and Democracy: A symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ludwik Fleck's death – the Latsis Symposium 2011 – in Zurich, 26–28 May 2011. I have kept the spoken form in this written version.

  2. The details of this project, which is entitled Science as a Public Enterprise, can be found at http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-enterprise/report/. Professor Geoffrey Boulton FRS is the chair of the Working Group. I quote him here from memory, and not verbatim.

  3. There are, of course, different and perhaps incompatible conceptions of ‘democratic’ science at work here – in one, scientific practice is somehow to be regulated by the citizenry and responsible to them, but still created by ‘elites’. In another, the truths of sciences are somehow to be co-produced by and with that citizenry – perhaps by opening the data, perhaps by relying on ‘citizen science’ and all that work of amateur scientists that is so prevalent from bird watching to amateur astronomy. This aspect was discussed in a paper by Andrew Abbott at the conference where this article was given. Amateur science, especially in the life sciences, generates a fear about certain ‘anti-democratic’ consequences of research in unregulated environments free from the usual controls, as in worries over DIY-bio and garage biology in the area of synthetic biology.

  4. This is in the work of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation, details can be found at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/syntheticbiology.

  5. This report on The Transnational Governance of Synthetic Biology can be found at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society/Policy_and_Influence/2011-05-20_RS_BIOS_Transnational_Governance.pdf.

  6. This report on Animals Containing Human Materials can be found at: http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk/p47prid77.html.

  7. For Sciencewise, see www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk.

  8. http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/background.

  9. For the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, see: www.nuffieldbioethics.org.

  10. Quoted from Triggle (2004, p. 139). The clip from the Murrow interview is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHGKLbDt_2Q&eurl=http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/extras.html.

  11. http://fivu.dk/publikationer/2003/nye-veje-mellem-forskning-og-erhverv-fra-tanke-til-faktura, accessed March 2011.

  12. With apologies to Bob Dylan, who was, of course, speaking of equality.

  13. For PatientsLikeMe, see www.patientslikeme.com.

  14. At the conference where this article was given, this aspect was tellingly analysed by Ilana Löwy.

  15. On the laboratory as a secluded space, see Callon et al (2009).

  16. At the conference, this aspect was explored in detail by Marianne Sommer, focussing on the work of the ‘triple H’ – Julian Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane and Lancelot Hogben – and their ‘scientific humanism’.

  17. For example, the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science which was established in 1969.

  18. For the official account of the ELSI programme, see http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/research/elsi.shtml and www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml.

  19. See, for example, the presentations at a Franco-British workshop on Responsible Innovation: From concepts to practice, held in May 2011, available at: www.ambafrance-uk.org/Franco-British-workshop-on,18791.

  20. Some of these criticisms are discussed by Joyce Tait (2009) also available at www.nature.com/embor/journal/v10/n1s/full/embor2009138.html.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Claire Marris for allowing me to draw on our joint paper on ‘Open Engagement’ referenced below. I also thank Des Fitzgerald and Joy Zhang for helpful comments on an earlier version, and the organisers and participants in the conference – especially Michael Hagner – for their comments. The usual caveats apply.

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A version of this lecture was published in German in M. Hagner (ed.) ‘Wissenscaft und Demokratie’, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012.

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Rose, N. Democracy in the contemporary life sciences. BioSocieties 7, 459–472 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2012.26

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