Science: weighing the public's shit since 1666

A couple of weeks ago, I attended three lectures on science's relationship with the public in the space of four days. Even for me, that's a bit dense.

• Simon Schaffer's Science Museum's Centenary Talk on Science for the Public. Schaffer is Professor for the History of Science at Cambridge, and much of his talk was rooted in the 17th century.
  
• Martin Rees' first Reith Lecture for the BBC, part of a series of talks by Rees (President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal) on the theme 'Scientific Horizons', this focused on science's relationship with the citizen.
• A seminar from Brian Wynne hosted by my department at Imperial, reflecting on his now seminal sociological study of post-Chernobyl Cumbrian soil (e.g. this 1992 paper).
  

This blogpost was just going to be a write up of Schaffer's talk, but they were so close together, I couldn't help connecting the three. So this is largely historical, but with a bit of sociology and reflection from a senior scientist thrown in too, and some general thoughts on ignorance, knowledge and weighing up of public shit (both metaphorical and actual).

NB: I apologise, quite seriously, to anyone who objects to the word shit. It's the only one that really lets me work the metaphor, so I'm keeping it, but I do apologise to those who dislike such terms.

Schaffer's talk took place in a makeshift lecture theatre set up, very fittingly, outside the museum's George III Gallery and Launch Pad interactive space. He started with a reference to Douglas Adams, specifically the imaginary labour saving device, "The Electric Monk". Just as washing machine saves you the labour of scrubbing and wringing out clothes, the Electric Monk would solve one of the main problems of our time: the trouble of believing the incredible. We have all, allegedly, become doubting Thomases: we no longer trust people the we should. We are too incredulous to science. In an age of miracles and demons of science and technology, wouldn't it be lovely if there was a machine to produce public belief?

Schaffer's main point, however, was a warning against amnesia or nostalgia when thinking about science in society. He did not like the idea that we have "become a bit bolshie recently". A particular target was a recent Guardian interview with James Lovelock:

"We need a more authoritative world. We've become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say"

Schaffer argued against a mythical time where we revered expertise in a way we no longer do. To hark back to a less cheeky age is, he argued, simply forgetful. It is lazy nostalgia, and wrong. For example, look to Gillray's 1802 sketch of Humphry Davy at Royal Institution: plenty of fart jokes and satire here, but little deference. If anything, Schaffer went on, our problem today is a new proliferation of experts, there are so-called "experts" in anything and everything. We have lifestyle experts instead of DIY. We live in society that constantly defers.


Schaffer then went on to argue that in making science public, our culture has made very different publics for and with science. If you are ever in London, the difference between the George III Gallery and Launch Pad is indicative of this. He pointed us to the famous Joseph Wright painting "An Experiment on a bird in an air pump" (1768), which draws your attention not only to the eponymous experiment, but a variety of public reactions: revolution, amazement, caution, curiosity and disinterest. Thus, in some respects this painting is less a representation of a birds in air pump and more a representation of publics when science is done in front of them. He also mentioned a painting of a man who collected air pumps, a layman who choose to be represented surrounded by scientific apparatus. Here, Schaffer suggested, the aim was to imply this man should be trusted/ respected because he owned science. Perhaps, though in much smaller ways, some publics 'patronise' science in a similar way today too?

Another of Schaffer's key points was the way in which the public are often articulated as quite passive participants in public-science. Schaffer's example here was, in his own words "shit and eyes". To start with the shit: In mid-17th century Florance, there was some debate over antimony versus rhubarb as a laxative. So the powers that be rounded up 50 members of the general public, locked them up and monitored them: measuring, weighing and recording their "outputs" in every way possible. On to the eyes, which are slightly less straightforward. Still in mid-17th century Florance, an aristocrat wanted to test Christiaan Huygens' observations of Saturn. He collected a set of publics "men off the street" who were not familiar with astronomical theory, standing them at one end of a long gallery and placing a model of Saturn illuminated by moving lamps at the other (to simulate the sun). These lay participants were then asked to draw what they saw. These drawings looked like Huygens’ results, which helped convince people of its validity. Here, as with much medical testing, the ignorance of the observers was something which to be celebrated, it became part of a rigorous scientific method as the lay observers wouldn't be as biased as "expert" scientists. Such an approach might be strong methodologically , but it does keep the public out of the loop somewhat. In the class structures of Schaffer's 17th C Florence, it is more easily read as exploitative, but arguably, even today there is a thread of public science which requires lay participants remain ignorant, institutionalising a need for stupidity. There is, Schaffer suggested, a rhetoric of the celebration of ignorance which runs though much of the history of public science. It runs against a lot of other rhetorics of public science - those of the greater dissemination of knowledge and learning - but it is still there, and should be remembered.

Schaffer's next example of public science was Sir Charles Vernon Boys, a physicist who taught H G Wells at Imperial. Boys was known for his bubble research, so at this point Schaffer stepped aside and gave the stage to one of the museum staff to do mini version of their "bubble show", which culminated with putting Schaffer inside a giant bubble. Public science, Schaffer noted with a grin as he got out of the bubble, can be a lot of fun. He quickly moved to end on dark note though, showing us another image of bubble science, this time from a test at Los Alamos. Demonstration, he noted gravely, is a military term, it's a representation to others of one's own strength. Indeed, Schaffer had previously explored the theme of public experiments as a "trail of strength" (e.g. Otto von Guericke demonstrating the power of vacuums with teams of horses trying to separate hemispheres). The demonstration of science to the public can be a way of showing off science, or at least cleverness, as powerful: one man (the expert) with air pump against a team (the public). At times, Schaffer suggested, science for public can at times look a little like science against the public.

Schaffer's cautionary conclusion: we should not let our ideas of science in society suffer from either amnesia or nostalgia. Science has been weighing up public shit since 1660, both metaphorically (i.e. repsonding to a lack of public deference) and literally (as the public are passive subjects for experiments). We need to remain aware of this, as a lot depends on public science in the 21st century. Further, with a nod to reality television and "some forms of democracy", Schaffer warned that we should be careful of any celebration of ignorance. Whatever that ignorance is of, over-deference and lack of critique (a complacency over expertise) is not a productive form of science in public.

It was with these words still echoing in my ears that I took my seat at Martin Rees' Reith Lecture on "Science and the Citizen". This will be broadcast by BBC radio on the 1st of June, so you'll be able to it for yourself. Reflecting Schaffer's preoccupation with the 1660s (or rather, Rees' preoccupation with the Royal Society's 350th birthday), he started off by emphasising that the scientists of late 17th century London were important not just for being experimentalists, but doing so immersed in the practical agenda of their day. The classic example of this being the role Royal Society fellows played in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. Rees then went on to argue that we ask more questions of science today. I didn't feel that this was necessarily the lazy nostalgia Schaffer was getting at. It's not a sudden cheekiness Rees was talking about, out that we have greater access to information to ask questions with. Moreover, unlike Lovelock, Rees largely argue that such scrutiny should be welcomed. Indeed, one of Rees' final conclusions was in many respects similar to parts of Schaffer's, that ignorance is an impediment to public engagement, whether in science or other areas. We shouldn't let a desire to spread scientific knowlege obscure widespread ignorance in geography or finance. We should all try to know more and reflect on the use, worth and basis of the knowledge we have.

Brian Wynne, on the other hand, had a more diffuse sense of ignorance. It was ignorance of science, by scientists as well as publics. There was lots of ignorance going around his story: Farmers, Scientists, Politicians (groups that all pointed figures of ignorance at, and within, each other too). In particular, I was struck by a point Wynne made about a 'lost' bit of research, a Nature paper from the 1960s which could have been more constructively applied. The question had ceased to be active, so the research had ceased to be funded, and so, due to the practice-based nature of science, the research ceased to be used and was forgotten. All of this, I should emphasise wasn't some sort of playful critique of science from outsider. Something worth remembering about Brian Wynne is that he has a PhD in materials science from Cambridge. In some respects, this showed in his talk, he spent quite a large chunk of time on the physical processes involved in his case study, there were a fair few graphs and one of his final points was summed up with an equation. However, he wove the more scientific knowledge of the natural world in with knowledge of cycles of farming business. I'd say, that was partly the point. Wynne was as equally strong on a diffuse sense of knowledge as he was on scientific ignorance. When he spoke to farmers in the 1980's, he continually found them telling him about Windscale in 1957. Such a long cultural memory, Wynne underlined, is evidence based in its own way.

Back to Schaffer. One of his most interesting points was, inevitably, in the questions. He was asked about Einstein and way the uncertainties of "the new physics" had an impact on public confidence with scientific certainty. In response Schaffer argued that Einstein's importance as icon of public science was less relativity, and more that he was the first to produce a paper where everyone was told "this is entirely true and yet most of you will never understand it". This reflected a new relationship between science and the public for an age of specialisation and more extreme peaks of expertise (arguably, a seminal moment in our contemporary obsession with trust). This, perhaps, is the main reason we might need Adams' Electric Monk. Maybe we already have them; we all have to believe quite so much in order to get through the day.

How much you believe the relationship between science and the public has or has not changed in the last 350 years, I think Schaffer's points are still worth thinking about. Science has been "weighing public shit since 1660", whether that's because the public shout back at them or because so much research has been embedded in solving the practical concerns of the day ("blue skies" or not). Personally, I still hope for constructive debate between the various gaps and differences of knowledge and ignorance. I suspect there is a long history of productive collaboration if we look for it too. Still, the shit and the petty showing off (on all sides) is there, it runs deep and is likely to remain so. It's worth keeping an eye out.

A tale of two science ministers

This year’s Reith Lecturer is the current President of the Royal Society, Professor Martin Rees, who was chosen as part of the BBC's year of science and the Royal Society's 350th anniversary. The lectures are being recorded across the country this month, ready for broadcast in the first week of June. I've been to both the London recordings. More significantly, so has the Science Minister. However, as these recordings were six days apart, the science minister in question has been an entirely different man: first Paul Drayson, now David Willets. I play a bit of compare and contrast over at the Times' science blog.

A thread I didn't pick up on there is the mention (by Rees and repeated by Willets) of the importance of big science to inspire the young. As I've said before, I find statements like this a bit problematic. There is loads of anecdotal evidence to suggest that projects like Apollo inspired people to go into scientific careers. I wouldn't deny that. But, as someone who researches, teaches and generally chats about children and science for a living, I hear almost as many anecdotes to the contrary, or at least citing other inspirations. These anecdotes seem to be articulated slightly less publicly, sometimes even whispered, but they are no less significant.

I'd love someone to look at this properly. To systematically investigate today's children about what inspires them in science and take their interests and disinterests seriously.

Big science projects are exceedingly expensive. That's part of the point. I don't deny their scientific value (or at least I'm not qualified to do so) but in such a period of "tough times" for science funding I'm not sure a loose claim to inspiring the young is enough. It sounds good but, to me, lacks depth. We might even say it's rather pointless, seeing at the new government has kept the old one's division of education and science. Unless Gove wants to fund the LHC? It seems like an all too easy rhetorical appeal to wonder and the assumed good and importance of children. Again, I'm not necessarily denying that science is wonderful or saying that children aren't important (though I do make my students try to think through these ideas, at least as an intellectual exercise), but let's investigate the issue before building policy on it.

Sociology of science, for scientists (with a note on going up bottoms)

Yesterday, in the middle of a twitter-debate about Steve Fuller, I was asked a question. I gave a slightly rubbish answer at the time. It was a good question and deserved better, and this is my attempt at one.

@markgfh @alicebell Do you have book suggestions for scientists who want to understand science better through modern science studies?less than a minute ago via TweetieEdmund Harriss
Gelada

Before I start, I should note that although I use a lot of sociology of science, my expertise is studies of science when it gets outside the scientific community. I've read Laboratory Life, but it's my copy of Science in Public that is falling to pieces. My everyday work considers science as it exists in popular books, education, museums, the web, the telly, etc. If in my ignorance I've missed something brilliant, please do share it in the comments.

The first response is simply to say "it really depends on the scientist". This isn't just a cop-out. If my experience of the field has taught me anything, it's that generalising about the big whole thing we call, for convenience, "science" is just plain silly. Generalising about "scientists" doubly-so. It'll depend on individual taste, of course, but the larger point is that some of the best sociology of science focuses on very specific case studies. Still, there are a few general publications in this area:

• Collins and Pinch's Golem books (on science, technology and medicine). These are written specifically as accessible introductions to the social studies of science and feature a set of neatly written case studies. Personally, I find the attitude that you "need to know" their content to be "scientifically literate" somewhat patronising, but they are a good read if you are interested to know more.
  
• The CBC series "How to Think About Science" (podcasts). This was my initial response to the question, and I'd stick by it. Though, as I said at the time, they are a mixed bunch and worth listening to sceptically. I should also note it is focused on ways to think about science, though there are some discussions of empirical reserach into science too.
• An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, Sergio Sismondo. In some respects this is an undergrad introduction book (which will either appeal, or grate. It's very clear though).
  
• Making Sense of Science, Steven Yearley. Again, a bit of a textbook, but pitched a bit higher than Sismondo, with an emphasis on policy. It isn't the most gripping read, but clear with some super case studies. For a slightly more cultural studies approach, see also Science, Culture and Society by Mark Erickson.
  
• Science in Society, Massimiano Bucchi. Probably the shortest of these recent intro guides, but it covers all the key points. Some people find Bucchi's style hard to follow, personally I think it's very fluid in this text.
  
• If it's philosophy you really want, Alan Chalmer's What is This Thing Called Science? is justifiably the one everyone suggests. If you'd like a more empirically-based answer to the "what is science" question, try Thomas Gieryn's Cultural Boundaries of Science with its well throughout theoretical discussion and set of historical case studies.

Those are all very broad general sources though, trying to say things about science as a whole (even Gieryn, who's book is largely a treatise on why you can't easily do this). A few more specific works:

• Firstly, I can recommend a couple of recent Nature articles about sociologists studying scientists at the LHC and biology.
• My boss will kill me if I don't mention his biology book, Thinking About Biology (more philosophy than sociology, but recommended, and not just because it's by my boss).
  
• If you are interested in environmental science, I think Mike Hulme's recent Why We Disagree About Climate Change provides a very clear run through the social studies of the subject. I also really like Alan Irwin's Sociology and the Environment, but it's a bit heavier going.
• I've generally avoided history of science here, because that's a whole other long list (plus, much more accessible literature) but it's worth mentioning the Revolutions in Science series.
  
• If you are interested in science's relationships with the public (especially policy), it's worth having a look at the think-tank Demos. Their reports aren't academic papers, but they do apply academic ideas and research and they are much easier to read than most sociology articles. They are also free to download. The classic is probably See Through Science, but The Public Value of Science and The Received Wisdom are heartily recommended.
  
• If you have access to a decent academic library, have a browse of journals like the Social Studies of Science, Isis, Science as Culture, or Science, Technology and Human Values to see if any of the articles look interesting. Some will be hard to understand without an advanced degree in the subject, some will probably be, frankly, a bit crap, but they are probably worth a glance.
• ADDED 2/7/10: Steven Epstein's (1996) Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Simply, a really good case study. You'll learn a lot about the history of AIDS, but also about the politics of knowledge in contemporary life. (I was reminded of it by this page of "science and democracy" book recommendations. All the others are worth a read).
  

Finally, I would like to defend what it sometimes seen as the crazy postmodern end of science studies. I read the Epistemological Chicken debate, where sociologists played a game of trying to out-relativist each other (and then discussed, at length, whether this was a good idea). I've even read the paper Trevor Pinch co-authored with himself (probably best not to ask about this). Both took a lot of concentration and prior-reading, and I doubt it's worth the bother for most people. They aren't going to be to everyone's taste, but that doesn't mean they are worthless. In fact I'd say my life and, moreover, my understanding of science, was enhanced from the experience. There are many other comparable life and science-understanding enhancing experiences available, and no on needs these specific ones. If you're pressed for time, there are better ones. My point is that this is one of them. Moreover, my mind was not ruined by reading such works. I didn't suddenly start to hate or distrust science (if anything, I like and trust it more). I'm not a climate denier, I don't believe in homeopathy, I don't stare at dogs. This is a larger issue topic than this blogpost though. If you're interested, try chapter seven of Alan Irwin's Sociology and the Environment, mentioned above. For now, I'll just say yep, that Pinch and Pinch paper probably marks the point where science studies did disappear up it's own bottom, but there are some absolutely fascinating things to be studied up bottoms for those willing to take a look.

Can science communication teach the rest of the academy?

I've just given a talk about science communication at an event on public engagement with arts, humanities and social science research.

Although I hoped all the time, money, anxiety and analysis poured into science communication over the last 25 years (250 years...) would mean I'd have something useful to say, I was a bit unsure about it. It's arrogant to assume science communication can tell the rest of the academy how to go about sharing it's research. There are huge differences between communicating the natural sciences and communicating other research areas. For one thing, we shouldn't discount the huge amount of money, professional expertise and institutional support provided by the now huge science communication industry. The standard sociology post-doc just wouldn't have those sort of support systems.

That said, there are similarities too, and I believe there is potentially a lot science communication can learn from attempts to communicate other subjects. For example, Farida Vis' reflections on being trolled by racist online groups has, I think, lots of interesting things to say to those caught up in climategate (Vis' slides are first link here). Also, I say that there are differences between science and everyone else, but it's not as if there aren't huge differences within this big old thing we call science. Epigenetics has a completely different public cultural context to high energy physics. Communicating one synbio project to one audience will be very different from another, to another.

Anyway, it was a difficult gig, so I did the sensible thing and chickened out by getting other people talk for me. Firstly I showed this video by some of my MSc students, which juxtaposes four scientists' ideas about their relationships with the public: one from 1950, one from 1970, another from 1990 and finally, a 2010 point of view.

Debate on science and society from Cecilia Rosen on Vimeo

In particular, I wanted to draw out the difference between the 1990 character's approach and that of 2010: the shift away from talking down to the public and towards a more discursive, interactive and contextual approach: from "deficit model" to "dialogue" to use the sci-com jargon.

There are loads of problems with the 1990 "deficit model" stance, if you really care there are many books and papers summarising them (or this report provides a good overview). Most of the criticisms stressed how simplistic it is to black-box "science" and "the public", and that media audiences tend to contextualise information given to them, sometimes in unpredictable ways. It's often said that the only word in "Public Understanding of Science" anyone could agree on was "of" (and even that had its discontents). Some people objected to the hierarchical set up of the models, which assumed science sits on the top, passing down information to the laity. It was also argued that it doesn't do the advancement of knowledge much good to rely only on scientists: there are useful things to be learned from talking to people without advanced degrees. None of this is to suggest that the public know better than science, just that listening to the occasional outside voice can be useful. To argue against a top-down model isn't necessarily to argue for a singularly bottom-up one (though some people might). If nothing else, going around acting as if your audience are stupid is bad PR. Having a conversation with someone where you build mutual trust, respect and understanding (even if you do not always agree) is, quite simply, more likely to get your voice heard.

However, in showing this video I also wanted to emphasise the way my clever MSc students put the 1950, 1970, 1990 and 2010 attitudes together, making the characters fight it out across-generations. Science communication often likes to pat itself on the shoulder that it's left the problems of the top-down model behind. It hasn't, despite the rhetoric of engagement and dialogue and involvement (and using "deficit model" like it's an insult). More importantly, moving to a more interactive model doesn't solve all our problems, if anything it just creates new ones. There are also several points the older characters make which are still worth listening to. None of this is simple.

I then talked briefly about four science communication projects I thought were worth noting: Colliding Particles, a series of short films exploring the "human stories" of scientists working on the the LHC; Galaxy Zoo, possibly the world's most successful citizen science project; Opal, which uses "community embedded scientists" in a range of interesting ways which both makes and communicates ecology at the same time; and "I'm a Scientist", a dialogue web event which pitches teenagers' questions to scientists. I finished by handing over to Jenny Joplin who works in events at the Wellcome Collection (a fifth science communication project of note). None of these are perfect and you can't necessarily apply their approaches outside of their own specific contexts, but they are all well thought out, successful and (I think) worth a look at.

The twitter tag was #enres if you want to hear what others think/ said at the event, and further blogs/ comments may well crop up on their website.

Treatise on the Astrolabe

Here's a nice TED talk on the astrolabe, thanks to Alun Salt for the tip-off. The speaker uses an example of an astrolabe from the Oxford Museum for the History of Science (also featured in Alun's blogpost). The Science Museum have some pretty gorgeous ones too.

I won't rehearse what an astrolabe is here, watch the video. But I can use it to say something about children's science books. The first manual for the Astrolabe was written for a kid (Geoffrey Chaucer's son Lewis, yes that Chaucer). The British Museum has an astrolabe they think matches the one the Chaucers would have used. This book is often described as first children's book. So, the first ever children's book was a science book.

This little fact-ette pleases me immensely. Obviously it relies on a rather ridiculous (not to mention anachronistic) over-simplification of our definitions of "children" "science" and "book". I don't care though. When people at children's literature studies conferences look at me with incredulity when I say I study science books (people have, quite seriously, looked down their noses and informed me "but, non-fiction isn't literature"), I love to direct them to Chaucer.

Via Peter Hunt (1994) An Introduction to Children’s Literature (Opus, Oxford: pp.189) if you want a full bibliographic reference from a professor of children's literature studies.

Science is cool? Considering the "evidence"

I've just written a piece on Comment is Free responding to the "How Science Became Cool" feature they ran last Tuesday. This is the sweary bit I couldn't fit in (though with slightly less swearing than when I saw the headline they'd given it and read comment number 3...)

The piece for the Guardian runs through some of the evidence of science's public popularity. But research into science and the public doesn't just provide evidence, it also provides reflection. One basic tenet of such reflection being that the notion of "science" isn't nearly as uniform as is sometimes imagined (for developed theory and a set of historical examples, see this book). Another central tenet is that whether you like, agree and/ or believe in a piece science is largely cultural (classic study of this being Brian Wynne’s sheep farmers). Baring both these points in mind, we should not forget the tensions within the great big Venn diagram of groups which have connected to form the apparent "new" coolness of science.

I think the most illustrative example of this is last December's "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People". Or, as it later became known for the post-Christmas TV transmission: Nerdstock. I remember hearing people say they much preferred the term Nerdstock, they would have loved to have gone but were put off by the word "Godless" in the title. And yet people wanting to express their atheism were arguably the fuel of the event. Similarly, within self-confessed science fans, there are those with more space-y interests and those who are rather more David Attenborough in their tastes, both sitting alongside each other with some degree of incomprehension. There are also the wades of commentators on the "How Science Became Cool" piece who wined "don't leave science to the cool kids, that's the last thing we want".

These are all tensions, territories and cultural identities we have to remember if considering the movement of science through popular culture. Moreover, I think that the more activist science communicators (i.e. those who want to change peoples minds) need to take seriously those who disagree or are not sure about particular ideas in science. I don't think it's helpful to write them off as anything as broad brush as "anti" the whole of science. This is not to say you have to agree with them, or even display any rhetorical sense of agreement. But you have to think about what precisely they don't like and why if you really want to convince them otherwise. As I wrote in the post about Shell and the Science Museum, throw your hands up in the air with incredulity at their stupidity if you like: see how far that gets you.

I worry that that with a celebration of aesthetics of science the response to "isn’t this cool" will be, from many, "er, no". There's the famous youtube clip of Richard Dawkins saying "Science is interesting, and if you don't like it, you can fuck off." That's great if you already agree with him. It's funny and the appeal to those who "can fuck off" helps emphasise a sense of bonded community by way of noting those aren't in it. But it only puts off those who disagree with you even more. As I've blogged before, I think science communication should say this is awesome because. It should earn and demonstrate wonderment, not assume it.

Of course, another central tenet of science communication research is you shouldn't assume a need to ram science down everyone's throat. Not everyone likes science, not everyone knows much science. And that's ok. Maybe the disinterested can fuck off then, though I can think of a fair few specific examples where I'd rather they didn't (personally, for me: science funding, climate change). It's a difference between liking or disliking that big old complex thing called "science" and having an opinion about a specific scientific issue which I think is the important point here.

I agree the science brand seems to be doing pretty well right now, but let's not get carried away about the novelty or reach of this. Moreover, don't let a sense of glitzy uniformity of a big old thing called "science" obscure the detail in its guts, be this good, bad, useful, pointless, ugly or beautiful. Don’t fuck off if you don’t happen find one or other aspect of it interesting, and please don’t get arrogant or cliquey enough to tell others to do so either.

EDIT 19:45 20th April: just in case you worry I'm quoting Dawkins out of context, he is repeating a New Scientist editor with the "can fuck off" line. There's great context provided in this longer video of the event, which I can heartily recommend anyway (ta Scott)

The Royal Institution, the Bodmer report, and the future of science communication

My guest post over on the Times Science blog.