Jack Stilgoe
Senior Researcher
Jack Stilgoe works on science and technology projects and specialises in issues of science, society and public engagement.
- Things can only get better. That, or the world collapses The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been switched on. And we're apparently still here. Over at the Sci Foo camp, I bumped into Brian Cox, Physicist and former keyboard player for D:Ream. He works at CERN and told me about a science NGO I hadn't come across before. "Sane Science" are one of the organisations who have been, Cassandra-like, ringing alarm bells about the LHC. They point us back to the beard-stroking whimsy of the few scientists who once said that there just might be a... continue reading on 28th August 2008 Comments (1)
- Scifoo 2 - Foo Who? I love this place. Alongside Jane Lubchenco, I ran a session on a new social contract for science, looking at the politics of science and the potential for a new breed of citizen scientists. Jane has written about this before, and had some fascinating thoughts on what such a contract might look like. I argued that, although the once solid social contract was now undeniably in flux, this might be no bad thing. Pitching into the discussion were Phil Campbell, Martin Rees, Paul Rabinow and Steve... continue reading on 10th August 2008
- Scifoo 1 - The Wisdom of clouds I'm weekending at the Scifoo camp inside the Googleplex, Silicon Valley. Geeks, Nobel laureates, Astronauts and hangers-on have gathered at science's bleeding edge to share their thoughts with no agenda, no hierarchy and ridiculous amounts of food. As though it had been decreed, today's first session clawed towards Science 2.0. Tim O'Reilly, the man to blame for everything 2.0, began with some explanations. Web 2.0, apparently, is about participation. Google is king, even though its model... continue reading on 9th August 2008
- Making it up as we go along Synthetic Biology has again found its way onto the Today programme. The prompt this time is an admirable report (pdf) from bioscience funders the BBSRC, who asked social scientists Paul Martin and Andrew Balmer to map the social and ethical questions raised by this increasingly frenetic science. But the BBC's report is inevitably framed by Craig Venter, the energetic and unapologetic face of all things synthetic. Six months ago, when we hosted Craig Venter, I was convinced that the UK had a... continue reading on 10th June 2008
- Public science and public goods Our debate on university science a couple of weeks back has been picked up by Times Higher. It served the important, and possibly therapeutic, purpose of getting some things out into the open. As someone with strong opinions in this area, I found my independence as a chair stretched. But my desire was to expose some unacknowledged tensions and start a genuinely new conversation about where science in universities is going and what assumptions are steering it. The debate was instigated by... continue reading on 2nd June 2008
- Is politics stuck in the present? As the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill ducks and weaves through parliament, the debate around it reveals the poverty of the politics of the future. Politicians are pretty happy talking about VALUES, INTERESTS, THE EVIDENCE and even ETHICS. So abortion gets the headlines, alongside daddies for test tube babies. When it comes to the research aspects - hybrids, embryonic vs adult stem cells and all that - the evidence and the ethics are only part of the story. So Ann Widdecombe insists... continue reading on 21st May 2008
-
The Talking Cure
Wednesday morning was the launch of The Talking Cure. Faizal and I wrote the pamphlet to try to capture the changing conversations taking place between professionals and patients around health. The discussion at the launch was fascinating and impassioned. Howard Stoate gave us his perspective at the only practising GP in the House of Commons. Richard Horton was as thoughtful and fired up as ever.
You can listen to all of the speeches, questions etc. here. continue reading on 19th May 2008 in Healthy Conversations - WANTED! - Citizen Scientists Way, way up in northern Norway, reminiscent of a scene from His Dark Materials, scientists are currently busy hiding seeds in a giant underground fridge. In the much warmer fields of Southern France, they have a more vibrant approach to biodiversity. Here, farmers are breeding and growing wheat. Their new varieties of wheat are in fact very old indeed. They hark back to a time when farmers wanted bread that was good to eat rather than easy to make on an industrial scale. The farmers here argue... continue reading on 21st April 2008 in Technology and Civil Society (STACS) ,Science
- Ask me no questions, I'll give you the facts Just caught Ben Goldacre's programme on Radio 4. Ben, for those who don't know, is the man behind the Guardian's Bad Science column. He is keen on using science to debunk snake oil merchants and puncturing the scientific claims that they make. When he first began writing, I thought he was a naive positivist. But, the more I read and occasionally chat to him, the more I sympathise with and learn from his approach to the new politics of science, expertise and evidence. He is tackling some... continue reading on 31st March 2008 Comments (11)
- Trust me, I'm the head of immunisation at the Department of Health Vaccines are an interesting condensation point for debates about science, the public good, personal freedom and choice. As the UK government found a few years back with the MMR vaccine, you get in trouble if you are on the one hand telling people to choose everything to do with their healthcare and on the other coercing them into vaccination for the public good. The evidence, as we found out, won't win arguments that messy. There's a nice book co-authored by Demos friend Melissa Leach that... continue reading on 10th March 2008