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At the end of the day, probably nothing is more
illuminating and instructive for our understanding
of risk in the context of scientific policy-making
than to see how a specific example works out in practice.
A long career as a science communicator has taught me
that the hardest thing to explain to a lay audience is that
evidence-based science does not deal in certainties. To
the non-scientist, science is engaged in delivering absolute
truth based on incontrovertible facts. Propositions based
on anything less than this are likely to be regarded as
questionable. Above all, decisions based on ‘likelihood’
rather than ‘fact’ are perceived to involve unacceptable
levels of risk: these are the decisions that give rise to
‘shock horror’ headlines in the tabloid press.
The reality is that a measure of uncertainty is a defining
characteristic of the scientific method. The scientific
solution to a problem is inevitably provisional. The
scientist’s goal is to arrive at the best fit between their
findings so far and a hypothesis, or general principle.
Fundamentally sceptical, scientists are always prepared to
modify their outcomes in the face of additional data.
So there is inevitably a rupture between the certainty
the lay person wants in answer to a question, and what
the scientist is prepared to offer in response. A familiar
example would be climate change, where climate change
sceptics challenge scientists to ‘prove once and for all’ that
global warning is man-made, and make much of the voices
of those who dissent from the majority view. The scientists
respond that the ‘balance of probability’ points strongly
towards man’s being the cause of climate change, and point
out that ‘the vast majority of climate scientists’ ascribe to
this view. They will always stop short, however, of claiming
certainty.
I suspect that this is one of the things that originally
attracted me to the practice of science: it eschews
dogma. Evidence-based solutions to problems are offered
tentatively and with circumspection, and are susceptible to
revision in the light of further evidence.
For example, the paradigm-changing 1953 paper in
the journal Nature by Francis Crick and James Watson,
which proposed the double helix structure of DNA
and transformed genetics, opens cautiously with the
words: “We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of
deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) ...”. Towards its close, it
gestures almost diffidently to the far-reaching implications
of their ‘suggestion’:“It has not escaped our notice that the
specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a
possible copying mechanism for the genetic material” (my
emphases) 1 .
Public communication of science to a general audience is
often a matter of helping the lay person to come to terms
with this provisionality. In large part it consists in teaching
those without a scientific background how to assess the
claims made in areas that are complex and contested,
often by translating them into more accessible terms.
Non-scientists have to be persuaded to accept a
scientist’s findings as reliable in spite of his or her
reluctance to claim certainty, otherwise they are likely to
find the costs of innovation based on a scientific discovery
— and the risks involved — too high. The role of media
commentators like myself on scientific issues in such
cases is to be trusted explicators, presenting a specified
scientific breakthrough in language accessible to all, to
show both its benefits and disadvantages so that the public
(which includes politicians) can make up their own mind
responsibly.
Public communication of this kind is, however, a very
different matter from engaging directly with the public and
experts together, to progress and implement public policy.
When I became Chair of the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority (HFEA) in January 2008, I quickly
discovered that scientists’ reluctance to claim certainty
can prove problematic, not only when one is supporting
innovation in assisted reproduction treatment, but even
in sustaining the advances made to date. In spite of the
successes of in vitro fertilization (IVF), are the risks that
will always remain when we ‘tamper’ with nature simply
too high 2 ?
One of my personal goals when I took up the post was
to develop clear and constructive lines of communication
between the HFEA and those it regulated, and to build
an educated conversation with the broader public. This
quickly turned out to be a much harder aspiration than I
had imagined. IVF stories make newspaper headlines, and
both broadsheet and tabloid press tend to sensationalize
their coverage for an eager readership. However
thoughtfully the HFEA drafted its press releases, however
careful I was in radio and TV interviews, both were all too
often truncated or taken out of context, resulting in alarm
rather than reassurance and education.
So when the HFEA was asked by the UK government’s
Department of Health to conduct a wide-ranging
consultation on a controversial new process in 2011,
we were determined to do so as far as possible so as to
educate at the same time as gathering the information. A
great deal of prior thought went into planning the stages
of the consultation so as to produce properly informed
There is inevitably a
rupture between the
certainty the lay person
wants in answer to a
question, and whatthe
scientist is prepared to
offer in response.