Enemies of science

In Madras but I thought it worthwhile to write a few lines. The retreating monsoon makes it very sticky here in the afternoons, the warmth sort of creeps up on you. Heading up to a hill station in a couple of days but, while I have an internet connection, thought I'd update the blog with a coment piece that ran in the Guardian just after I left England.

About Tony Blair's recent speech on science (described in more detail below) I wanted to ask some questions about his government's attitude to science. In effect, they pick and choose their evidence and which bits of science they like and which they don't.

So Tony Blair wants to be a science evangelist? In a recent speech in Oxford, he outlined his plan to stand up for science and face down those who distort and undermine it. He singled out animal rights extremists and people who cause confusion over MMR and GM technology.

But encouraging scientific progress is not just about giving good PR to new gadgets or cures. Most important is protecting the principle of free inquiry, something on which he and his government are way behind. His call for politicians to stand up for science belies the fact that his own administration systematically attacks this basic principle.

The biggest threat to science doesn't come from a mother scared of what the MMR jab might do to her child, or the extremist who burns down farms in solidarity with research animals. It comes from those who claim to respect the way science creates knowledge, but then misinterpret, distort or ignore that knowledge.

On the surface, scientists might seem to have little to worry about. Starved of prestige and money by successive Tory governments, they have seen labs rebuilt and reputations renewed under Labour. Blair talked of having trouble with science in his early years until a Damascene conversion left him "fascinated by scientific process, its reasoning, deduction and evidence-based analysis; inspired by scientific progress; and excited by scientific possibility".

But last week the conclusions of the Commons science committee inquiry into the government's use of scientific advice showed that his good intentions were not being mirrored by his own advisers. The report said that the government hid behind a fig leaf of scientific respectability when spinning controversial policies in a bid to make them more acceptable to voters, and it called for a "radical re-engineering" of its use of science.

Furthermore, scientists are becoming concerned at the rise of creationism in the British education system. The geneticist Steve Jones, who has lectured on evolution at schools for 20 years, says that he now regularly meets pupils who claim to believe in creationism. The creationist interpretation of fossil evidence is even encouraged in the new GCSE Gateway to Science curriculum. In August, a survey of British university students found that a third believed in either creationism or intelligent design.

At the end of the last parliamentary session, the government agency charged with licensing drugs took the remarkable decision that it would license homeopathic remedies. These glorified bottles of water can now carry details of the ailments they supposedly treat on their labels. The remedies do not need clinical trial data and peer-reviewed research to make their claims (as every modern pharmaceutical does). Scientists say the new rules are an affront to the principle of basing healthcare advice on scientific evidence.

Science is a tough master. Use this method of uncovering truth and you are not allowed to be selective about your evidence. But innovation, the technological answers to climate change, and all Blair's "glittering prizes" will come, at some point in the chain, from the basic rules of free inquiry grounded in scientific method: think of an idea, test it with experiments, draw conclusions, refine your experiments, and so on.

A forward-thinking nation loses respect for that free inquiry at its peril. Children taught to disregard evidence when trying to work out where the earth came from; a scientific agency deciding to abandon basic principles; and a government twisting research to fit its ideological message - none of that respects free inquiry. And if you don't stand up for that, you don't stand up for science.

The post got a lot of comments on the Guardian's comment is free blog, which you can read here.

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Long journeys

Not exactly sure how I'm going to update this blog over the next three weeks as I'll be in India. Catching the plane at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. There's something wonderful about the pregnant few hours before a long journey - bags packed, house tidied, in the airport reading a book. Just waiting.

The plan is to fly to Delhi, then straight to Patna to visit the folks and my grandparents and then south to Madras. India is always a bit of an adventure: the long flight, the trains, the people, the feeling of being part of something bigger. Also, no-one can make me do any work - in fact, I have no responsibilities whatsoever. All I have to do is get myself to the airport. Bliss.

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How the UK government twists science

A new report by the House of Commons science select committee criticises the UK government for twisting science to its own purposes. Does any of this remind people of the esteemed George Bush? And just a week after UK prime minister Tony Blair made such a thing of standing up for science against those who want to twist it. Ouch, Mr Blair. According to my colleague James Randerson in the Guardian:

The government often hides behind a figleaf of scientific respectability when spinning unpalatable or controversial policies to make them acceptable to voters, according to a report by MPs critical of the way science is used in policy.

The parliamentary science and technology select committee said that scientific evidence was often misused or distorted to justify policy decisions which were really based on ideological or social grounds.

The report, the culmination of a nine-month inquiry, calls for a "radical re-engineering" of the way the government uses science. "Abuse of the term 'evidence based' ... is a form of fraud which corrupts the whole use of science in government," said Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesman and a member of the committee. "It's critical that the currency of an evidence base is not devalued by false claims."

The investigation highlighted several examples of misuse of science, including a witness who told the MPs that his work on crime statistics had been twisted by the Home Office to give the best possible spin.

"I had pointed out prior to the Home Office publishing this that I thought their interpretation differed from our own and I had identified where I thought the difference lay," said Tim Hope, a criminologist at the University of Keele who appeared before the committee in May. "Despite that, they proceeded to publish their own analysis. The inferences from that analysis were, let us say, rather more favourable to the political interests in this programme than were my own."

Professor Hope added that several researchers at a conference in 2003 were told at the last minute not to present work paid for by the Home Office, even though they were already on the conference programme. He believed this was because the Home Office wanted to control the way the information was released.

Some of the worst examples of false claims, says the committee report, Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence Based Policy Making, came in drug policy, which Dr Harris described as an "evidence-free zone". Magic mushrooms, for example, are classified in the most dangerous drug category, class A, even though there is scant evidence that they are harmful.

The committee also criticised government claims that the ABC drug classification system reduces crime, saying there was no evidence to back that up.

"Governments have a right when they are elected to make policy because of sociological reasons or because of political imperatives," said Phil Willis, the committee's chair, "but what they don't have a right to do is to say that that is based on sound scientific evidence when it isn't."

The report calls on government departments to state clearly when statements are based on scientific evidence, and when they are going against evidence for political reasons.

The MPs also recommend the creation of a government scientific service made up of independent expert advisers and that the government's chief scientific adviser, currently Sir David King, be given a seat on the Treasury board. The committee challenges the perception that industry representatives on scientific advisory committees are "frequently seen as less trustworthy" than representatives of non-government organisations. It said technical committees should not routinely have lay members.

The MPs call for change in the culture of the civil service, where a scientific background is often seen as a barrier to promotion.

A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said it recognised there was room for improvement, but added: "The UK has rightly developed an international reputation for its world-leading use of science in government, for example in climate change, health issues and international development."

Facts and fallacies

The science and technology select committee found numerous examples of the misuse of science by government departments:

· Government claims that the ABC drug classification system reduces crime.

· Magic mushrooms placed in the most dangerous class A category.

· Over-zealous regulations proposed for medical technicians using MRI scanners with no evidence base.

· Homeopathic remedies allowed to be licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency despite not meeting the same standards of proof as conventional medicines.

· Cost estimates on ID cards published before key technical decisions were taken.

· Wide misuse of the term "precautionary principle".

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The future is quiet

Here's a vision of the brave world of tomorrow. An airplane that is so quiet that you wouldn't hear it outside an airport. Published in the Guardian today:

Engineers have unveiled what they hope is the future for commercial airliners - a radical "flying wing" designed to be so quiet that no one outside an airport will be able to hear it.

The SAX-40 would be 25% more fuel-efficient than modern planes and carry 215 passengers up to 5,000 nautical miles (5,750 miles) at a maximum speed of 600mph. The blended wing design concept, which could come into commercial service by 2030, is a result of the £2.3m Silent Aircraft Initiative (SAI), a three-year collaboration between Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"It's got a bold aim - by starting from scratch to design an airplane that has noise reduction as a major design consideration - so quiet that its noise would be imperceptible outside an urban airport in the daytime," said Ann Dowling of Cambridge University, who led the British side of the project.

Though airliners have been in commercial service for more than half a century their basic design has not changed. A tube-like fuselage with engines hanging under the wings has been the default design because it can be easily scaled up and down in size and is easy to maintain.

Blending the fuselage and wing has been confined mostly to military planes such as long-range stealth bombers. Engineers chose this shape for the SAX-40 because it is more aerodynamic and produces less air turbulence over the body, hence less noise. Using hundreds of microphones, engineers tested the sound produced by many of the new components. Their simulations predicted the aircraft noise would be 63 decibels at the airport perimeter, the equivalent of standing on a busy street.

"It's the integral system design that enables the low noise and not one particular technology," said Zoltan Spakovsky of MIT.

The primary noise reduction idea has been to put the engines above the body of the aircraft. This allows the fuselage to screen the noise from the ground by reflecting sound waves upwards.

The wings have been simplified, removing the need for flaps and slats - a major source of noise when a plane lands.

"On approach to land the flow over the wings and the landing gear produces much of the noise," said Dr Spakovsky. Half of the noise an aircraft makes on its approach to a runway is produced this way, and the faster it approaches the more noise it makes. The blended wing of the SAX-40 means the whole body provides lift for the aircraft, allowing it to make a slower approach.

Other ideas include lining the engines with sound-absorbing materials and making them longer so that acoustic mufflers can be added on to the ends. They also have adjustable exhaust nozzles that keep noise down at takeoff but open up at cruising altitude to maximise fuel efficiency.

"We set a major target for low noise but at the beginning of the project we didn't know what the impact would be for fuel burn," said Prof Dowling. "This design has reduced fuel burn and noise but probably if we scrapped the noise we could go still further in terms of reduced fuel burn."

The engineers calculated that the SAX-40 would achieve 149 passenger miles per gallon compared with 121 for a Boeing 777. By comparison a Toyota Prius hybrid car gets 144 passenger miles per gallon.

John Green of Greener by Design, which promotes sustainable aviation, said he was initially sceptical of the silent aircraft initiative. "Three years on I have to concede that the SAI has surpassed my expectations by quite a margin," he said.

"The team has produced a high-risk but credible design."

The conceptual design will now be carried forward by the industrial partners in the silent aircraft initiative. Several dozen companies were involved, including Boeing, Rolls-Royce and British Airways.

Further development of the SAX-40 into a commercial airliner could take several decades - the new Airbus A380, for example, took 17 years to design and build.

"This is a conceptual design and there are many technological barriers that need to be overcome to introduce these technologies into commercial use," said Cesare Hall, an engineer at Cambridge University. He outlined challenges such as developing the strong composite materials needed to produce the oval-shaped hull and improving modern jet engines to work with the SAX-40 design.

Prof Dowling said: "What we've shown here is the kinds of technologies and trade-offs and advantages they might bring. There are significant technical challenges to be overcome if we're to see an aircraft based on that concept.

"Some of the individual technologies one might see on more conventional looking aircraft in the nearer future."

What's interesting about this is the way Cambridge University and MIT worked together with industry on a specified goal for a set timescale. Their budget was quite small but they showed that, if you want to solve a problem, their model is a good one. In the process, they involved lots of undergraduate scientists and funded several dozen PhDs and Masters degrees. A good example of how to make young scientists enthused by what they are doing.

Aviation is the bete noir of climate change so what's the point of this exercise?

At the launch of the SAX-40 design, I asked one of the scientists involved if they would be able to do the same sort of focused project to reduce fuel consumption in airplanes because, pace anyone living near an airport, climate change is a bigger deal than aircraft noise. He said it would easily be possible. They already got 25% more efficiency with this design - imagine what you could do with a focused project to cut down carbon emissions from airplanes.

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What is your business doing about climate change?

A survey released by the Carbon Trust today suggests that most UK consumers want to know the carbon footprint of the products they buy, and are more likely to buy a product if they know it has a low ecological impact.

In the survey, 74% of UK consumers agreed that climate change was a serious issue but the same number thought businesses were not doing enough to tackle their carbon emissions; 66% wanted to know the footprint of the goods they bought with 67% preferring low-carbon products.

Euan Murray of the Carbon Trust said that a new type of low-carbon consumer was emerging on the back of rising concern over climate change. "These are people that want to use their spending power to make a difference and feel like they are making their contribution also," he said.

The consumers surveyed by the Carbon Trust said that environmental concerns came into more than half of their of decisions when buying cars, electronic goods, and food and drink.

"As people learn more about the issues, more consumers understand that this is something they can do that helps them play their part, then more consumers will differentiate based on carbon footprint and environmental performance of businesses."

The survey also showed that 64% of consumers would prefer to buy from companies with a low carbon footprint.

Last week, Sir Nicholas Stern published an analysis of the potential economic impacts of climate change. He forecast that, if left unchecked, the costs could cost the world up to 20% of its GDP.

Mr Murray said the report presented good opportunities for businesses financially and in terms of reputation. "By reducing your carbon footprint as a business, you're typically reducing your energy consumption and that means you save," he said. "Then, by working with other companies in your supply chain, that means you can work to reduce the carbon footprint of the products that ends up in the consumer's hands. We believe companies will be able to grow market share on that basis."

Michael Rea, strategy director at the Carbon Trust, said: "Now is the time to take action and Governments, businesses and consumers all need to work together to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change. We believe that the businesses that embrace the challenge will succeed. Inaction is no longer an option."

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Don't try this at home

Here’s something straight out of a sub-Frankenstein story. By passing a mild electrical current through the brain, you can improve memory, at least for words.

Scientists have discovered a surprising way of improving memory: passing electricity through the brain while you are asleep. They have found that mild electrical stimulation at the right frequency improved people's ability to remember words on waking up.

Jan Born, a neuroscientist at the University of Lübeck in Germany who led the research, said the electrical current, applied via electrodes stuck to the scalp, seemed to enhance a part of the sleep cycle linked to consolidating word memory. Dr Born had 13 medical students learn a list of words and tested how many they remembered after a set time. He had them repeat the exercise after a nap.

The results, published today in Nature, show that without electrical current the volunteers remembered, on average, 37.42 words before sleep and 39.5 words when they woke. It confirmed research that sleep is important for consolidating learned information. After electrical stimulation the number of words volunteers remembered rose to 41.27 after sleep.

The researchers think their electrical stimulation enhanced the early part of the volunteers' sleep cycle called "slow wave sleep". During slow wave sleep there are regular electrical fluctuations in the prefrontal neocortex, which is linked to conscious thought and spatial reasoning.

In his experiment Dr Born's electrical current was tuned to match these natural fluctuations. When current was applied at a different frequency or during a different part of the sleep cycle there was no memory boost. How the electrical fluctuations in the brain lead to consolidation of memory is unclear.

One plausible theory, according to Dr Born, is that electrical currents of a particular frequency can make brain cells resonate. This strengthens connections between networks of cells, which are the physical representations of memories in the brain.

Guardian story here. An interesting note Dr Born made in the Nature paper: “This improvement in retention following stimulation is striking considering that most subjects were medical students, who were highly trained in memorising facts and already performed well in the sham condition.”

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Tony Blair: Save the world, become a scientist

I like to think that I’m well on my way to becoming a wizened, cynical hack that holds public figures to account (stop sniggering at the back – I said I like to think). But there are some things that still secretly impress me.

Last week, I interviewed British prime minister Tony Blair on the eve of a talk he was due to give on science. The fourth in a series of speeches on securing Britain’s future, many pundits are saying that this is his goodbye tour, where he points out how wonderful he has been and show that he still cares about real issues. Rather than leadership battles and invading other countries, I assume.

Political press officers are a hard-nosed bunch so I didn’t get a huge chunk of time with Blair, to be honest. Fifteen minutes of very stage-managed time on a train to Didcot, to be precise. He previewed the main points of his speech, which I wrote up for the paper:

Irrational public debates and scare stories about science will damage the development of research in Britain if left unchecked, the prime minister believes.

Speaking to the Guardian ahead of a speech on science, Tony Blair said that he would stand up for science against the distrust engendered by historic problems such as the BSE crisis and the scare over the MMR vaccine.

"We've got to understand the importance of science to the future of the economy and to the future of society," he said. "In my view, for the next generation, development of science is as important as economic stability for future prosperity."

His talk in Oxford today is part of a series of speeches on securing Britain's future. Mr Blair will raise issues on public trust in science and what he sees as hurdles to attracting more young people to subjects such as physics, chemistry and engineering.

"I want to stick up for science and say why it's important and why we have rational debates about scientific issues rather than allow irrational debate," he said. "We've made that a very strong part of what the government's about and will continue to do so. The damage it can do otherwise is rather frightening."

He cited the scare over the triple vaccine, MMR, in recent years and the BSE epidemic among cattle in 1990s as examples. "Scientists got the blame [for BSE] and I think that's ludicrous. It wasn't scientists feeding rubbish to the animals, it was scientists who had to investigate and finally did discover what was going on."

Upcoming technologies such as genetics would throw up plenty of ethical issues, which would need careful consideration by a scientifically-literate public.

Public distrust in the past had led to a loss of research expertise in genetic modification. "The GM thing shows you can very suddenly lose a whole swath of the public ... [but] if you look around the world at the moment, bioscience is obviously where we should be heading."

Mr Blair argued that the potential for GM crops in Britain was limited for practical reasons. "If you look around the world to where GM crops are being developed most, it's where you have vast farming tracts. The future agriculture for this country is more likely to be in organic niche farming."

But he added that this should not prevent the UK from taking a lead on research in the area.

The speech will also outline how to encourage young people to consider taking science subjects at school and university. "There is a point in getting people enthused and saying, this is where the glittering prizes are. A lot of young people are interested, but they don't see it as a career except as a boffin. They don't see it as a career in which you develop one of the leading edge companies. They see science as what you do in a laboratory."

I also asked him about the Stern report on the economics of climate change, published last week. I wanted to know whether he would be taking that personally to George Bush and arguing that now, America had even less reason to avoid acting on climate change.

Blair’s too used to this question to give a straight answer, of course, but he did infer that it’s a long game with the US on climate change. He mentioned talking to Schwarzenegger about joining the EU carbon-trading scheme, of engaging with companies and other states in the US.

He also said that, while the Bush administration’s priorities are based around energy security, American companies will move quickly once they recognise the economic benefits involved in developing technology to tackle climate change. Indeed, many US companies are already spurring ahead.

I also raised the issue of a British astronaut with him, as per my last post. He laughed at this and said he could see himself as the first Brit on the Moon when he retired. Unfortunately, his mind was too stuck in the paradigm of his forthcoming speech and his messages were all about climate change. He called that the new Moon landings in terms of the inspirational effect they could have on the young. Save the world, he was saying, by becoming a scientist.

It's strange that a government so famously good at PR can't see the problem with that. The nitty-gritty of climate change is hardly going to inspire legions of kids today, a generation of people bred with MTV attention spans. Getting anyone to the stage where they see the genuine beauty of science will take something profoundly exciting. The prism through which today’s young see the world needs more than worthiness to inspire them. Sorry to say it and I wish it weren’t true. I'm sticking with astronauts. At least to get them through the door.

Evan Harris, the Lib-Dem science spokesperson will give his thoughts on Tony Blair’s speech on Monday’s Guardian science podcast. Worth a listen.

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Hooray for Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope is saved. This is one of the finest pieces of kit we humans have floating in space at the moment. Not only because of the science it has enabled but the pictures, like the one above of the Trapezium cluster.

An old man of the telescope world, it's expensive, it's ancient, it's falling apart and it was short-sighted when it first went up. But, boy, has it been worth it. Nasa decided to abandon the telescope after the tragic Columbia accident of 2003, arguing quite fairly that risking lives to repair Hubble further was not worth it. But, there's been a campaign amongst scientists and Hubble fans to keep it going somehow and, with the recent successful shuttle missions, Nasa director Mike Griffin has reversed the initial decision.

The next repair mission will install a new camera, replace broken gyros and carry out other repairs. Why spend $1bn to repair an ageing telescope when you have a space agency starved of money? Well, no doubt Griffin recognises that, if he wants more money to do the things he needs to do (get to the Moon and Mars), he'll need polish up the public face of the agency. Like it or loathe it, Hubble is that face. Here's to a million more brilliant pictures.

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