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Worldwide, and especially in Australia, much valuable science isbeing wasted or stalled through what is known as technologyrejection the public s hostile reception of new technologies orscientific advice. This isn t always the fault of the public. It s often the faultof the scientific process for not bothering to find out in thefirst place what the public wants or knows and what it doesn t.The grand assumption we re scientists. We know what s bestfor you still rules. As a result, research institutions and technology companies areconstantly ambushed and surprised when society doesn t embracetheir latest offering with wild enthusiasm, but instead carps,objects and wants it regulated, retarded or banned. The issue isthat in a democracy people consider they have a right to say whatthey think, to use the products and eat the foods they prefer, andto take a good hard look at anything new before they decide toaccept it. What the public knows, but science sometimes chooses to overlook,is that many of the ills in society today are the result of theuse, misuse or overuse of various technologies. Indeed, muchscience is devoted to repairing them. Take, for example, theparadox that tens of thousands of scientists are working worldwideto prevent and cure cancer while tens of thousands more areadding daily to the toxic miasma of 83,000 man-made chemicals, manyof which are known to cause it. Educated people in modern society are aware of the downsides ofscience, as well as its upsides. They grew up on stories likethalidomide, and have a fair grasp of the origins of manycontemporary diseases and the risks inherent in moderntechnologies, especially untested ones. They are cautious about GMfood, stem cell science or nanotechnologies because they know thatscientists do not have all the answers where these powerful,disruptive technologies are concerned. The more educated anddemocratic a society becomes, the harder the questions it asksabout new science and technology. As former UK chief scientist BobMay liked to point out, an educated public becomes more likescientists: sceptical. Yet many high tech firms and research centres are still confoundedby this problem: labouring for years and spending millions todevelop something the public takes an instant dislike to. Theygenerally comfort and excuse themselves by shooting the messenger blaming a green group, the media or a consumer lobby ratherthan asking themselves: what did we do wrong? The short answer is that they failed to do research. Not scientificresearch, but research into public attitudes, values and wishes.They then sprang an unwanted product on an unsuspecting market and were shocked and offended when it failed. The good news is that this no longer needs to happen. Thanks to anovel approach, developed within the Invasive Animals CooperativeResearch Centre, any scientific centre can find out how the publicis likely to receive its latest innovation, and what drives itsattitudes for or against any new technology or scientific advice.This applies equally whether it is climate change policy, or theintroduction of a new mobile widget. The technique is known as Reading the Public Mind (RtPM), and ituses an advanced statistical internet survey method to obtain amoving picture (as distinct from a snapshot) of public opinion inreal time. It enables the user to drill down into what motivatesthe public for or against a particular issue or technology now and how the balance of the pros and cons shifts over time. This is an important advance over the traditional opinion poll ormarket research, which only take expensive one-off snapshots and,unless accompanied by costly qualitative research, do not revealwhat drives public attitudes. The Invasive Animals CRC used this method experimentally to assesspublic attitudes to invasive animals (such as rabbits, foxes, cats,cane toads and camels) and to the ways they are controlled. The CRChas been working on a range of sophisticated new control methodsfor these feral menaces, it did not want to be taken by surprise bypublic refusal to sanction their adoption and deployment. It alsowanted to understand what the public knew and did not know aboutinvasive species, and where education might be needed. Over three years of surveying community attitudes, using aconstantly changing sample of the population, it discovered manyinteresting things about what the public thought about this issue.One of the most striking was that Australians generally dislikeferal cats whereas scientists, fearing public criticism fromcat-lovers, had long avoided doing research into their control. Thetechnique was also able for the first time to measure the actualimpact of public education campaigns (for example, about rabbitsand camels). Assessing public attitudes this way: helps technology developers anticipate public or market reaction helps scientific leaders plan research better, favouring thosetechnologies most likely to be adopted or commercialised anticipates both hostile and positive reactions and responds withpublic education or by altering research tack assesses whether a communication initiative has fallen on deafears, or actually influenced public perceptions. All of this adds up to more science adopted, less rejected and abetter return on the taxpayer s $9 billion-a-year scienceinvestment. If Australian science is to genuinely benefit society as it should,then it needs far better tools to understand public attitudes andhow they affect likely rates of adoption. It needs to become moresensitised to how Australians at large will respond to newtechnologies and insights. This will not only increase the impactof science. It will help make us a smarter society. This article was co-authored by Nick Fisher and Julian Cribb, who have been working with the Invasive Animals CRC at CanberraUniversity. Nick Fisher is a Visiting Professor, Statistics at University of Sydney . Julian Cribb is the principal of Julian Cribb & Associates,consultants in science communication, and is a Fellow of theAustralian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Tattoo Coloring Book , Permanent Makeup Pen, and more. For more , please visit Tattoo Aftercare Cream today!
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