Scientists often find the general public frustrating. For example, scientists frequently establish the scientific facts pertaining to an issue of social importance, often come down clearly on one side, and lay their analysis and recommendation before the public.
Increasingly however the public rejects the scientific advice, preferring to support a contrary analysis. Genetically modified food (GMF) is a good current example of such an issue.
When a scientific recommendation runs counter to a public position that relies heavily on caution, intuition and emotion, it doesn't automatically follow that it would be best to implement the scientific advice without delay.
In any event, rationality is not the last word in many circumstances. For example, rationality would not (I hope) be your primary guiding light when deciding with whom to fall in love or with whom to form a friendship.
Very often such clashes between science and public opinion are not simply confrontations between rationality and irrationality. Public opinion often relies on a tried and trusted habit of caution implanted in human nature during our evolutionary history. It would greatly help relations between science and the general public if this point was better appreciated.
Public opinion is often swayed by persuasive spokespersons in favour of positions for which there is little or no positive evidence. In fact, this can occur when there is much evidence that the popular position is far inferior to the scientifically advocated position.
Very often public attitude is shaped by fear and a misunderstanding of probability. Take routine childhood vaccination as an example. This practice is universally recommended by medical science but it is meeting increasing public resistance. The incidence of vaccination, although still very high, is falling.
Childhood vaccination has almost entirely eliminated incidence of diseases that were once a scourge - polio, diphtheria, whooping-cough, etc. However, very rarely, the administration of a vaccine causes a problem in itself.
Some people deduce wrongly, based on a misunderstanding of probability, that it could be safer to avoid the vaccine altogether. There is no human activity with a zero level of risk and vaccination is no exception. The risk associated with the vaccine is extremely small, however, whereas the risk that follows from avoiding the vaccination is much greater.
Public opposition to GMF in Europe is robust and widespread, but a strong majority of scientists believe that GMF is a good development that should be pursued with caution. The public is afraid that development of GMF will get out of control, causing human health problems and serious environmental damage.
Scientists point out that there is no known instance where genetic engineering has damaged human health and that the best projections clearly indicate that widespread planned development of GMF would be safe. Is the public reaction against GMF just another hankering after an unattainable zero level of risk? It seems to me that, in this instance, the reaction is nourished by deeper roots.
Genetic engineering of food is seen as a revolutionary change in the way we deal with nature. Scientists point out that animal and plant breeders have artificially moulded species to produce improved foods for thousands of years. However, this was and remains a necessarily slow and gradual process, each step dependent on conventional sexual breeding.
Genetic engineering involves the transfer, under laboratory conditions, of precisely defined genetic information, generally from one species to another, producing in a single step a result whose equivalent would take a traditional breeder many years to achieve. Yet genetic engineering is publicly perceived as dangerous interference in nature. Many feel that, in the words of Prince Charles, such activities should be "left to God alone".
We all naturally have a deep respect for nature and an instinctive aversion to putting it at risk. We learned to respect nature in the course of our evolutionary history, since our food and other essentials for existence so obviously come from it. Natural selection has also programmed us for caution - safer to stay away from that bush whose movement betrays a hidden observer; better to give a wide berth to that wriggly thing on the ground.
GMF is a new phenomenon. It manipulates life at the most fundamental level and it is backed by enormous commercial muscle that is attempting to introduce it on a global basis. Small wonder that peoples' instinctive caution and resistance to such rapid fundamental change is aroused.
So where do we go from here? Science must treat public misgivings with respect and not merely as childish nightmares induced by green activists. The technology offers much promise, however, and the positive arguments must be patiently reiterated while at the same time allaying understandable public fears.
As with all human activities, there are risks associated with GMF, but, as I understand it, most of these risks are known and scientists are confident that significant negative consequences can be avoided. On the other hand, the potential benefits of GMF are enormous.
Society has two choices: (a) forego development of GMF, lose its benefits, shelter from its low risk but accept future risks of unknowable size arising from food shortages, or (b) cautiously develop GMF, enjoy the benefits but live with the small residual risk. When faced with such choices in the past civilisation has usually chosen b. We teach our children the history of these choices under the heading of progress.
William Reville is a Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry and Director of Microscopy at UCC.