Dr Esme Smith added the finishing touches to the Mark 6 version of her neuropeptide paper, pacing back and forth dictating and watching the words appear on her wall screen. Pausing, she passed a finger over her snazzy Hand Assistant to get the whole last paragraph on screen. Frowning slightly she read it through, glanced at her time bar, mentally rehearsed the chores she had to do before picking up the children (unusually Richard had to be in the office rather than the home console) and decided it would do. She swiped her finger again, checked the total sum in Euros, and sent Mark 6 into cyberspace.

She had put the first four versions on the private British science site, Impact One, but their charges were becoming excessive and the Nova Brainstem Foundation who funded her work refused to pay for it anymore. Impact One had a good reputation, most major players in her field were keyed in for on-the-hour alerts, and the Nobel Prize Winner submission index was high at 5.043, but she had become increasingly unhappy with the site, especially with the quality of review and post-review comments on the professional (peer) file. The Mark 1 version of the paper had been double blind (no one knew who had written it and reviewers were editor-selected and anonymous) but a reviewer had recognized who she was and used some hurtful put-downs. But overall she had scarcely altered the Mark 1 (Beta) paper and it appeared as Mark 2 under her name (with her Research Assistant and one of the Ph.D. students as co-authors). […]

Journalists, like scientists, are morally obliged to tell the truth. But the truth is slippery stuff. It seems to go without saying that facts must be reported accurately but it is much harder to make a clear judgement about the ‘truth’ of interpretation, which depends on who is interpreting events for whom. We all know that my terrorist can be your freedom fighter. But, sometimes even the facts don't have to be objectively true for an interpretative truth to emerge.

For instance, what should we make of the American school of ‘new’ or ‘Gonzo’ journalism espoused by American figures such as Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe? All these writers reported and interpreted real events at book length, spending time with the people and institutions upon which they were reporting but writing things up with a variety of narrative, plot and character techniques drawn from fiction. In Park's early work on news, he defined it by comparing it to history, which he regarded as a different genre. The new journalists might argue that this distinction is false, that what they are doing is contemporary history. Convention says this is not news, but ‘new’ journalists argue that this is still journalism but now trying to explain events as well as report them. For clear and stimulating interpretation, events may need to be re-ordered or dressed in fictional clothes. […]

Daisy the cat had a pretty good life all things considered, finally fading away when she was nearly 22 years old. Five years earlier she had urinary problems and we took her to the vet. Tests suggested she had partial kidney failure and the vet recommended special diets but Daisy refused to touch them. We gave up and let her eat what she liked and she lived on happily until her last few frail months. We buried her in the garden, the spot marked by a jovial, pipe-smoking concrete gnome.

The vet who diagnosed Daisy's kidney problems was a young and modern man. Veterinary practice is firmly based on scientific understanding and the vet told us a science story, explaining renal physiology and what had gone wrong and how a change of diet might help. I used to teach physiology and I think he gave an accurate 3-minute lecture. But most pet owners don't have past lives as physiology teachers, so the intense lesson would mean little to them. The information only makes sense if the listener already has a good grounding in the area; some familiarity with the vocabulary and concepts. Otherwise, while the lesson is delivered in good English, it conveys no real meaning. What we really needed was prognosis; how serious is this condition, how life-threatening or shortening is it likely to be, what happens if she doesn't like the diets, is she now or likely in the future to be in pain? But on these matters the vet was silent, and as he had other patients barking and mewing outside there was no time to ask him. […]

We have seen in Part IV that some seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors treated the precursors to science (magic, alchemy and natural philosophy) with considerable cynicism. Science did not get off to a good literary start and Haynes has shown that Western literary culture continued to view science in a poor light. This literary image of science was further blackened by its role in three of the best-known and long-surviving nineteenth-century horror stories, which are constantly retold in new stage and screen adaptations.

These are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818 and revised in 1831), Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). The overall conclusion from these stories is that science can lead to horrible consequences, exemplified by acronyms like ‘Frankenfoods’ to describe foodstuffs prepared from genetically modified crops. But the associations in these stories were initially more subtle, the science often being a force for good, rather than a cause of evil. The ambivalent position of science in these stories mirrors the ambivalent relationship between reason, progress and good government in so-called Enlightenment thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its antithesis in traditional, aristocratic and reactionary government epitomized by feudalism. The literary expression of the tensions between progress and reaction is the Gothic; in which horror is often associated with science. […]

One afternoon in January 1693 the sign outside the coffee house at the Blackfriars end of the Strand groaned in the wind howling off the Thames. At half past two the bookseller John Dunton reached the coffee house, quickly moving inside to the fire, candles and scattering of occupants. He paused once the door had closed and spotted Benjamin Steele in a corner. Beside him sat Richard Holden chewing the end of a quill. Dunton greeted them as he sat down, opening his satchel from which a heap of pamphlets and books fell onto the table, each marked with slips of paper. He fished out some blank sheets from the satchel's nether reaches and put them in front of his henchmen.

“Ben, you had best start with this German report. You should be able to run up a draft, then we'll get Harrington to make sure we have it authentic. Richard, the introduction in this botanical tome looks interesting though the Latin is awful. Show me when you've a draft. I can probably make a sensible judgement. Meanwhile I will make a start on this French piece which claims to be a lost essay by Monsieur Descartes. About that, we shall see.”

All three set to work drafting English translations of the three pieces of foreign natural philosophy; one cosmological, one botanical, one mathematical. Steele and Holden's threadbare clothes quickly became aromatic and Dunton made extensive use of a strongly scented handkerchief. That was one problem of working with Cripplegate hacks. […]

The Beijing Olympic Games opened in August 2008, the culmination of a year-long news agenda following China's bid to mount a great sporting event to symbolize its arrival on the world stage. When the games finally started with a spectacular ceremony, the world expected to settle down to 3 weeks of benign Corinthian rivalry.

But the world is an unpredictable place. Just as global media attention was focused on Beijing, a hot war erupted on the southern borders of Russia and, for several days, vicious fighting broke out between Russia and the Republic of Georgia. Television pictures of synchronized ranks of Chinese drummers and dancers were rapidly replaced by rumbling tanks, reporters in front of bombed-out flats with grief stricken civilians mourning their already dead, Russian planes banking steeply with exhaust gas streaks as rockets crashed to Earth; all the shocking and yet familiar imagery of medium-level conflict. This sort of thing is always with us; it comes from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and occasionally from places like Georgia.

Modern communication technology and efficient corporate media organization meant that pictures and reports of the fighting were beamed into homes and onto news-stands across the globe within hours of the conflict starting. The coverage was staggeringly comprehensive; reports came in from both sides and from a wide range of sites. The international mass media pulled out all the stops to inform the global audience of what was going on, the long-planned media assault on the Beijing games was disrupted and resources re-deployed at staggering speed. But such rapid reaction has a downside. […]

In the City of London there is a statue of a city trader 1980s style, a yuppie from the early years of deregulated financial markets. What marks him out as a figure from history is the brick-sized mobile phone clasped to his ear. The early cell phone was large, expensive, ostentatious and used by loud-mouthed young men to keep ‘in touch’ with office or trading floor. The devices (and their owners) proved a major irritant when used on commuter trains to activate their partners to pick them up from the station.

Then the phones began to shrink and got much cheaper. While their capacity to irritate did not decrease, their value for gossip increased sharply, especially when teenagers discovered text messaging. My class of Science Communication students circa 1996/97 marked an early stage in this transition of the mobile phone from braying yuppie accessory to necessary adjunct to social life. One young woman, after agonizing for weeks, decided it was worth investing in a mobile. There may have been other early adopters in her class, but the excitement caused by her decision suggests that many still found the idea of owning a mobile phone outrageous.

By 2000 it was unusual if a student did not have a mobile phone, two or three years more and most owned camera phones. Two or three years more and most of them could send photographs to their friends and on the most expensive services could get (not-too-good) internet access. By late 2008 so-called 3G (third-generation) phones were the norm as universal communication and data-processing devices; simultaneously phones, cameras, video cameras, MP3 audio players, text-generators, e-mail and internet accessible. […]

Stage whisper, “There's a greenfinch!” from Emma.

“Oh kid sister, I don't think so,” from Rob the worldly-wise 12-year-old.

“I'm sure it is,” from Emma louder.

“Hush up Emma, you've frightened it,” from dad, “It's flown off.”

“Not a greenfinch though dad, eh – Emma gets so excited.”

“Rob, I think she was right, mark it on the chart.”

Rob tried to ignore his sister's sarcastically extended tongue, realizing for the first time just how cold he was, notwithstanding two sweaters, windcheater and bobble hat after standing still for three-quarters of an hour behind a bush. He had spotted the first robin and the only coal tit, but yielding the most exotic tickbox of the afternoon to Emma was almost too much to bear.

Len: “I ought to walk as far as the copse more often.”

Jo: “Only if you're careful, the ground's uneven and you nearly fell last week.”

Len: “Don't fuss, I was fine with the new stick. Best thing though was a definite stag beetle on that pile of old logs by the lightning oak. That's the second this year.”

Jo: “Isn't it three or four? Didn't Matt see some when he was here?”

Len: “I'm not sure with young Matt, he's claimed to have seen an eagle in the garden before now, I think maybe he saw Cockchafers because there were lots of them flying in the evening when he was here. […]

Gerald Wheeler was both an American university teacher and a television science presenter. His presenter experiences show clearly that successful science communication is subservient to media agendas and that popularization should not aim to be too ambitious. Almost by accident Wheeler was asked to do a series of Saturday science shows for children, which he called ‘sidewalk science’. He approached these shows as an opportunity to jazz up what he was already teaching to undergraduates but that approach didn't work. Running shows round principles like ‘forces’ was of no interest to anyone. He had been lulled into supposing that people were interested in that kind of thing from his captive undergraduate audiences. They wanted to be physicists or engineers and had to pass the exams. Schoolchildren at leisure had no such incentives.

He also learned that classroom science demonstrations and classroom pace were not effective on television. He had to have a ‘tease’ at the top of the programme and everything had to be much faster and less hedged with caveats than a lecture or class. While he got better at entertaining his juvenile audience, his colleagues criticized him for the ‘errors’ he was introducing. At first this worried him, until he realized that such ‘error’ is inevitable and did not matter for the purposes of his audience.

Later he acted as an advisor on another television show for young viewers and observed how scientists and media people talked in different languages and were focused on different issues. It took a long time to work out situations that were scientifically correct but also worked as television. […]

The virtuoso, Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, in Thomas Shadwell's 1676 play of the same name, is an avid student of vermin, spending huge sums on microscopes to examine them and too obsessed with his philosophical investigations to notice that his wife is unfaithful to him. He is learning to swim by imitating frogs, although he does not himself want to swim; imitating motions on land is enough. In a pivotal scene he is discovered lying on a table, attached to a swimming frog in a tank by a thread between his teeth, copying the frog's movements, his style judged by a swimming master.

Gimcrack describes blood transfusions between breeds of dog and between sheep and man, claiming in the first case that this exchanged the breeds, in the second that the human became sheep-like (though others suggest the experiments were all fatal). He is gullible and pays huge sums for eggs in which hairs have miraculously appeared (not noticing the needle holes in the shells). He keeps barrels of air collected from different locations, which he releases into his room, claiming that this is more refreshing than walking in the real places. He has pneumatic engines to create vacuums with which he investigates luminescence in glow-worms and rotting meat, while with his telescopes he claims to see architecture, animals and battles on the moon. […]

“The trouble is”, said Andrew spinning on his chair and poking me with the end of his pencil, “you still think of energy as caloric, don't you?”

“Caloric?” I spluttered, puzzled and digging deep into the murky recesses of my knowledge of ancient chemical theories – phlogiston? No not phlogiston – caloric, desperate scramble to recall, “Isn't that some sort of stuff?”

“Yes, energy as stuff flowing like ethereal water. That's why you are confused about fuel and energy – it's all caloric to you!”

Properly trained chemist that he was, Andrew was right and here was I, a science curriculum developer, caught out in an embarrassing confusion about something central to the understanding of pretty well all science, I had been using an incorrect concept of energy for decades. But I had two lines of defence, one rather feeble, that I was a biologist and only ever learned enough chemistry to get by, and the other that endless educational research papers have shown that most students misunderstand most science most of the time, and too many of them never overcome the problem. I was clearly one of these unfortunates.

But I had got on quite well because, to the extent that I needed ‘energy’ in biology, a caloric concept did a serviceable job. Was I as confused and partial in my understanding of everything? As far as I could tell: no. With theoretical concepts central to the science I was supposed to understand, genetics and evolution theory, for instance, I hoped my grasp of fundamentals was stronger. […]

Several ‘ordinary people’ filed into a conference room in London in June 1998 and took their places behind a table separating them from media and academic folk occupying rows of seats. They were shepherded in by Dr Tom Wakeford, then of the University of East London, although he was careful not to speak too much at this press conference. As far as possible, presentations were given and questions answered by the people behind the table. We were witnessing an early example of a political device that has become more common in the twenty-first century; a citizens' jury. This one was convened to consider an issue with wide scientific implications; the future of food.

Tom Wakeford had facilitated the jury which was overseen for fairness by an advisory panel of stakeholders, representing a range of interest across the theme. The stakeholders were the Consumers' Association, the John Innes Food Research Centre, the National Farmers' Union, Sainsbury's, the Soil Association, the Transport and General Workers Union, and Whole Earth Foods. Attempts were made to find representatives from the biotechnology industry but apparently no one would take part.

The 12 jury members were chosen from people in a Brighton suburb, drawn from a pool of 2000 and offered £150 to participate in ten weekly deliberation sessions held in the function room of a local pub. Four principal technical witnesses for the jury to consult were chosen by the stakeholders. The jury called for three more witnesses. The jury's draft ideas were considered in an expert seminar of people appointed by the stakeholders. […]

Once upon a time a Witch of considerable power lived on a mythical island in the Southern Mediterranean. In stereotypical fashion she coupled with the Devil to produce a monstrous offspring whose hideous appearance reflected his evil personality. She also had a familiar spirit to do her bidding. Angry with this spirit she trapped him in a cleft pine tree and left him there, dying before she thought to release him.

The spirit was saved by a Wizard arriving on the island with his little daughter. Using his magical powers the Wizard freed the spirit and enslaved the Witch's misshapen offspring. The spirit undertook the Wizard's morally good bidding but the deformed child remained evil. To work his magic, the Wizard put on a magical coat, used a magic wand, stood within circles inscribed on the ground, and used incantations to summon the spirit.

The Wizard used his powers to right past injustices. He had been a Duke but, obsessed with occult study, passed the rule of his Dukedom to his brother. That brother, in cahoots with the King to which the Dukedom was vassal, usurped the Dukedom and would have killed the brother and little daughter had not a kindly counsellor intervened with the scheme for casting them adrift. Years later the exiled Wizard was able to bring his brother, the King, and their retinues into his power when they sailed close to his island. The Wizard conjured up a storm which wrecked the ship and cast the nobles ashore. […]

Subtle, an alchemist, outlines how base metals can turn to gold

‘It is, of the one part,

A humid exhalation, which we call

Materia liquida, or the unctuous water;

On th'other part, a certain crass, and viscous

Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,

Do make the elementary matter of gold:

Which is not, yet, propria material,

…

Where it retains more of the humid fatness,

It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver:

Who are the parents of all other metals.

Nor can this remote matter, suddenly,

Progress so from extreme, unto extreme,

As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means.

Nature doth, first, beget th'imperfect; then

Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy,

And oily water, mercury is engendered;

Sulphur o' the fat, and earthy part: the one

(Which is the last) supplying the place of male,

The other of the female, in all metals.

Some do believe hermaphrodeity,

That both do act, and suffer. But, these two

Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive.

And even in gold, they are; for we do find

Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them:

And can produce the species of each metal

More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth.

Beside, who doth not see, in daily practice,

Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps,

Out of the carcasses, and dung of creatures:

Yea, scorpions, of an herb, being rightly placed:

And these are living creatures, far more perfect,

And excellent than metals.’

Henrik Ibsen's play, An Enemy of the People, was published in 1882. The hero (or anti-hero according to taste) is the physician Dr Tomas Stockmann who cannot understand why his scientific demonstration that a local pulp mill is poisoning the water supply is not accepted by any segment of local society; industry, politicians, the media or ordinary people. But acknowledging and dealing with the problem is not in any of their short-term interests. It will cost the mill owners money, politicians and the media do not want to ruin the tourist trade, and local labour leaders do not want workers to lose their jobs, so at a public meeting Stockmann is branded an enemy of the people. Scientists might like to read this play as an attack on the small-mindedness and stupidity of non-scientists in the face of heroic efforts by a scientist to improve their lot. But the opposite reading is equally valid; the scientist is naïve if he supposes that scientific analysis alone can solve the problem, if the practical consequences so clearly go against the political realities of the lives of those affected.

Something similar happens in William Golding's play The Brass Butterfly (1958) where an inventor is banished from ancient Rome for railing against people and politicians who will not use his machines for human benefit rather than to gain political power and destroy their enemies. The politicians banish him because such a dangerous idealist is better out of the way.