Universities can do more to inform technology debate
[ UniNews Vol. 13, No. 22
29 November - 13 December 2004 ] By Adrienne Clarke
Eminent Australian and University of Melbourne scientist, Laureate Professor Adrienne Clarke, recently delivered the Universitys annual McLennan Oration, honouring one of the great leaders of the mining industry in Australia, Sir Ian McLennan. Describing Sir Ian as a man of great vision, Professor Clarke noted that he understood the role of technology as a competitive advantage in the mining industry, as well as the critical role access to energy resources plays in the development of Australia. She went on to discuss the increasing role of technology in Australias future and the need for debate based on rational analysis of the risks, benefits and alternatives. Professor Clarke sees an emerging role for universities to inform the debate in a more organised and deliberate way than has been possible in the past. This is an edited version of her address.
The role of universities has changed over the centuries the original role in religious teaching of clergy, developed into the teaching of the lay clergy and though the centuries evolved to our present role in establishing new knowledge through research and disciplined, systematic enquiry. Because creation of new knowledge is an international endeavour, universities are a source of international networks with early access to events and experience in other countries.
More recently, universities have been adapting to demands that they become more engaged in innovation. Innovation really means realising the potential value of the new knowledge. It is not a straightforward, simple or quick process. One response from universities has been to establish specific innovation offices with staff skilled in technology transfer and development. I suggest that an important, and often overlooked part of innovation, is informing the public so that they are in a position to make rational, informed decisions about the acceptance or rejection of new technologies.
The creation of value from new inventions will not be possible, or will be subject to expensive delays, unless it is understood and accepted by society.
The facts about any new technologies need to be presented objectively in a form that can counter the impact of the views of activist groups. These groups often operate on the basis of belief systems which have no factual base. The press is well informed by these groups of the imagined horrors of a particular technology. In the business of selling newspapers, horror and scare stories about new technologies sell very well. The press usually operates on tight deadlines. The reporters need rapid access to information and rapid responses to enquiries. The activist groups, particularly some NGOs, have full-time, highly paid, professional staff and have the infrastructure to establish ongoing relationships with the press. They fulfil this role very well.
The scientists who are able to give a fact-based view to the newspapers, generally do not fulfil the role so professionally. Often the reporters contact one or other experts in the universities, but these individuals have other commitments, lecturing, tutorials and increasing obligations to commercial contracts which cannot be put aside to deal with press enquiries. For these reasons the response is imperfect. Often follow through is not feasible because of the other commitments which must have a higher priority.
Another way in which the public is informed about new technologies is through public meetings and community fora. When a university scientist agrees to participate in a community forum, he or she is likely to arrive at the community to find that there has been a very effective, professional advance group of activists at work for some time perhaps a week or even a month. These groups often have promoted their views through the local press and radio and community gatherings, to the point that the audience is not in any mood to hear facts or alternative views. The university scientist has no comparable resources to devote to preparing the community for a meeting. The net result is that the scientist may not even be given the opportunity to present the facts at the meeting. As this is an add-on, and unfunded activity for the scientist, undertaken in what little spare time they might have, it is often an experience they do not wish to repeat.
The resistance to new technologies needs to be seen in a historical context. From Galileo onwards there has always been resistance and often quite violent resistance, to new technologies. For example, lightning conductors were torn down when first introduced as they thwarted Gods will. Smallpox vaccination was resisted with riots in the streets, pasteurisation of milk was resisted and we still have towns in Australia that do not accept fluoridation of water.
We are now living in a time of great change in the world. This is fundamentally driven by the exponential increase in global population. The increase in greenhouse gases, the destruction of forests and arable lands, the loss of biodiversity are all fundamentally due to human activity. We also face global shortages of water and power as the developing world increases consumption in aspiring to the lifestyles of the developed world. There are no easy and quick solutions, but there is no doubt that many of the possibilities for the future will be based on new technologies.
On the agenda currently are technologies for water recycling, nanotechnologies, reproductive and stem cell technologies, genetically modified (GM) plants and nuclear energy and there will be many in the future. For example, if it were possible to make a cell, a synthetic life form, that could take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and make it into petrochemical fuel, would our society accept it or not? This idea is being pursued by Craig Ventner and his colleagues in the USA and may become reality. We need as a society to be ready to have informed debate and to make informed judgements.
The GM debate has gone through several phases associated with specific myths and mantras to build opposition. Firstly, it was the spectre of Frankenfoods, a very clever mantra but without any scientific or theoretical credibility. Essentially the creation of a new trait in a crop using genetic modification involves transferring one or more specific genes into the plant. Some of the arguments put forward to stop the use of this technology were that the genes were foreign genes and therefore in some way toxic. The fact is that we eat foreign genes every day. We eat beef genes and sheep genes and chicken genes as well as tomato and potato genes, and so on. Further, we eat bacterial genes and viral genes in some virus-infected vegetables. All this and any other foreign DNA is degraded in the gut.
There is no evidence throughout human history that any foreign genes have ever been incorporated into the human genome. There have been countless enquiries by governments around the world and none have turned up any evidence to stop the use of GM crops (a new GM crop is more extensively tested and regulated than a new conventional crop for such things as, for instance, potential allergens).
In a practical sense, 300 million people have eaten GM foods for more that eight years and there has been no single report of any adverse health effect.
The real problem with mass production of conventional food is food poisoning due to bacterial contamination which causes the death of thousands of people each year. GM food is no safer or less safe than conventional food. (Some argue that GM food is actually safer than conventional food as it is subject to more stringent testing and regulation).
The reality is that globally there has been rapid uptake of GM (transgenic) crops. Seven million farmers are now planting GM crops in 18 countries. Four crops soya, corn, cotton and canola are the major GM crops. They have been engineered for two traits, resistance to herbicides and resistance to insect pests. About 67 million hectares were planted globally last year. The results are spectacular savings in applications of chemical pesticides and herbicides that are persistent in the soil. For example, in the USA, in 2003, the reduction in chemical pesticide use was 20 million pounds for GM soya and 12 million pounds for GM cotton. In another setting, the GM technology which so dramatically reduces the use of chemicals on farms, might have been part of an organic movement!
Cotton is the only GM crop grown in Australia. Last year 80 per cent less chemical insecticide was used on the Australian GM cotton crop compared with conventional cotton. Obviously, this is a huge benefit for the farmer and for the environment. In Australia, GM canola was approved by the responsible Commonwealth body, the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. However a moratorium on planting was placed at the State level in all States except Queensland. Have the reasons and the consequences of these decisions really been thought through on a factual basis and on the global experience?
Plants are the main renewable energy source of our planet and there are many new traits in the pipeline drought tolerance, tolerance to salt, the generation of plants with a high content of oil and of plastic starters, golden rice which contains vitamin A and iron to name a few. As an agricultural nation and a major food exporter, we need at least to consider the consequences of not being part of this revolution.
There is another strange paradox in all the debate about how an introduced new gene might cause some unknown problem. Irradiation techniques to produce new traits are accepted but GM is not. The fact is that for 70 years or more, plant breeders have used irradiation techniques to induce mutations in crop plants. Essentially, gamma rays, X-rays or fast neutrons are used to scramble the genes of plants to create new combinations. This is a random process. The irradiated progeny are selected for new traits such as resistance to disease. This traditional way of creating mutations by irradiation has been used to create more than 2250 mutant varieties of plants such as wheat, oats, rice, nuts, and oil seeds, and cherries and pears and other fruits, as well as many new flowers. The history is that it is a safe and effective process, but one might wonder why this practice is readily accepted but not the more precise transgenic technology.
Another puzzle is the motivation of activists in persuading African governments in 2002 to reject shipments of World Food Program corn while the countries were in the grip of a drought-induced famine. The corn was rejected because it was GM. The fact that Americans, Canadians and others had been using this food safely for 10 years or more was, to the activists, irrelevant. They would rather have the mothers watch their children die of starvation than let them eat food that was routinely accepted in developed countries.
One of the explanations for the seemingly extreme responses, the social scientists tell us, is that the public responds to some issues more negatively than others. This is often referred to as the outrage factor.
Whereas experts define the risk as the probability multiplied by the consequences, the public is more likely to see the risk as the hazard plus the outrage factor. The press in Australia has, I believe, been somewhat more balanced than in the UK where sensationalist headlines such as Is GM the new thalidomide?, GM risk in daily food of millions, GM food threatens the planets meat, Baby tainted by Frankenstein food, etc, certainly fuelled the outrage factor.
It seems, to a scientist, illogical to imagine consequences for which there is no theoretical basis and which have never been observed. The whys are hard to understand, but the hows are easier. If you have the resources and the will, it is possible to persuade people to a way of thinking, at least until the facts become public and accessible.
Another technology about which there has been limited informed debate in Australia is nuclear energy. We are in the fortunate position of having huge reserves of coal from which to produce our electricity. The downside to the use of coal is the associated generation of greenhouse gases. Technologies to mitigate this effect are being developed but it will remain a serious problem. (Would we consider the synthetic cell?)
We should at least look carefully at the risks and benefits of the alternatives and examine what the rest of the world is thinking and doing. That is not to say that we should necessarily accept what the rest of the world does as being the best solution for Australia, but we should examine the experience in the light of our own options.
Globally about 16 per cent of the worlds electricity is generated from nuclear reactors. France is very reliant on nuclear power 70 per cent of its energy is from 59 nuclear reactors. Countries such as the Ukraine, Germany, Japan, the UK and Spain rely on nuclear energy for more that 20 per cent of their power.
Cost comparisons of the different types of energy in the Nordic region show that overall, nuclear energy is the most cost effective although the capital cost is higher than for gas or coal. Wind power comes in as the most expensive option. Balancing this cost (and other disadvantages such as the visual impact) is the fact that wind power is relatively benign in terms of environmental costs. Coal and natural gas both generate relatively high levels of greenhouse gases; in contrast nuclear energy is free of greenhouse gases.
Globally, markets and governments have accepted both GM and nuclear technologies. In Australia, the debates have been patchy and our mechanisms for informing the debates are imperfect.
One group of people well placed to inform the debates on these and other technologies are the academic scientists. They are directly connected with scientists in other countries and know the technologies in great detail. However, they are not resourced to respond professionally to the press either in a reactive or a proactive sense. Yet having the community prepared to make informed decisions about new technologies is a critical part of the innovation process which the scientists are exhorted to engage in.
One way universities might respond is to provide a framework in which the press and the public can be informed about the risks, uncertainties and the benefits of the new technologies as they are emerging.
One form this might take is to hold briefings for the press, government and community representatives on particular topics. Press kits setting out available data etc. could be provided and opportunities for questions and answers from a panel of leading scientists be arranged. This is, in a way, analogous to the way in which companies present their plans to analysts and investors at briefing sessions. This activity could be viewed as part of the commercialisation process as it prepares the way for acceptance or rejection of innovations.
A further outreach program on the technologies could be through the science teachers to the schools. Provision of teaching material relevant to the new technologies could be used to inform the children and get them comfortable with the idea of making evidence based decisions.
If such a group were formed, it would be valuable to include scientists and philosophers. They could help the science and technology communities better understand the public responses to new technologies. The scientists would in turn be able to respond with information in the most effective form. This is one suggestion of how we could manage communication of the new technologies more effectively in the future. It is not the only way and by itself would be insufficient. It would however provide the beginning of a mechanism by which the intellectual resources of universities could be used to better inform the public as we move to a more technology-driven future.
There is no doubt that we have to get better at managing this information flow. The world is going through a period of great change. The problems of providing food, power, water and other necessities for an increasing population in a time of rapid industrialisation of the modern world will demand technical advances. A critical part will be informing the public so that logical, rational choices can be made.
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