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Introduction

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Considered analysis is at the heart of good science. This free course, Assessing contemporary science, will introduce you to the assessment of reports on contemporary areas in science, allowing you to examine the scientific information that is available to members of the public in a range of forms. Additionally, you will explore the ways in which scientific knowledge develops and undergoes peer review, and learn how to apply key methods of critiquing and evaluating information. There will be a variety of activities throughout the course for practising these skills – as well as some optional activities that delve slightly deeper, or explore side topics. You are not required to complete these optional activities unless they particularly interest you.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course S350 Evaluating contemporary science. It was produced for OpenLearn by Richard Holliman (Sections 1–5), Phil Wheeler (Section 6) and Simon Collinson (Sections 7–9).

Learning outcomes

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

After studying this course, you should be able to:

critically evaluate statements, different viewpoints and data to reach informed judgements based on scientific evidence
understand key aspects of areas of scientific knowledge that have personal relevance
understand some of the wider implications associated with any scientific investigation
have an appreciation of current thinking on uncertainty, ambiguities and the limits of scientific knowledge
deploy transferable skills in assessing contemporary science.

1 Why science matters

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Why should you care about the assessment of contemporary science? In our view, the main reason you should care is because science has the potential to change our lives, and those of future generations. As citizens, we need to keep abreast of the changes in scientific knowledge so we can have a say in how it can, and should, be applied in wider society (Holliman et al., 2009). To do this, we need to develop generic skills that can be applied across the sciences.

In practice, science is not just one thing. Scientific knowledge is produced by scientists working in a vast array of sub-disciplines (Schummer, 2009). In this short course you will encounter, among others: conservation biologists working to better understand how animals, plants and humans interrelate and influence each other; life scientists studying the microbiology of the heart, and Earth scientists who explore how metamorphic rocks are formed.

Despite the variations in working practices between scientists in different disciplines, there are some common purposes and beliefs that they adhere to. All scientists are trying to produce new knowledge. To achieve this end, they look to build on our current understanding of natural phenomena, following a set of underlying research principles. It follows that what is known about a given scientific discipline has the potential to change with the publication of each new piece of research.

The publication of new knowledge is not a given. For new knowledge to be published, it has to pass the assessment of peers working in the field (i.e. other expert scientists). Once agreed, this new knowledge can be shared more widely for further assessment among other scientists, and potentially for communication beyond the academic domain.

Understanding how such assessments are made by expert scientists, and how this can influence the ways that new knowledge becomes public, will help you to make informed judgements about what is (and is not) credible when studying the dynamic boundaries of scientific knowledge. In this light, it is also important to acknowledge that academic practices of openness (Weller, 2014) and engagement (Jensen and Holliman, 2016) are becoming more widespread. Together, they offer additional opportunities for scientists and citizens to scrutinise science, both at the point of publication and as this information circulates in wider society.

Study note 1 Accessing the glossary

The terms ‘discipline’ and ‘engagement’ are in bold in the paragraphs above to identify them as glossary terms. You can hover your cursor over the emboldened text to bring up the definition provided for these terms. You may need to click on the word(s) to read the full definition – this will take you to the glossary section appended to the course, which contains definitions for all the emboldened terms.

As you work through the remainder of the course, you will encounter further glossary terms. Take a moment now to familiarise yourself with this functionality.

It follows that science does not end with the production and publication of new knowledge. The potential for, and realisation of, new knowledge requires members of society to take account of the implications (Guston, 2014). The application of new knowledge has the potential to change our lives for the better or for worse. We all have just as much of a stake as scientists in determining the ways that science can and should influence our lives. Therefore, we need skills and competencies to assess science and its implications (Holliman, 2008).

This course explores some of the skills and competencies that can help scientists and citizens successfully navigate this ever-changing complexity. It introduces and applies concepts from the related fields of science communication and engagement, focusing in particular on digital and information literacy skills (Holliman, 2011). By completing this course you should have a better understanding of how contemporary science progresses and how ‘cutting edge’ scientific knowledge circulates in the public sphere.

2 What is contemporary science?

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

This course explicitly focuses on ‘contemporary science’ so it is worth exploring how this concept is defined.

First and foremost, it would be safe to assume that contemporary science means science that is ‘up-to-date’, or modern. In this course, however, the term is used more specifically than this, and relates particularly to ‘cutting-edge’ science. Indeed, here contemporary science is characterised as ‘new’ knowledge, meaning it is new to the scientific community and to wider society.

So how do we recognise contemporary science, and where does it first appear to the vast majority of the general public? The activity that follows will help you to explore these questions.

Activity 1 The excitement of contemporary science

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

Think about the experiences of contemporary science that have interested, excited or concerned you, either professionally or in your personal life. This could have been in the past days or weeks, or possibly longer ago.

This should be something that you have encountered outside of formal education (i.e. sources of science where you are not formally being taught). Sources could include, for example, television programmes, news websites, blogs, books, magazines, newspapers, social media, museums and science centres.

In the light of your experiences, write a short summary (no more than 200 words) that addresses the following questions.

Briefly, what is the example about?
Where did you first learn about this new development in the sciences?
What first attracted you to this information?

An example is then included in the discussion below, to give you an idea of the level of detail that you can cover in around 200 words.

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Discussion

Philae lands on Comet 67/P

In November 2014, a robotic probe called Philae landed on Comet 67/P, 300 million miles from Earth. Funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Rosetta Mission that delivered the probe to the surface had taken more than 25 years in the planning.

The announcement was made at a meeting where scientists and journalists mixed freely; Professor Monica Grady’s reaction to the landing captured the excitement of what had been achieved. You can view her response by watching the following video: ‘Rosetta comet landing: Professor’s excitement and tears’.

I found this information on the BBC News website, but it was also reported by other news providers. Given that Open University colleagues had worked on this mission for many years, I’d been following this story for some time. What really struck me about the story was the emotional response of Professor Grady – excitement mixed with relief. It provided the perfect counter to the stereotypical image of scientists as purely rational beings.

(165 words)

Your response to the previous activity is likely to be different from other people studying this course. As citizens we access contemporary science from a range of sources. Research has shown that the genre of news is a key source of new information about the sciences (Holliman, 2004), but that the ways we access news is changing (Holliman, 2010; 2007a; 2007b).

The example described in the previous activity also shows that as contemporary science enters the public sphere it can elicit a range of emotions. Over time, these announcements can affect how we perceive science in a more general sense, influencing how we interpret and contextualise new knowledge (Holliman, 2000).

Optional activity: imagining scientists

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Research has shown that if viewers receive consistent portrayals of scientists through popular media, such as television, this can influence how they interpret and contextualise science (Carr et al., 2009).

If you would like to explore why stereotypical images of scientists endure, have a look at our audio feature, Imagining Scientists. This discusses research conducted at The Open University through the (In)visible Witnesses Project. The project investigated gendered representations of people working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and how these images might affect the perception of children and young people.

2.1 The applications of contemporary science

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

One of the reasons this course focuses on contemporary science is because of the potential influence and impact that new knowledge can have on wider society. This can come in the form of novel challenges and opportunities.

In the case of the ESA Rosetta Mission, for example, it led to some unexpected developments when the technology initially developed by the Philae scientists was adapted by them for further use. The next activity provides more information on these developments.

Activity 2 The application of contemporary science

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes

Study the following video: ‘How space science is making a difference on Earth’, featuring Geraint (Taff) Morgan. Taff works in the Department of Physical Sciences at The Open University. Through his research he has contributed to a number of space missions.

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1 How space science is making a difference on Earth.

GERAINT MORGAN

The Open University is best known for its distance learning. What surprises people is the amount of research we do here and the relevance to the modern world. For the last 20 years or so, I’ve been working on the recent Rosetta mission here at The Open University. For me and the team, the 12th of November 2014 was an incredible day. It was the day that the Philae Lander finally landed on the comet after its 10-year, 4-billion mile journey around our solar system. On-board, within the Philae Lander, was the Ptolemy instrument that I and my colleagues at The Open University and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories designed and built. Ptolemy is a miniature research laboratory that sniffs and detects the chemical and isotopic make-up of the comet. Missions like Rosetta really push the boundaries of science and engineering and, for me, the really exciting thing is that space technology can help save and change lives here on Earth.

Here in the lab, we are developing pioneering new ways to detect cancer in humans using smell. Since 2004, we’ve known that dogs can sniff cancer and what we have done is effectively build a robot dog that can work 24 hours a day and seven days a week. One of the application areas we are exploring is prostate cancer, one of the most deadly cancers for men in the UK. Currently, 80 000 men per year are incorrectly told that they may have prostate cancer based on the PSA blood test. Our technology should help reduce the number of false positives and help save the NHS over 50 million pounds per year.

Another application of our research is this box. It contains several instruments which will measure and sniff the air quality inside British submarines. The atmosphere analyser allows the crew to measure the atmosphere continuously so they can react quickly to the build-up of any dangerous gases. Our technology will make the environment much safer for hundreds of British sailors. This box is a vital piece of safety equipment; it’s smaller, better, cheaper and most importantly, it’s British.

On a more day-to-day basis, you might like to think about our work the next time you take a shower or use expensive perfume or use a deodorant. Our sniffing robots are being used by perfumers in Paris to add to the information they get from human panels to help them optimise their perfumes. And so the expertise and the know-how we have developed to analyse the faraway comet can be applied back here on Earth for important things like hospitals, submarines and even perfumes. That diversity is the important and fantastic thing about research here at The Open University.

End transcript: Video 1 How space science is making a difference on Earth.

Video 1 How space science is making a difference on Earth.

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Now answer the following questions, before revealing the discussion below.

What other scientific areas have developed from this space research and associated technology?
Who might be influenced by the development of the social and economic impacts of these technologies?

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Discussion

The work has led to scientists developing methods to:

Detect prostate cancer by ‘smell’, with the potential to perform more accurate diagnoses, thereby saving lives and expenditure in the National Health Service (NHS). Patients, carers and medical professionals, in particular, could benefit from the application of these technologies.
Analyse the air quality in submarines, acting as an additional safety measure for submariners.
Optimising perfumes, complementing the work of humans in producing scents, complementing and enhancing the work of companies and the professionals working for them. Consumers could also benefit from the production of better quality scents.

This video shows that one of the reasons scientists and other stakeholders (citizens, medical professionals, carers, patients, consumers, military personnel, business people, etc.) care passionately about the sciences is because they have the potential to influence our lives.

To use an oft-cited cliché, ‘science matters’, which is why the work conducted by scientists and other stakeholders can be linked with politicians and other policy makers. The next (optional) activity explores these ideas further.

Optional activity: why should scientists engage with policy makers?

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

Study the following video: ‘Why should scientists engage with policy makers?’, featuring Ian Bateman. Ian is Professor of Environmental Economics and the Director of the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute (LEEP) at the University of Exeter. As you watch, make notes on the questions that follow, before revealing the discussion below the text box.

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Transcript: Video 2 Why should scientists engage with policy makers?

CAPTION: Why should scientists engage with policy?

IAN BATEMAN

Well, if you’re not interested in actually getting your science to change the world then you don’t have to. That’s absolutely fine, you know, if you just want to be sort of an ivory tower academic with no engagement in the real world then don’t bother but, if you actually are interested in changing things, then it’s absolutely vital to engage with all those people that actually make decisions in the world and policy makers are a large influence within that community, but I also add that business people, NGOs and also the general public as they are the arbiters of preference and values.

CAPTION: What are the biggest challenges to using scientific evidence in policy making? How can scientists help to overcome this?

IAN BATEMAN

You’ve got to think about the real-world challenge that the decision makers really face. The vast majority of decision makers that I’ve met actually do want to make a good job, they want to improve society. The problem is they are faced with unlimited want, unlimited ways to improve people’s lives – hospitals, better transport systems, better environment – and limited resources. So they got this real problem that they have got to handle all these different demands upon those limited financial and other resources.

If you simply go to them and say I know that this particular bat will react in this way and you give them no way to actually judge how important that issue is compared to the other issues that they have to deal with, then you’re really almost adding a problem rather than trying to find a solution. If you were a decision maker faced with all those different competing demands, what would you do?

Now, I think answering honestly you’d want to know how important the bat issue is compared to a lot of the other issues that decision makers face, so translating that information into a language that they can actually trade off against different competing calls on resources is absolutely vital. It’s part of the scientific challenge and if you duck that, you’re basically putting yourself into a very small category where you’re saying ‘my interest comes in a totally different unit, a totally different way of looking at things to everybody else’s interest’; so you know doctors might be telling you to do this and transport engineers might be telling you to do something else, they’re all making their claims in nice commensurate units, and they’re just saying this will generate this value or that will generate that value, and I’m just saying ‘no, you have to do this which is absolutely imperative’.

You need to put yourself in their shoes and realise that they have a very difficult job to do and you need to try and translate your findings into units and language that they can actually understand, otherwise they won’t really be able to deal with your information.

CAPTION: What practical steps should scientists take to engage with the policymaking process?

IAN BATEMAN

Number one, talk to them! I know it sounds very obvious but a lot of scientists don’t. These are typically intelligent non-specialists. They need to understand what you are talking about in language that is not overly complex, that actually relates to the real world decisions they have to make.

You also need to present information in ways which can be comparable with the other issues that they have to deal with, so imagine you are providing some information on some particular species to a decision maker who is also having to make decisions which will affect whether somebody’s house gets flooded or not, or whether somebody keeps their job or not, so you need to actually try and put yourself into their situation and generate tools which will help that comparability across that complexity of issues.

CAPTION: What examples have you seen of scientific evidence leading to a real policy change?

IAN BATEMAN

I was very lucky early on, well, a few years ago, to be part of the UK National League System Assessment. That was an attempt to try and look at the state of health and trends in UK ecosystems, and it did it in a way which was both scientifically credible but also accessible to decision makers.

It resulted in really quite a major impact upon the natural environment White Paper that came in afterwards, resulting in a whole host of practical initiatives but also the setting up of the Natural Capital Committee which I was fortunate enough to be part of, which has in turn led to a commitment by the government to set up a 25 year plan for the natural environment, which is what we need. The natural environment has been degraded for the last couple of centuries, we need a long term plan if we are actually going to deliver on that White Paper goal of not just halting the decline in natural capital but actually reversing it and leaving the environment a better state than the present generation has to deal with.

End transcript: Video 2 Why should scientists engage with policy makers?

Video 2 Why should scientists engage with policy makers?

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Questions:

Why should scientists engage with policy makers?
What are the biggest challenges to using scientific evidence in policy making?
What practical steps should scientists take to engage with the policy making process?
What examples does he offer to illustrate where science has influenced policy?

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Discussion

Professor Bateman begins by arguing that science has the potential to change our lives. He calls on scientists to make active decisions about whether they want their research to benefit society. If they answer yes to this fundamental question, then scientists need to identify which decision makers connect with their science. This could include policy makers at an international, national, regional, and/or local level. It could also include a whole range of other stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community groups, industry and members of the public.

Professor Bateman argues that one of the biggest challenges facing scientists is to understand the context that decision makers are working within. This includes multiple, and sometimes conflicting, demands on them. Decision makers rarely have the luxury of having a single, simple issue to debate at any given time, and they are routinely faced with limited resources.

In effect, decision makers have to prioritise. Scientists therefore need to communicate their science clearly and within the context of ‘real-world’ challenges. At times this may require them not to communicate, i.e. to be selective about which scientific evidence is essential to resolving a given issue. At other times, they will need to identify and present scientific evidence in shorthand. This approach can seem very different from communicating with other scientists in a research context, e.g. a laboratory, on location in the field, at academic conferences, or through research papers.

He argues that one of the most obvious ways to engage with the policy making process is to talk to decision makers. Crucially, this requires careful selection of information, packaged in a way that is equivalent to other forms of evidence that decision makers will receive.

Finally, Professor Bateman describes an example of this working in practice related to research into ecosystems. By engaging with policy makers he, working with other scientists and stakeholders, ultimately delivered a long-term, 25-year commitment to improving the environment.

3 Perspectives on contemporary science

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Contemporary, ‘up-to-date’ knowledge can be compared to science that is ‘agreed’ knowledge – for example, something you might read in a textbook or a popular science book (Latour, 1987). How, then, do scientists make sense of the difference between new and agreed knowledge? And what are the characteristics that make an effective scientist? Complete the next activity to find out more.

Activity 3 Perspectives on contemporary science and scientists

Timing: Allow about 1 hour

Study the following audio interviews, featuring Open University scientists, Clare Warren (Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences), Martin Bootman (Reader in Biomedicine), Claire Turner (Professor of Analytical Science) and Phil Wheeler (Senior Lecturer in Ecology). Each of the scientists is interviewed by Richard Holliman (Professor of Engaged Research).

These interviewees were selected because (at time of writing) they are current Open University scientists and are actively researching and producing new scientific knowledge. However, they also conduct research in different academic disciplines: life and health sciences; chemistry and analytical sciences; and environment, Earth and ecosystem sciences.

Compare and contrast all four (or at least two) of the audio interviews to explore where their perspectives are similar and different. To this end, you should listen to each of the interviews more than once, and consider the following questions. There is a box beneath the audio clips where you can make notes as you listen.

What are the current topics of enquiry for each scientist?
What do these scientists see as key characteristics of successful scientists?
What scientific evidence do these scientists see as agreed knowledge in their discipline?
What mechanisms do they describe for how this knowledge was evaluated?
What would it take for agreed knowledge in science to be replaced with new knowledge?

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 1

Audio 1 Richard Holliman interviews Clare Warren.

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Transcript: Audio 1 Richard Holliman interviews Clare Warren.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Hi. My name is Richard Holliman and I’m one of the Block 1 authors on S350 Evaluating contemporary science.

I’m joined here by Clare Warren, who works in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems Sciences at The Open University.

We are here to discuss how science progresses.

So Clare – what’s your current topic of enquiry?

CLARE WARREN

I’m a geologist. My research investigates how rocks get buried, deformed, transformed into new and beautiful rock types and get brought back up to the surface again.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. One of the things we’re kind of interested in is what you see are the key characteristics of being a successful scientist.

CLARE WARREN

Well obviously all scientists have enquiring minds. You know, they’re the types of people who ask loads of questions as a kid and get told off by their parents for stop asking so many questions.

But good geologists certainly also need to be really observant because a lot of the key information they get from the field and from the rock samples they need to look at them properly.

Determination and cooperation are really important especially for field work and lab work, and you’ve got to be pretty hard working as well.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. So we’re also interested in the types of scientific evidence that you think that you see are currently agreed knowledge in your discipline. So what would you say is agreed knowledge?

CLARE WARREN

Well, I guess the theory of plate tectonics is probably the main one in Earth sciences and so this is a 1960s theory that describes how rocks on the surface move around the large-scale motions.

I mean that’s now taught in schools. Primary school kids know about mid-ocean spreading and subduction zones and volcanoes. So I would say that’s probably the most common knowledge.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay, and how did you see that becoming kind of agreed knowledge in your discipline? How did it come about?

CLARE WARREN

Well, it was a series of observations from I guess starting in the 1800s where people noticed that there were fossils that were the same on different continents and the shapes of the continents fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.

But nobody could really explain the mechanisms by which continents could drift and it wasn’t really until geophysical observations in the 1960s, so looking at the magnetic stripes on the sea floor, and satellite data looking at global positioning systems, how rocks are moving apart from each other, and those really nailed the previous observations and said, ‘Look, these things do happen. Plates do move apart, and do collide together again.’

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. So you’re saying basically somebody kind of came up with some kind of theory and then the evidence comes in and basically cements that?

CLARE WARREN

Yeah, but the people who came up with the original theory were laughed at, because you know Alfred Wegener in the [nineteen] thirties said, ‘Hey look continents drift apart’, and everyone said, ‘No they don’t. How can they possibly be drifting apart? Rocks are rocks. They’re solid.’

But over time there was more and more evidence came together to show that actually they did. But it wasn’t until people found the mechanism by which that happened that that theory crystallised and became accepted fact.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Cool. So what would it take for that to change? What would it take for somebody to come and say, ‘Actually, we’ve disproved plate tectonics? Here’s another theory’?

CLARE WARREN

I guess plate tectonics itself; there’s so much weight of evidence for it that it would, I reckon, be almost impossible to overturn, but the devil is in the detail to some extent. There are bits of that theory which don’t fit.

So plate tectonics describes how solid things move around the surface of the Earth and when you collide two continents together they act much more weakly. It’s much more fluid and plate tectonics theory doesn’t really describe that very well.

So I don’t think it will be a paradigm shift but I think incremental knowledge will suddenly help us to understand how two continents can collide together and form the Himalayas, for example, in a much more robust fashion.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. So you see small incremental changes, not a bit massive shift.

CLARE WARREN

Yeah, I think there are big shifts to be made in some parts of Earth sciences, for example, the origin of life on Earth, or how the Earth formed in the first place but plate tectonics itself I think is a pretty well embedded theory.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Cool. Thanks very much.

CLARE WARREN

You’re very welcome.

End transcript: Audio 1 Richard Holliman interviews Clare Warren.

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Audio 1 Richard Holliman interviews Clare Warren.

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Audio 2 Richard Holliman interviews Martin Bootman.

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Transcript: Audio 2 Richard Holliman interviews Martin Bootman.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Hi. My name is Richard Holliman and I’m one of the Block 1 authors on S350 Evaluating contemporary science.

I’m here today with Martin Bootman, who works in the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences at The Open University.

We are here to discuss how science progresses.

So Martin, what’s your current topic of enquiry?

MARTIN BOOTMAN

So, my principle interest is how the cells in the body communicate with each other.

In particular, I’m interested in hormonal communication. So, that’s the way in which cells use factors that they secrete and then travel to another cell, engage with that cell, and cause it to change its activity. That’s what we study.

In particular, we’re interested in what hormones regulate the activity of the heart; what makes it beat faster and contract in a stronger way to pump more blood. That’s our key interest.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Cool. That’s really interesting. So I’m kind of interested in what do you see as the key characteristics of being a successful scientist?

MARTIN BOOTMAN

Well, I think number one, you’ve really got to have an enquiring mind so, you’ve got to look at the world with a sense of wonder and fascination, and perhaps also question things a little bit as well.

So, when you hear information you don’t just absorb it, you actually process it a little bit, and I think that’s what all scientists do, certainly the ones that then go on to develop questions that they can test in a kind of laboratory or a research environment.

I think you’ve also got to be quite dogmatic, a little bit. You’ve got to have perseverance, because we take small steps in science.

We develop questions and we answer them quite slowly, because systems that we study are complex, and sometimes it’s difficult to interpret the data that we get, the results that we find.

Sometimes it’s difficult to think of a new way of researching something, so it can be quite slow and it requires an awful lot of perseverance.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. So what would you say is currently agreed knowledge in your discipline area?

MARTIN BOOTMAN

Well I think there’s lots.

Work on the heart, for example, has been going on all the way back to Sidney Ringer, you know, back in the 1800s.

So, there’s a lot of basic physiology that’s known and universally accepted about how the heart works, and that’s been added to over the centuries, over the decades, and that’s well grounded.

We know what the heart does. We know the structure, the anatomy of the heart, and we know its basic physiology.

Where modern research comes in is actually understanding the nuances of what goes wrong.

So, although we understand the anatomy and the basic structure of the heart and its function, what we don’t understand is some of the disease situations, some of the things that make the heart perform badly. How do they occur?

And in particular some of the genetic mutations that are very subtle in their effect, but in the lifetime of the person where your heart has to beat for seventy years, and pump essentially like a tanker-and-a-half worth of blood around your body, one genetic mutation that might have a very low penetrance, that means it might not have a very obvious kind of effect, in your lifetime that could lead to heart failure.

But why? And why does it take a billion beats before that heart failure is evident? Why is it not more penetrant earlier on?

So, those kind of things have really waited for an explosion in the techniques we call molecular biology, which enable us to go back and actually either correct that mutation, or to force that mutation to happen in certain situations, and then we can look at the outcomes.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. Could you tell us a little bit about your contribution to this kind of area?

MARTIN BOOTMAN

Yes, so my group for many years actually studied how cells use calcium as a messenger, and calcium inside cells is what we call a pleiotropic messenger – it does many different things.

In fact one of the first things that happens to everyone in life when a sperm meets an egg is a rise in the calcium concentration and that’s necessary for many things.

In particular, it stops other sperm engaging with the egg, but it also starts the developmental programme, and stops cells being dormant any more, causing them to divide and causing them to form an individual. So a calcium signal is the first thing to happen to all of us.

With regard to the heart, every time the heart beats, every time there’s an electrical signal that pervades the heart it causes a calcium rise inside each of the cells of the heart, and it’s that calcium signal that causes the cells to contract, and the millions of cells that contract simultaneously generates the force that pumps blood around the lungs and the body.

So, we’ve taken our knowledge that we had from studying calcium signalling in other tissues to studies of the heart, and so that’s been our major contribution; actually understanding the fine detail of the dynamics of calcium signalling in heart cells.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. And can you tell us a little bit about how your work has contributed to a kind of paradigm shift?

MARTIN BOOTMAN

So yeah it’s – it’s been a very interesting development for us since we started working on heart cells which is over a decade ago now.

I had a visitor who was a medic who came to work in my lab from Finland. So I had to think of a project for him to do and I said to him, ‘Mika, do you want to have a look at these channels?’, that we were studying at the time.

They were called IP3 receptors and just see if they are expressed in the heart and maybe have an idea – formulate some ideas of what they might do.

I didn’t think that project would lead very far if I was honest. I thought it would be just a quick look and see and it would satisfy him for his year’s sabbatical.

But actually, it opened up a whole new paradigm for us. Mika did his studies very diligently, and we got a data set that proves that the IP3 receptors are expressed in – in contractile myocytes – the heart cells.

We put the whole story together and we sent it off to a journal called Cell, which is a top level journal, but we weren’t successful in publishing it, and in fact we faced an awful lot of hostility.

So in the end we published it in a journal called Current Biology (Lipp et al., 2000).

We did take the data to conferences. We talked to other cardiac researchers. And they regarded it with mild cynicism at the time I think.

And the reason is because they’d been studying heart cells for so long that they thought they understood them very well, and there wasn’t really room for us with our new calcium channels to do anything.

They thought they really knew the system well, and we were interlopers, and they didn’t really appreciate our data at the beginning.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So in a way I guess you’re challenging their foundational knowledge and have come up against –

MARTIN BOOTMAN

Absolutely.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Those kind of challenges in a very kind of obvious way –

MARTIN BOOTMAN

Absolutely, and I think that’s why you’ve got to make sure that you’re thinking about experiments in a holistic way.

That you’re not simply going with how you think a system works, that you do have that capacity to think differently, to accept new data, to understand you might have very good experimental techniques to study what you’re interested in.

There’s still capacity for paradigm shifting new evidence to come along, and then you have to adjust, you have to incorporate that.

And actually in later years, you know, I’m pleased to say other labs demonstrated what we demonstrated, and we were actually proven through repetition, which is really the way that science becomes established as fact, as it were.

The most important thing of course is not – is not about personal satisfaction. It’s about the fact that we helped develop a new idea for something that might be a therapy for people who end up with heart failure, and that’s the point.

So, these IP3 receptors, expressed in the heart cells, do have a capacity to cause a slight elevation in the calcium levels over many, many heartbeats that can cause the expression of certain genes inside cardio myocytes, which are not good, and so we know now that IP3 receptors, if they’re activated in heart cells, can lead to a condition called decompensated heart failure.

I’m very glad that our contribution was acknowledged. It took us a while. It took us a while to convince people but, you know, what we’d managed to do is establish a new paradigm, which hopefully will have a benefit for health.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

That’s excellent. Thanks very much.

MARTIN BOOTMAN

You’re welcome.

End transcript: Audio 2 Richard Holliman interviews Martin Bootman.

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Audio 3 Richard Holliman interviews Claire Turner.

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Transcript: Audio 3 Richard Holliman interviews Claire Turner.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

I’m joined now by Claire Turner, who works in the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences at The Open University. We’re here to discuss how science progresses.

So Claire, what is your current topic of enquiry?

CLAIRE TURNER

Hello Rick, it’s very nice to talk to you today. My particular interest is in breath analysis and the use of – the odour of an individual to try and find out whether they have a particular disease or the state of their health.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. That’s fascinating. So, what would you see as the kind of key characteristics of a successful scientist?

CLAIRE TURNER

Well, for me, I think there are two fundamental characteristics that every scientist should have. The first one is curiosity. If you really aren’t interested in the world around you, and some of these questions, you’re never going to make a scientist because you’re not going to really want to find out the truth, for science is about truth.

If you’re not curious about the truth and want to know about it you’re not really going to be able to work towards that. So that’s number one.

The second one, which is very much a part of the first, is scepticism. I think you can make mistakes if you are not sceptical, because if you have – most of us think – have an opinion about things. If you have an opinion about something which you develop into a hypothesis you will seek information which will be supporting your hypothesis and you won’t seek information which will refute your hypothesis.

You need to be able to seek information, which will just tell you about stuff around your hypothesis, and then you can decide whether that information and that data you’ve obtained supports or refutes it. So you must be sceptical. And I think that’s absolutely fundamental.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

You’ve talked a bit about there about the kind of seeking truth if you like and one of the things I’m curious about is the notion of kind of agreed knowledge.

So what would be the kind of agreed knowledge in your area? What would be scientific truth if you like in your areas – established truth?

CLAIRE TURNER

My discipline is relatively young. It’s about 20 years old, but the idea for it came back from the Ancient Greeks when they kind of knew that if people had a particular smell coming off them, or off their breath, they had a particular condition such as tuberculosis or diabetes.

So they knew there was something wrong with them, couldn’t do anything about it, but they knew there was something wrong.

But it wasn’t until probably the late 1970s or around then that people started thinking that perhaps they could actually measure the composition of breath.

And Linus Pauling, a great chemist, actually used gas chromatography to analyse people’s breath, back in that time. But only in the last 20 years have people started thinking ‘Actually, they could use this to diagnose disease, it’ll be a lot easier.’

The problem is, although we do know that different diseases do give rise to different breath profiles or different odour profiles, lots of different groups have all been working independently from each other and there has been no standardised way of either taking a breath sample or sample of fluid from the patient, or actually the equipment used to – to analyse this has been different. Therefore, comparing what the different groups are doing might be the same disease, but they get different results.

And this has really been very difficult to try and therefore say, ‘Right, this disease has this exact profile, and this disease has this exact profile.’

So that’s really where the state-of-the-art is at the moment. We know that there different profiles, but it’s trying to nail those down because of the different groups working on it.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

That’s really fascinating because one of my questions was going to be about how you see that kind – how you see those kind of established truths becoming established if you like.

So I guess I’d modify it slightly for the answer you’ve just given me and say, how do you set standards in your area, or how could standards be set?

CLAIRE TURNER

That’s an extremely good question and one which the field is currently looking at doing. So there are a couple of groups being set up at the moment which are trying to identify how to produce a kind of standardised breath sample, if you like, which can then be used in a way that’s agreed across all the people working on this and then used – used to actually validate the instruments and then we can go back and start looking at the existing data.

I think another issue is that studies generally tend to done on small numbers of people and the reason for that is it’s very, very expensive to do studies like this, to recruit patients, to actually get people in, to get scientists in, to get the instrument in where the patient is.

To do all that is hugely, hugely expensive and getting funding to do this for 50 or 100 patients; not too difficult, but because this is a new field if you like, and because there is such variability in individual people and well – biological systems are by their very nature very variable – you get variability just between people, but also within individuals you have huge variation over the day, and all sorts of things can cause huge variations, and as a result of that in order to make real headway in this, first you’ve got to standardise stuff but secondly, you really have to measure large numbers of individuals in a population.

So the only way you’re actually going to do this is to get lots of different groups working together, but they’re going to need to use the same methodologies.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So collaboration, standards established, and a larger data set.

CLAIRE TURNER

Absolutely and, of course, each set of samples you get on a particular condition on a particular group of people if it’s standardised that adds to the body of knowledge and gives you more information about doing this.

We know there is a profile out there. Everybody’s got a profile, and each disease has a profile. We know that. But it’s very easy to make mistakes in establishing what that profile is.

And I’ll give you an example. A little while ago, someone – a colleague of mine – was working to look at diagnosing cancer through breath analysis, went up to the ward and got breath samples from a number of different patients on the ward with this particular cancer; then went around the hospital and found a number of people who didn’t have the cancer and took breath samples from them, looked and thought, ‘Wow, there’s one particular compound in here which is really different in the cancer patients and the controls.’

And they were just about to send this off for publication when someone said, ‘Have you looked at the backgrounds in the ward and the rest of the hospital?’

And it turns out that the actual marker that they thought they’d found for cancer turned out to be something that was present in the air of the ward and not elsewhere in the hospital. So, it’s about understanding all the factors that can actually have an impact on your data.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Cool – thanks very much.

CLAIRE TURNER

Thank you.

End transcript: Audio 3 Richard Holliman interviews Claire Turner.

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Audio 4 Richard Holliman interviews Phil Wheeler.

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Transcript: Audio 4 Richard Holliman interviews Phil Wheeler.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Hi. My name is Richard Holliman and I’m one of the Block 1 authors on S350 Evaluating contemporary science.

I’m here today with Phil Wheeler, who also works on S350. Phil works in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems Sciences, at The Open University.

We’re here to discuss how science progresses.

So Phil – what is your current topic of enquiry?

PHIL WHEELER

I’m an applied ecologist and conservation biologist and that means that I’m interested in animals and plants mostly, and how they interact with their environment. That’s the ecology bit.

The applied bit is about how those interactions relate to things that go on in the real world and how they affect people and human systems.

And the conservation biology bit is what happens when particular animals and plants or particular ecosystems become rare or threatened and usually that’s to do with people as well.

So I sort of work in science, but in areas of science that really relate to what people do.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So what do you see is the characteristic, or key characteristics, of a successful scientist?

PHIL WHEELER

I think first and foremost it’s creativity. You’ve got to have ideas and that is at the beginning of the scientific process; thinking about questions that you are going to ask. And then it goes through that whole process thinking how you’re going to answer the questions.

In the real world, nothing happens without money, without resources so – so partly what you’ve got to do as a scientist is to figure out how you’re gonna convince somebody to give you the money or the resources to answer the questions that you’ve come up with.

So creativity goes across the piece there, and different scientists are good at different bits of that. Some are brilliant at all three and they’re the people who really get ahead. Most of us humans are good at one or two bits of that whole process.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So what scientific evidence would you argue is currently agreed knowledge in your discipline?

PHIL WHEELER

It’s a difficult question for me Rick, because I’m an applied ecologist so what I do is very practical and it’s very difficult to go back to theoretical fundamentals that relate to lots of different practical scenarios.

So I would take it – run it back to the theory of evolution by natural selection. That’s the fundamental thing that underpins our understanding of all biological and ecological systems.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. And how did that scientific evidence become agreed knowledge in your discipline?

PHIL WHEELER

It’s a long story, you’re going back over 150 years, but I suppose natural selection was an idea that was at its time, one that explained lots of things that didn’t have adequate explanations, and so it was very widely adopted but not uncontroversial and really the process over the fifty years following the publication of The Origin of the Species, which was the main kind of description of that, was about exploring the implications, testing the idea.

It was going back and saying right, if this is correct we should see this in nature. If this is correct then our experiments should generate these results.

Do the experiment – does it? By and large yes, and then incorporating other ideas that sort of developed out of that and other ideas that weren’t very familiar: genetics, understanding DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code and affects natural selection.

They were all things that happened after that and were fundamental to fleshing out bits of the original theory that didn’t necessarily make sense or had little gaps in.

And for an ecologist it’s about exploring what the implications of natural selection are for how organisms interact with their environment and then how that relates to populations, abundances, distribution of organisms – all those sorts of things.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

That’s a really interesting explanation. What you’re saying to me is, if you like, there is a bedrock and on top of that bedrock all these kind of interesting ideas which are slightly modified or extended that kind of initial understanding.

I’m kind of curious about how did that new knowledge, if you like, come in to adapt the original one?

PHIL WHEELER

In different sorts of ways. I think there will always be people who think that they’ve undermined existing, established knowledge and you often see scientific debate framed as being sort of scientists going head-to-head and there are situations where people have so fundamentally disagreed about very fundamental questions in biology including in evolution – how evolution happens. Then they do go head-to-head.

So Darwin’s original theory suggested that species evolve very gradually over time. Palaeontologists looking at the fossil record through the 1980s and 1990s had the idea that actually things evolve slowly over long periods of time and then go through these rapid jumps and the people who disagreed with them described that as ‘evolution by jerks’.

And they hated each other and I think to a certain extent they still do but actually most science is much more consensual than that.

It’s people agreeing that fundamental ideas, that the more fundamental ideas probably aren’t going to change substantially, but still leaving the door open for the potential that they might do.

So exploring things that build gradually and build our knowledge gradually. The idea of standing on the shoulders of giants. It’s that evolution not revolution, isn’t it?

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Fundamentally what you’re saying to me is, ‘There’s a scientific method, evidence tested over time, and then the good ideas stick and the other ones don’t.’

PHIL WHEELER

That’s right, yeah, and so an important thing there is as a scientist to be open to challenge. Obviously to challenge other people’s ideas, but also to be humble enough to have your ideas challenged and to put your hand up and say, ‘Yeah, you know, I got it wrong. Not that I got it wrong, but the evidence that I had led me to one conclusion. We’ve now got more evidence, so I’m gonna change my mind and conclude that things happen differently.’

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Thanks very much, Phil.

PHIL WHEELER

Okay. Pleasure.

End transcript: Audio 4 Richard Holliman interviews Phil Wheeler.

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When you have completed your analysis of the interviews, compare and contrast the scientists’ perspectives on the questions asked above. In particular, look for any consistency or diversity in the responses about the characteristics required of a successful scientist, the relative maturity of the knowledge that each scientist describes as ‘agreed’, and the mechanisms for evaluating provisional scientific knowledge.

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Discussion

At the start of the respective interviews each of the four scientists describes their topics of enquiry. The topics are diverse with little obvious overlap:

geology; mountain building and formation of metamorphic rocks (Clare)
health sciences; the workings of the heart at the level of molecular biology (Martin)
chemistry; breath analysis as a diagnostic tool (Claire)
applied ecology and conservation biology; how humans and ecological systems interrelate and influence each other (Phil).

Where the work of these researchers does overlap is that they see similar characteristics in successful scientists.

First, they discuss the need to be curious, enquiring and creative in identifying challenges.
Second, they discuss the need to be observant, analytical and sceptical in researching the challenges that have been identified.
Third, they argue for the need to be persuasive in convincing others that newly-published research has originality, rigour and significance.
Finally, they talk of the need for determination, perseverance and hard work, with cooperation required between researchers when working in teams.

The interviewees share other similarities. They are all working at the frontiers of scientific knowledge in their respective disciplines. As they conduct their investigations, these scientists draw on existing evidence and interpretations published by other researchers to further scientific knowledge.

For Phil and Martin, the agreed knowledge they discuss in relation to their respective topics of enquiry is more than 150 years old. Clare Warren’s comments about the science of plate tectonics point to more recent knowledge, but no less foundational in its importance to geologists.

Phil, Martin and Clare Warren accept that the agreed knowledge they discuss could be replaced, but it would be very unlikely given the respective bodies of evidence that support the three underpinning theories. In effect, scientists working in these respective disciplines have established a scientific consensus around what could be considered foundational knowledge for any entry-level researcher.

In contrast, Claire Turner discusses ancient knowledge about the links between smell and disease. She argues that it is only very recently that researchers have been able to analyse breath samples using scientific techniques (i.e. since the 1970s).

Further, she notes that her discipline has yet to develop agreed standards by which breath samples can be analysed consistently and rigorously. In essence, her discipline is working towards the foundational knowledge that Phil, Clare and Martin’s disciplines already have in place.

What should be apparent is that for all four scientists, the process of knowledge production is fundamental to their research. Scientific knowledge progresses from what has been previously known or agreed through processes of investigation, evaluation and verification. This process of verifying results happens at the level of individual scientists, checking and repeating experiments until they are satisfied that their findings are valid, but also at the level of the wider scientific community.

Most of the time, scientific progress involves small, incremental gains in knowledge, with each gain being verified independently by other scientists. This is in contrast to more fundamental shifts in understanding like the one described by Martin Bootman in Audio 2.

The work Martin describes can be characterised as a paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1996) because this research successfully challenged the existing scientific consensus in this academic field. He notes the time it took for the new evidence to become agreed knowledge. This required an initial publication (Lipp et al., 2000), evaluated through a process called peer review. This initial research was then further supported by other researchers who tested the original theory, and found it to be supported by evidence they published following peer review.

The interviews in the previous activity were recorded in the summer of 2016. Given the nature of contemporary science, these researchers have continued to produce new knowledge. If you are interested to see what they have been up to in the intervening period, complete the following optional activity.

Study note 2 Keeping up to date with the research(ers)

If you are interested in the work of the scientists and the interviewer who featured in Activity 3, you can find out more about their research from the following links to their Open University profiles: Clare Warren; Martin Bootman; Claire Turner; Phil Wheeler, and Richard Holliman.

4 How contemporary science works

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

This discussion of contemporary science will now expand by exploring some of the key aspects of how science works. This will include some discussion about the different approaches scientists take when they research, and how they assess and communicate the products from research. You will develop your appreciation of key areas of scientific knowledge and of the limits of such knowledge, and learn about some of the wider implications of scientific investigation.

From your experience of completing Activity 3, where you compared the perspectives of four scientists, you should already be able to see that scientists work in diverse areas, producing new knowledge that is subject to evaluation by colleagues and peers. In essence, this is how scientists work and the sciences progress, regardless of the academic discipline in question. This section will explore these issues in more detail.

Activity 4 Trust in science

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Watch the first five minutes of Video 3: ‘Sir Paul Nurse: Trust in Science’ (open the link in a separate window so you can easily return to this page). Sir Paul is Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, and former President of the Royal Society. As you watch the video, make some notes below on what he says concerning the way science is performed, evidenced and developed. You may want to play the section through a couple of times to familiarise yourself with his views on important issues in science.

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You can find many other interviews online where Sir Paul discusses these topics. Elsewhere, he has talked more expansively about how science works, discussing inductive and deductive approaches:

Inductive approaches: put simply, an inductive approach is where we collect evidence, and then generate theories from it. Inductive approaches tend to be exploratory in nature. They are often adopted when scientists are looking to explore a new field of enquiry or phenomenon.
Deductive approaches: if we adopt a deductive approach, we would start with a theory, develop a hypothesis, and then ‘test’ that hypothesis against a set of evidence. The test either proves or disproves the hypothesis and the original theory is adapted (or not) accordingly.

These two approaches to studying science are often conflated around the idea of a ‘scientific method’. The scientific method is an idea, or set of ideas, which has been around for centuries. It describes the process by which scientific ideas are formalised into research questions for further investigation. Put simply, this involves four stages:

observation
development of hypothesis or research question
investigation
interpretation

Crucially, the more data you collect, the more confident you can be in your results and your interpretations.

At first glance, the scientific method is a linear process going from observation to the formation of research questions to investigation to interpretation. But in practice, the way science is carried out is iterative: observation leads to the formation of research questions and investigation, but part of the subsequent interpretation is identifying new questions or refining the original research question.

Activity 3 showed that there are different ways that different scientific disciplines interpret the same basic set of principles. Further, it is important to note that not all sciences rely on empirical observation to advance their ideas. Some theoretical areas develop through the exploration or creation of theoretical models, or exploring logical or theoretical inconsistencies in existing ideas or theories. Ultimately though, for these theoretical ideas to be validated, they must be supported by empirical observation.

In another instance, Sir Paul Nurse offers some advice to journalists:

I think the important thing for a journalist looking at this is not to be naive. What they should do is look at the funding, look at the type of the research, look at what conflicts of interest there may be, and don’t simply have a sort of tick-box approach, ‘If it’s funded commercially, therefore we should be deeply suspicious’, because often that research is of the highest quality and it has been tested in the very highest standards, and don’t think that because it’s funded by an NGO, it’s got to be whiter than white, because it may not be, and don’t necessarily think just because it’s funded by the government, it’s completely without any value-driven stuff as well. Just don’t be naive.

BBC (2015)

Why is this so important, and how are findings from how science works shared with other scientists and wider society? These ideas are considered further in the next section.

5 Communicating contemporary science

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Communication is a vital component in the process that enables citizens and other stakeholders to engage with and evaluate contemporary science. Indeed, it is at the heart of scientific progress and public debate.

Sir Paul Nurse's advice to journalists in the previous section came, in part, as a response to an example where the communication of scientific information was deemed to have gone badly wrong. That example involved a now discredited suggestion, made at a press conference in 1998 by former doctor Andrew Wakefield, that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination might be implicated as a cause of autism, as he had recently reported (Wakefield et al., 1998).

Study note 3 Further study about the vaccination controversy

If you wish to learn more about the MMR vaccination controversy that was fueled by Wakefield’s comments, you can study another OpenLearn course ‘The MMR vaccine: Public health, private fears’. (Be aware that studying this course in its entirety would involve around 20 hours of study time.)

How, then, do scientists communicate with other scientists and members of the public when debates about the science in question are less heated?

Activity 5 Communicating and engaging with contemporary science

Timing: Allow about 25 minutes

Listen now to another interview conducted by Richard Holliman, in which he speaks to Victoria (Vic) Pearson. In this interview, Vic discusses her involvement in science communication and engagement as a research scientist working in the School of Physical Sciences at The Open University.

As you listen, make some notes on the following questions, in the box below the audio clip.

In what ways does Vic communicate science? Of these, which does she consider to be the most important, and why?
How does Vic define the role of a reviewer of scientific papers and other forms of scientific output? How does she evaluate the quality of scientific evidence in her discipline?
In what ways does Vic engage different stakeholders and members of the public with her science? Of these, which does she consider to be the most important, and why?
What are some of the benefits and drawbacks that Vic discusses in relation to communicating her science to, and engaging with, various members of the public?

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Audio 5 Richard Holliman interviews Vic Pearson.

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Transcript: Audio 5 Richard Holliman interviews Vic Pearson.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Hi. My name is Richard Holliman and I’m one of the Block 1 authors on S350 Evaluating contemporary science.

I’m here today with Vic Pearson, who works in the School of Physical Sciences at The Open University.

We’re here to discuss Vic’s involvement in science communication and engagement as a research scientist.

Vic, in what ways do you communicate science and of these, which do you consider to be the most important and why?

VIC PEARSON

I think the most important way that scientists communicate with other scientists is through the academic journal article.

So, publishing in journals in their own discipline, or in the all-important publishing in Science or Nature if you can achieve that.

But there’s other ways that we communicate too. So, I’ve also written technical reports that are seen by scientists and people in industry, based on work that we’ve done.

And we spend a lot of our time going to conferences where you’ll either present a presentation, or present a poster.

And I have to say I find a poster to be a more beneficial way of presenting science, because it means that you can actually talk to people on a one-to-one basis, and have a much longer discussion.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

It’s much more interactive…

VIC PEARSON

It’s much more interactive yeah. So a talk, you’re more likely to stand up and get somebody questioning you after your ten minutes who largely just wants to publicise what they’ve done in the field, rather than contribute to your research.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

You mentioned two journals there, and alluded to the fact that they may have been the pinnacle, if you like – Science and Nature – everybody wants to publish in Science and Nature.

So, there’s a kind of issue there about quality of research, so I’m kind of interested in how do you evaluate the quality of scientific research in your discipline?

VIC PEARSON

I think the first thing you look at is which journal is it published in, and I must admit that, if you work in a particular discipline, Science and Nature are the pinnacle.

But most papers are published in other journals, and which are not necessarily easier to publish in, but they publish more papers that are relevant to your own discipline.

So the first thing you’d look at is, ‘Where are they from?’ And then if I’m evaluating evidence in a paper I’d first look at the methodology. So, does their methodology meet the research question that they want to ask?

And then I start to drill down into the methods. Have they used the right instruments? Have they got the right approach? Have they got the right number of samples? So looking largely at experimental design.

And then from that do they actually have results that are reliable? Are they accurate? Are they reproducible? And then, do they actually answer the research question?

And, I think once you’ve got the handle on how reliable the data might be, then you start to look at whether or not they’re using information from other sources to support their conclusions.

You can’t really make a conclusion just based on the data in one paper. Nobody would do that. It’s got to have results brought in from elsewhere to support their conclusions. So, I think that’s broadly how I’d review it.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So you’ve given us some lovely examples of how you work as a reviewer to evaluate contemporary science, and noted the importance of publication in science as a way of furthering science.

I’m interested now in how you communicate and engage with different audiences, so different stakeholders and members of the public. Could you give us some examples of that?

VIC PEARSON

I have spent quite a lot of time talking to school children, and members of the general public, and I feel quite passionate about that.

So that can be anything from delivering a lecture or a talk to a class of school children, or I’ve been into primary schools where we do hands on, very fun activities to engage them with the science, not necessarily with them even realising it.

We’ve also got activities to talk to A-Level students where they’ve already made a choice about their career, and it’s more about enrichment and giving them an additional dimension to what they’re studying.

But I think one important part is also communicating with teachers. Communicating with students is great because it’s depending on which level they’re at. It’s about inspiring them, or it’s about encouraging them to a scientific career, or just about ensuring that they understand what science is, and what science is about. But teachers also need to be able to keep their teaching materials up to date.

So, I think it’s important that they have exposure to some of the contemporary science that’s going on today.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

So, if you like, it’s helping them with both content and skills development, and making sense of what science and how it’s changing.

VIC PEARSON

Yes, absolutely, because they will not necessarily have the time. Like the rest of us, they’re under pressure in terms of time, and so it’s a great opportunity, if somebody like me, or you, or anyone else in the faculty is able to go in and talk to their kids, they’ll pick something up at the same time.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

You’ve given us a kind of overview of the work you do to communicate with academic scientists, and a brief overview of some of the work in working with members of the public and different stakeholders.

So I’m kind of curious about what you see as some of the benefits and drawbacks of this, kind of, pretty comprehensive set of activities.

VIC PEARSON

So, I think the huge benefit to me is I really enjoy doing it. It’s really enjoyable. Yeah, we could spend all of our time at university in the lab or at our desk or in meetings, but actually going out and talking to people and telling them how passionate you are about your science is the best part of the job, I think. It also helps to raise the profile of your work.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

Okay. So, are there any drawbacks?

VIC PEARSON

Yeah, it takes a lot of time. It can be really time consuming, because it’s not just going into a school for an hour to do an activity. It’s the planning that you do before hand, and that’s on top of teaching and research commitments and other commitments that you might have at work.

It’s also quite difficult to persuade people when it doesn’t bring in cash, that it’s a good thing to do. So, we’re always looking at where to get more finances from.

There are public engagement grants that can support going into schools, or work with the general public, or other particular groups, which is one way of doing that.

But I suppose an altruistic way of looking at it is that we should just do it.

I guess another disadvantage, or drawback, is that some people do it who aren’t good at doing it. So, there’s swings and roundabouts. And I guess in some respects it’s self-selecting.

RICHARD HOLLIMAN

I mean, I certainly feel part of the agenda in this is sorting the wheat from the chaff if you like, saying, ‘You do this really well’, and supporting them effectively. But maybe that’s a conversation for another day.

So, I’ll say thanks Vic.

VIC PEARSON

You’re welcome.

End transcript: Audio 5 Richard Holliman interviews Vic Pearson.

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Audio 5 Richard Holliman interviews Vic Pearson.

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Discussion

Vic Pearson is a senior scientist with a wide range of experience in science communication and engagement.

In terms of science communication, she emphasises the importance of peer-reviewed academic research papers, both as a vehicle for science to progress and as a driver for career progression.

She notes that some academic journals are considered better quality than others, arguing that Science and Nature are two of the most prestigious journals to publish findings from scientific research.

Vic also discusses other routine forms of science communication, including poster presentations at academic conferences, and technical reports. In each case, the form of communication is targeted at a particular audience.

Vic goes on to describe her role as a formal and informal reviewer of other scientists’ work. You should be aware that scientists also informally review scientific information once it is published, as readers of newly-published research findings.

In essence, Vic goes through the same process whether she is formally or informally reviewing a paper. She systematically assesses each element of a scientific paper, starting with the methodology, matching this with the research design, and assessing the findings and the interpretations.

The discussion moves on at this point to consider how Vic engages non-academic groups with her science. Again, she lists a diverse set of activities, delivered to audiences that include school children and teachers. One of the key rationales for her work in this area is to keep young people and teachers up to date with cutting-edge research (Holliman et al., 2017), which is important because new research is being published all the time. In this respect, she reflects the findings of work conducted to explore the attitudes, culture and ethos of physical science researchers (Duncan et al., 2016).

Finally, Vic describes some of the benefits and drawbacks of her communication and engagement work. She is clearly passionate and enthusiastic about the need to work with public audiences, but also notes the time required to do this effectively. Again, this challenge reflects the findings of research conducted to explore the challenges and motivations of researchers as they seek to engage with members of the public (Grand et al., 2015).

This is made all the more challenging because this type of work doesn’t generate the same level of funding as research. It follows that engagement activities can fall down the priority list. This challenge can be exacerbated because, unlike research, there are few widely accepted criteria for what counts as excellent work in this area (Holliman and Davies, 2015).

Vic’s consumption of science news allows her to keep informed of developments outside of her specific scientific discipline. In this respect, she’s acting less as a scientist and more as a citizen interested in the sciences. What role then does science news, and therefore journalism, play in keeping citizens up to speed with developments in the sciences? This will be explored in the next section.

Study note 4 Learning more about science promotion

If you are interested in Vic’s research, you can use the following link to see her Open University profile and learn more about her recent work: Vic Pearson.

Similarly, if you are particularly interested in exploring approaches to science communication and engagement, you can study these issues in more detail with another OpenLearn course, ‘Science promotion’. (Be aware that studying this course in its entirety would involve around 12 hours of study time.)

6 Interpreting science news

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

An important part of being a scientist or a scientifically-informed citizen is being able to interpret scientific information that is represented in the public sphere.

By choosing to study this course, you have expressed an interest in learning about how contemporary science is conducted, and this course aims to help you build the skills and confidence to critically evaluate scientific research. However, it is also useful to have an idea of how to judge the value of science as it is reported to members of the public. The next activity presents some approaches that can be applied to this task.

Activity 6 Using ‘Score and ignore’ to assess news reports

Timing: Allow about 1 hour 15 minutes

Part 1

Begin by listening to the following audio clip, taken from a 2013 episode of BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science. Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University, discusses how he interprets science as it is reported on radio news bulletins. You do not need to make any notes on this interview, unless you particularly want to.

It's not explored in this short clip, but Kevin has developed a 12-point checklist for evaluating science news on the radio. You will have a chance to read this checklist shortly.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 6

Audio 6 Adam Rutherford interviews Kevin McConway for Inside Science.

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Transcript: Audio 6 Adam Rutherford interviews Kevin McConway for Inside Science.

ADAM RUTHERFORD

A study published in the British Medical Journal observed that there are higher incidences of various cardiovascular diseases in areas significantly affected by aeroplane noise. It’s a good, small study, and they’ve tried to account for some of the confounders – the factors that might affect that result, ethnicity, sex, age, socioeconomic background, and so forth.

But the headlines did what headlines do. Ealing Today went with ‘Living under a Flight Path can Damage your Health’, and the Independent, ‘Why Living near an Airport could be Bad for your Health’. So we went to statistician Professor Kevin McConway from The Open University, and I asked him what we can really conclude from that study.

KEVIN McCONWAY

Well in a sense we can’t conclude anything for sure. I mean all they really found was that if you live in areas where there’s more noise, and if we kind of allow for various differences between those areas, the people who live in those areas, taken as a whole, are more likely to have heart disease and strokes. What we can’t conclude directly from what they did is that aircraft noise is really bad for you. In fact we can’t conclude it’s bad for you at all. We can just say there’s an indication it might well be, and we ought to look further at it which is, what they say in the paper.

ADAM RUTHERFORD

So the paper itself is fine but the reporting of nuanced findings, where do the faults come in? How does it translate from being a nuanced paper in to being dramatic headlines?

KEVIN McCONWAY

I think the problem is that it’s difficult to get a nuance conclusion in to a headline. ‘Aircraft Noise Might be Bad for you or it Might Not’, you know, it kind of doesn’t sound very good. And it’s kind of indefinite. People want certainty, and I think you have to be conscious of the process by which the newspaper headline is produced.

Now in the press release for this story which I’ve seen, it gave the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to a certain extent. It said, well you know they found this relationship between noise and heart disease and strokes, but they really don’t know that that’s causal. And they reported that fairly in the press release, but then it gets in to the paper. There’s another filtering process.

ADAM RUTHERFORD

And when it gets in to the paper some of the reports and some of the headlines that we’ve heard have made one of the classic errors, which is to confuse correlation with causation. So we see a relationship in the paper between aircraft noise and an increase in cardiovascular disease, but what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that they’re causing one another.

KEVIN McCONWAY

Well it doesn’t mean for sure that they’re causing one another. A possibility is that one’s causing the other. So you can’t say, ‘Well these two things are correlated, but it isn’t the case that one’s causing the other’ because you don’t know that definitely, either. It might well be the case that aircraft noise does cause these diseases, but it might not be.

End transcript: Audio 6 Adam Rutherford interviews Kevin McConway for Inside Science.

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Audio 6 Adam Rutherford interviews Kevin McConway for Inside Science.

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With his co-author, Professor David Spiegelhalter, Kevin expands on the points he makes in the audio feature in a written article ‘Score and ignore: A radio listener’s guide to ignoring health stories’ (McConway and Spiegelhalter, 2012). Take a look at this article – you can use the box below to make your own notes about the content, if you wish, and it would be logical to focus on how he critically assesses the reports on science.

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Part 2

Now you will use McConway and Spiegelhalter’s checklist to evaluate two online news articles that report contemporary scientific research:

McGrath, M. (2016) ‘Men may have evolved better ‘making up’ skills’, BBC News website.
Johnston, I. (2016) ‘Nature videos seem to make maximum security prisoners less violent’, Independent.

First, read each story, and score it against the 12 points from the McConway and Spiegelhalter (2012) article.

Now answer the following questions based on your analysis:

Which article scored highest?
If you found one article to be particularly low scoring, what made it so?

When you’ve finished your evaluation, read the discussion provided below.

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Discussion

Here are some thoughts on how each article can be assessed through McConway and Spiegelhalter’s checklist. (Don’t worry if your answers differ from these to some degree – evaluation of this sort is a subjective exercise.)

Analysis of McGrath (2016)

Just observing people? Yes, just looked at recordings.
Original information unavailable? No, it is mentioned that the paper was published in Current Biology and a link provided.
Headline exaggerated? No, headline suggests it is only a possibility.
No independent comment? No, independent comments included.
‘Higher risk’? No, risks not really mentioned.
Unjustified advice? Not really.
Might be explained by something else? Yes, other explanations are possible, as correlation does not mean causation.
Public relations puff? Yes, it is a sports and gender story that will attract attention.
Half the picture? No.
Relevance unclear? Yes, it is related to business but the data don’t apply to business situations.
Yet another single study? Yes.
Small? Yes.

Total score: 7/12

Analysis of Johnston (2016)

Just observing people? No, there was a control group.
Original information unavailable? Yes, the research was presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention. Therefore you would have to search for the associated publication which was only published much later in September 2017 in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1518
Headline exaggerated? No, uses the word ‘seems’.
No independent comment? Yes, only researchers quoted.
‘Higher risk’? No, risks not really discussed that would affect the public.
Unjustified advice? No, advice not relevant to the public in this context.
Might be explained by something else? Yes, and the authors acknowledge this.
Public relations puff? Yes, the story is about criminals to attract people’s attention.
Half the picture? Yes, but hard to say for definite as the data are unavailable.
Relevance unclear? No, relevance is clear for reducing violence in prison.
Yet another single study? No, several studies are mentioned.
Small? Possibly, study size not given.

Total score: 5/12, but note that the information is less clear in this second article and can’t be easily verified, as the article refers to a presentation rather than a peer-reviewed paper.

Now that you’ve practiced some techniques for critically appraising information that is presented to you, the next few sections of the course will explore a scientific area in some closer detail. The topic is plastics in society. You don’t need to worry if this topic is new to you, and you don’t follow all of the science that will be explored. This will be an exercise in gauging your current knowledge of a subject, learning some new information, and examining how the subject relates to and impacts your own life, before using the skills you’ve just developed to evaluate some sources of information about plastics.

7 Introducing plastics in society

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

In recent years, the multifaceted issues around plastics in society have been widely reported in various media. One high profile example was in an episode of the BBC documentary series Blue Planet 2 (‘Our Blue Planet’), where Sir David Attenborough examines the impact of human life on life in the ocean, and especially the damage done by discarded plastic waste.

Study note 5 Blue Planet

If you're interested, you can find out more about Blue Planet 2 and Blue Planet Live on our dedicated pages:

Blue Planet 2

Blue Planet Live

Despite this, it should be remembered that scientific knowledge does not stand still, and there is some positive news in this field of research. For instance, Austin et al. (2018) reported a novel enzyme that could degrade the most common type of polyester – so-called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. As this course explores how scientific research is carried out and reported, we will now consider the science of this group of materials, which have become integral to our everyday lives.

Plastics are some of the most useful materials on Earth. They are almost entirely man-made, and the world around us would look very different without them. But they can also present challenges to the environment and human health. For example, there is growing concern about plastic materials (Eriksen et al., 2014) and microplastics (Vandermeersch et al., 2015; Welden and Cowie, 2017) in the oceans, and consequently the food chain. Therefore, anyone who is interested in science – from the fundamentals of chemistry, or the properties of materials, to human health and the future of the planet – needs to take an interest in plastics!

The first truly artificial synthetic plastic, Bakelite™, was developed in 1907 and since then, many more plastics have been introduced (Thompson et al., 2009). Today’s plastics are everyday materials, but they represent a great many inventions by a huge number of scientists from a number of disciplines.

If you look up plastic on the Oxford Dictionaries website (2018), the entry returned is:

A synthetic material made from a wide range of organic polymers such as polyethylene, PVC, nylon, etc., that can be moulded into shape while soft, and then set into a rigid or slightly elastic form.

Additionally, the entry for a bioplastic is:

A type of biodegradable plastic derived from biological substances rather than petroleum.

And microplastics are:

Extremely small pieces of plastic debris in the environment resulting from the disposal and breakdown of consumer products and industrial waste.

Scientific research into plastics and their many applications are ongoing, with many thousands of papers published on the subject each year. Exciting new applications appear daily, such as advances in 3D printing with plastics (Figure 1), novel antibacterial plastics and the development of new bioplastics that are not derived from petroleum.

Figure 1 A 3D printer producing a plastic bracelet.

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This photograph shows a 3D printer printing a bright green plastic bracelet. The bracelet is quite intricate in its design. It is also notable that the 3D printer is positioned on two small tables.

Figure 1 A 3D printer producing a plastic bracelet.

The contemporary topic of plastics in society involves many multidisciplinary current research issues. These issues arise during their production, use, disposal and the development of materials with novel properties. For example, research teams are exploring concepts such as:

novel plastic materials, like as bioplastics or gels (chemistry, biochemistry and materials science)
the formation and properties of microplastics (chemistry and materials science)
the environmental and ecological effects of plastics in the oceans (biology and environmental science)
the health effects from the leaching of chemicals from plastics, for example bisphenol A (BPA), which has been a source of some debate in recent years, following concerns about its safety for use in food packaging and containers (health science, biology and biochemistry)
the presence of plastic as an indicator in geological deposits, where they can exist for an extremely long time in sediment (environmental and Earth science)
the science behind efficient recycling (chemistry and materials science).

Question 1 Plastics in everday life

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes

Try to identify ten items that you regularly use in everyday life that comprise a significant amount of plastic.

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Answer

Your list might include, for example:

a polyester jacket
a milk bottle
a polyethene bag
a laptop
a mobile phone
the dashboard in a car
a window frame made from PVC
the coating on electric cable
the coating on a tablet
a yogurt pot.

Plastics are also ubiquitous in many workplace environments. For example, if you were working in a laboratory, it’s likely your list would include the following (some of these are shown in Figure 2):

sample bottle
sample vial
pipette tip
syringe
microscope slide
Teflon™ stirrer bar
dialysis tubing
connecting tubing for a water supply
well plate
beaker.

Figure 2 Several polypropylene laboratory items.

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This figure displays several polypropylene items for laboratory use. This includes three different tips for a pipette, twelve different Eppendorf tubes and three different centrifuge tubes. Note the blue and orange caps for the centrifuge tubes are not made of polypropylene and these tubes have a scale on them in millilitres.

Figure 2 Several polypropylene laboratory items.

7.1 Some aspects of the science of plastics

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Let’s spend a few moments looking at some of the science that underlies plastics and their production.

Plastics are comprised of so-called polymer molecules, where a long molecular chain is formed from a repeating molecular unit. (This name derives from the Greek: poly + meros = ‘many’ + ‘parts’). Furthermore, the term ‘polymer’ explains the use of the term ‘poly’ in the chemical names of plastics that you met in the previous section.

As an example, let us consider the relatively simple structure of polyethene, which is, at a basic level, the molecule (CH₂CH₂)_n, where n is a large number resulting in a molecule with a long chain (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 Illustration of a section of the chemical structure of polyethene.

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This figure illustrates the chemical structure of polyethylene, i.e. (CH₂CH₂)_n, where n is a large number. Sections of the polyethylene structure have been drawn out to better show how the repeating CH₂ units are linked together by a bond that is illustrated by a line. This starts to show the chain structure of polyethylene and also that there are so-called cross-linking groups connecting these chains together, in this case simply another CH₂ unit.

Figure 3 Illustration of a section of the chemical structure of polyethene.

The value of n, and how the individual chains are connected to each other (which is known as cross-linking; see the CH–CH₂–CH arrangement next to the blue label in Figure 3), largely determines the properties observed for the plastic. These properties include the plastic’s density and melting temperature, which can be varied by altering the chemical production process.

This makes plastics like polythene highly versatile, and some everyday variations include:

low density polyethene (LDPE), which is used in food packaging trays, wire insulation
medium density polyethene (MDPE), which is used in carrier bags and shrink film
high density polyethene (HDPE), which is used in milk bottles, soft drink bottle caps, pipes and some surgical implants.

Other chemicals may be added to the plastic to change the colour, act as antioxidants, improve how it wears or increase its plasticity or fluidity, where the latter chemicals are called plasticisers. However, additives in plastics sometimes cause health and environmental concerns if they leach out of the material, and this is an active area of research.

Question 2 Plastic degradation

Timing: Allow about 2 minutes

From your own observations, how easily do plastics degrade in the environment?

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Answer

You will probably realise from the amount of plastic litter that is often observed in the outdoors (see Figure 4) that plastics are slow to degrade in the environment.

Figure 4 Plastic materials in the environment.

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This is a photograph of several mostly coloured plastic materials that have been discarded in the environment. These plastic items are mixed within some seaweed on a beach. Several of the items are broken but it is possible to identify a water bottle and some clear plastic film.

Figure 4 Plastic materials in the environment.

Polyethene is rather chemically inert; this is a property that may be either beneficial or problematic during the lifetime of a product made from it. Video 4, dating from September 2015, considers some aspects of polyethene in the environment, and one way that scientific research is progressing for plastics.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4

Video 4 New biodegradable materials could replace plastic bags.

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Transcript: Video 4 New biodegradable materials could replace plastic bags.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CARL BOARDMAN

At the moment in the United Kingdom, when we shop at supermarkets like this, we are currently using over eight billion single-use carrier bags a year, which equates to approximately 60 000 tonnes of plastic – or about 130 bags per person.

Most single-use carrier bags – like this one here – are made out of fossil fuel derived polyethylene, and was subject to a five pence levy in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland – and in the near future England, too. The UK government is expected to amend this policy to include an exemption for new, innovative biodegradable carrier bags, which is where our research at The Open University comes in where we develop biodegradable polymer films, such as this one here.

Here at The Open University, we’re helping UK industry develop new biodegradable plastic carrier bags and packaging materials. When developing biodegradable plastics, our target is for materials to lose 90% of their carbon content within less than one year whilst at the same time having no toxic properties.

In our labs, we’re working in partnership with DEFRA and a UK polymer company to undertake a series of biodegradability and ecotoxicology experiments and tests. To do this, we use instruments, such as this respirometer, which measures the breakdown of plastic materials through the evolution of carbon dioxide. This setup is currently simulating idealised composting conditions.

Within each of these vessels, we have a compost type material and plastic carrier bag film cut up into tiny pieces so the two mediums can interact with one another. Because it’s idealised, we have high temperatures and constant aeration through these inlet and outlet tubes here, which feed directly into our gas analysers. In this instance, measuring a high amount of CO₂ from the compost and plastic mix indicates biological breakdown and a positive result.

Today’s carrier bags mainly end up in landfill sites, but many evade waste treatment and recycling processes altogether and end up littered all over the countryside, or perhaps more worryingly, in the world’s oceans. The world’s oceans are currently estimated to contain over five trillion pieces of plastic – or put another way, about 270 000 tonnes. Here, plastics represent a threat to animals through entanglement, choking, and poisoning.

So in the future, bags that we’ve helped develop will avoid the five pence levy and have a reduced environmental footprint as well.

End transcript: Video 4 New biodegradable materials could replace plastic bags.

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Video 4 New biodegradable materials could replace plastic bags.

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Question 3 Chemical inertness

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes

Considering the examples of everyday use given above, and the other information you've read so far, can you suggest when the chemical inertness of polyethene might be useful, and when it might be a problem?

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Answer

In food packaging, chemical inertness is a benefit as it means there will be no unwanted reactions that alter the taste of the products. Similarly, when used as a medical implant, there are generally no unwanted reactions to the implant in the patient’s body.

However, at the end of a product’s lifetime, this inertness may become a real problem, depending on how it is treated by society. If it is simply discarded, its lack of reactivity means that it will exist in the environment for a significant time, either as litter on land or pollution in the ocean (see Figure 5).

Maximise

Figure 5 Decomposition of common materials (many of them plastics) in the ocean.

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This is a poster entitled ‘How long until it’s gone?’ showing the estimated decomposition rates of common marine debris items many of which are plastic items. The items and their decomposition rates are a paper tissue (3–4 weeks); newspaper (6 weeks); apple core (2 months); cardboard box (2 months); waxed carton (3 months); photo-degradable beverage holder (6 months); cotton shirt (2–5 months); plywood (1–3 years); wool socks (1–5 years); cigarette butt (1–5 years); plastic grocery bag (10–20 years); styrofoam cup (50 years); foamed buoy (50 years); tin can (50 years); aluminium can (200 years); plastic beverage holder (400 years); plastic bottle (450 years); disposable diaper (450 years); fishing line (600 years) and a glass bottle (undetermined).

Figure 5 Decomposition of common materials (many of them plastics) in the ocean.

Video 4 suggested there is estimated to be 5 trillion pieces of plastic, or about 270 000 tonnes, in the oceans. It is noteworthy that this figure only refers to the plastic floating in the ocean (Eriksen et al., 2014). It is also noteworthy that other studies have estimated different quantities of plastic in the oceans. For example, Jambeck et al. (2015), proposed that in 2010 around 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes entered the oceans. The range represented by the estimates from these two papers illustrates the extent to which we need to further develop our knowledge of exactly what impact plastics are having on our environment. Additionally, we need to develop better waste management for plastic wastes and more sustainable alternatives.

If a waste plastic is to be recycled, then the ease with which this can be performed depends on how many other types of plastic and other materials are present in the complete waste sample. The disposal of waste plastics, as it links to plastic pollution, is currently an important scientific challenge for society, particularly in terms of the efficiency of any proposed recycling processes (Carné Sánchez and Collinson, 2011).

The environmental and human health risks posed by discarded plastics are subject to much debate and research. Undertaking further work in this area could produce a more thorough risk–benefit analysis of the use of plastics in society, but the viewpoint and/or the scope of analysis would have to be carefully defined.

The scope might be narrow when considering the use of a particular plastic item in an application, such as polyester polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in single-use water bottles. Alternatively, it could be much wider, considering the science behind the formation, use and disposal of a particular plastic item. (For example: the use of polyester fibres (including PET) comprising a mix of both new and recycled materials; their application in textiles; and their collection, and the pros and cons of sorting and recycling such materials versus their disposal to landfill or for energy recovery.)

Strong supporting evidence needs to be provided, in the form of references to critically reviewed research and published data, for any such studies. This is often necessary when scientists produce reports for stakeholders, such as the public or government.

Question 4 Plastics and oil

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes

Currently, most plastics are synthesised from oil, so manufacturing plastics might be expected to increase our use of oil. Can you think of a circumstance where this would not be the case?

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Answer

If the plastic is used to produce a lightweight container, then the associated use of diesel fuel to transport the containers will be lower overall than it would be if the containers were heavier (for example, transporting soft-drink plastic bottles compared to glass bottles).

Alternatively, if the plastic was derived from a natural source (i.e. it was a bioplastic) then it would be more sustainable than if it had been made from conventional, hydrocarbon polymers.

Shortly you will examine an example of an online article and some discussion of research literature on plastics. An important aspect of reading new materials to aid your understanding is to develop a glossary of new terms. You will now consider briefly how you might go about preparing such a glossary.

7.2 Preparing a glossary

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

You may have already come across a certain amount of new or unfamiliar scientific information while working through this section of the course. This is a natural part of the learning process, and is commonplace in disciplines with lots of specialist language and terminology, but it can seem daunting at times.

An important skill – both when learning for leisure or for a qualification, and possibly in your career, too – is to be able to quickly and confidently find definitions for unfamiliar terms, and make note of them for future reference. The terms that you include in such a glossary can be entirely of your choosing, because its purpose is solely to help you better understand what you are reading about.

There are many online dictionaries and encyclopedias that you can use to compile your own glossary as you learn. For example, you could choose to search general dictionaries (such as the Oxford Dictionaries website), which will provide a basic definition of a term. This may be enough information to explain a term, or to confirm or enhance your understanding of it.

Alternatively, you could use a subject specific dictionary, to access a potentially more detailed definition. Many specialised dictionaries are available via the Oxford References website. Sadly, many other such dictionaries are currently only available in printed format, although you may be able to find copies in your local library.

If you require a much more detailed definition, then an encyclopedia may be a better choice. Such entries are likely to provide a lot of information – some of which might not be relevant to your particular line of enquiry – so you may need to be more selective when summarising the details in your own glossary entry for the term.

The first resource that comes to mind when thinking about encyclopedias may be Wikipedia, but this may not always be the best place to start. (You will consider the quality of some information from Wikipedia in the next section.) Other such resources are available, though, and a popular alternative is the Encyclopaedia Britannica website.

Optional activity: exploring encyclopedia entries

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes.

Use the Encyclopaedia Britannica website to further your understanding of the term ‘bioplastic’. Then briefly explain why bioplastics are currently not widely used in manufacturing. (Limit your answer to two or three sentences.)

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Answer

The short answer is that the cost of bioplastics and the efficiency with which they can be produced are currently barriers to their use in manufacturing. To quote the bioplastics entry, ‘Bioplastics currently make up an insignificant portion of total world production of plastics. Commercial manufacturing processes are plagued by low yields and are expensive’ (Fridovich-Keil, 2016).

It is noteworthy that if you were to use this information in a report, you should write it in your own words to confirm and demonstrate your understanding, but also cite the source of the original information, as has been done here.

The advantage of using an online dictionary or encyclopaedia in comparison to a simple web search is that you can (generally) be more confident of the accuracy of the information that you obtain, and you avoid a bewildering number of ‘hits’ that may contain contradictory information. The key, though, is selecting the appropriate resource for the research that you are undertaking. For the purposes of building a glossary of terms, this is most likely to be whichever type of resource provides the most concise, intelligible, and trustworthy information.

8 Evaluating reported information

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Contemporary science is reported through a variety of media and genres, such as newspapers, scientific articles, formal written reports, to online and/or social media content. The chosen communication method (or methods) depends, in part, on the perceived reader, and whether the intended purpose of the communication is to inform the public, other scientists or a specific group of stakeholders, such as a government minister or an industrial sector.

In this section you will consider some examples of reports, scientific articles and websites, and look at methods of analysing their content. Scientific articles are time consuming, both to read and to understand every aspect, so you will often find it helpful to consider using reading techniques such as scanning text and speed reading.

Box 1 Skimming an article

You are probably already used to ‘skim reading’ when you read news stories in print or online. This is often the first, intuitive step in deciding whether or not to read a particular story (or review, blog, etc.).

When you skim a piece of writing, you read quickly to get an overview before you start to read in depth. Although you may still need to read the entire text, you can decide where you want to concentrate your time.

Skimming the text quickly involves:

getting an indication of the scope and content of the information
looking at the first sentence of each paragraph to see what it’s about
noting the key points in any summaries.

These approaches are equally applicable when trying to gain an impression of a piece of academic writing. Here, you may wish to focus on components such as the headings used, as well as any images and tables (and their captions).

With practice, you can become more adept at quickly scanning through material to get a sense of both the facts being presented and also which parts of the report or article are the most relevant to the information you are hoping to obtain. These are vital study skills.

Practices like summarising information and producing glossary lists can also help to build your understanding, particularly when faced with complex subjects. Such activities should take place after an initial skim of the material, though, as your first quick read through will help you to decide whether the material is both useful for your purposes and suitably reliable. This latter idea is explored further in the next section.

8.1 The PROMPT criteria

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

When studying a report about science, or searching for and reading the scientific literature, you should remember to use a system like the ‘PROMPT’ criteria, which are presented in Table 1. Such approaches provide a logical framework against which to assess the quality of the information or data presented.

It should be recognised, though, that not all criteria may be entirely appropriate to apply for a given article. Indeed, the concept was originally designed to assess research literature, rather than news or other online content. Similarly, other frameworks are available for evaluating scientific articles (Hoskins et al., 2007 and 2011), but PROMPT provides a useful starting point when thinking about analysing written information.

**Table 1** The PROMPT criteria used to assess the quality of information
Presentation	Is the information as readable as it could be, given its age, condition and format? Is the information clearly laid out and easy to navigate? Is it obscured by busy designs, animations or images?
Relevance	Does the information you have found meet the need you have identified? Does it make sense in the particular context in which you are working? (Here you could consider what the scope of the article is, and whether what you are researching fits within that.)
Objectivity	Does the author or owner of the information make clear their own position, and/or alternative views? Who funded the research, where was it conducted, and consequently, is there any potential for bias in the interpretation? Is it published in a peer-reviewed journal? Are the findings evidenced by reliable references?
Method	Is it clear how the research was carried out? Were the methods appropriate? Does it permit the author to come to a sound and reasonable conclusion?
Provenance	Can the author or source of the information be considered a reliable authority on the subject? To address this, you could consider things like: Do they have several publications in this area? What is their position: are they an academic in a university or a research institute, or a citizen scientist? Has the information been peer reviewed by appropriate individuals?
Timeliness	When was the information produced? Is it recent, dated or obsolete? Does the age of the information matter on this occasion? (To answer this, consider perhaps whether the work has been cited recently by others.)

You may find the PROMPT criteria valuable in deciding which articles to study in the future. For instance, if you need to decide which of two articles to consider in detail, you could briefly work through a PROMPT analysis for each article, scoring them between 1 and 5 for each criterion (say, where 1 = good and 5 = poor). At the end of your PROMPT evaluation, add up the scores. You can then use this information to quickly compare the two articles, and make a more informed decision about which one would be most useful to study further.

When you have applied PROMPT a couple of times, you’ll find yourself using it as a matter of routine.

In the next activity, you will consider a report on plastic pollution in the ocean. First, as an introduction to one aspect of this topic, you should watch Video 5.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5

Video 5 Plastics in the ocean.

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Transcript: Video 5 Plastics in the ocean.

RICHARD THOMPSON

Over a third of the plastic that we produce is used for single trip applications. And we’re sort of taught that those are throwaway items, and that the plastic at the end of its life sort of has no value. But it’s that behaviour that results in littering. It results in accumulation in landfills. It results in debris being left behind by beachgoers. And all of that material is accumulating in the environment.

LIZ BONNIN

This stretch of water is meant to be unpolluted, so Richard doesn’t expect to find much plastic. If we’ve caught anything, it’s bad news. Yeah, I can see plastic. There’s a lot of seaweed, but yeah. There’s definitely bits of plastic in there. Everything from – I don’t know what this is, but – but they’re small.

RICHARD THOMPSON

Yeah. The effects of small bits of debris are less well known and potentially quite different to those that we might think of in terms of larger debris causing strangulation or lacerations. We’ve got very small pieces that could become trapped and retained. And there’s also concern that some of these small pieces could act as a vector for the transport of chemicals to the creatures that ingest them.

LIZ BONNIN

Recent research suggests these tiny bits of plastic attract pollutants, making them even more toxic to wildlife. All of this is bad enough, but it turns out it’s not the open seas that are suffering the most.

RICHARD THOMPSON

So Liz, the reason I wanted to bring you here was because some of the plastic we were looking at in the sea, of course that all washes up on shorelines.

LIZ BONNIN

Yeah.

RICHARD THOMPSON

If I dig my hands down, there’s actually hundreds of small pieces of plastic. All of the shorelines that we’ve sampled worldwide, from the Southern Ocean up to the Arctic, we’ve found microscopic fragments of plastic on all of those shores.

LIZ BONNIN

Even if plastic breaks down into minuscule fragments, it’ll never disappear. And now there’s a danger it can get into our food chain, a food chain that starts with tiny creatures.

RICHARD THOMPSON

One of the ones we looked at was these sandhoppers will readily eat small fragments of plastic. In fact, they’ll even chew away at the corner of a plastic bag.

LIZ BONNIN

Oh my gosh. So these are the little critters that will be going through the really tiny plastic particles, is that right?

RICHARD THOMPSON

Yeah. I mean they’d normally be shredding natural organic material, seaweeds.

LIZ BONNIN

Yeah. So how much damage do we think this might be causing these little fellows?

RICHARD THOMPSON

Well, that’s really one of the great unknowns. And it’s something that we’re really trying to establish with some of the research that we’re doing at Plymouth, is what is the potential harm from these microscopic fragments of plastic in the environment.

LIZ BONNIN

Until we can prevent waste plastic from getting into our oceans, it seems unavoidable that it will end up in our food chain. What we need to find out next is how that might affect our wellbeing.

End transcript: Video 5 Plastics in the ocean.

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Video 5 Plastics in the ocean.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Question 5 Smaller plastic particles

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes

Based on what you heard in Video 5, why are there growing concerns about the smaller plastic particles?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Answer

There are growing concerns as the effects of small bits of debris are less well known, and over whether the small plastic particles can become trapped and retained after ingestion by wildlife. They may also act as a vector to transport chemicals to the creatures that ingest them, which could make them toxic to other animals. This affects both creatures in the seas, beaches and consequently may influence our food chain.

8.2 Applying PROMPT to an online article

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

You will now consider an online article on plastic pollution that is communicated via Wikipedia. It is worth noting that there have been many studies analysing the content of Wikipedia, which were reviewed recently by Mesgari et al. (2015), where mixed results were reported concerning the content, reliability and contributors.

For example, in a comparison with Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia was found to contain more factual errors, omissions or misleading statements in the science articles that were selected (Giles, 2005). In particular, health and medical articles were of concern, which is not surprising as some of the guidance for preparing Wikipedia articles discourages the use of information such as the dose of a drug.

Additionally, a study by Wilson and Likens (2015) showed that scientific articles were often volatile in their content when the subject was politically controversial, to the possible detriment of scientific accuracy. Consequently, it will be informative to use PROMPT to evaluate the article in question in this activity.

Activity 7 Using PROMPT to evaluate a Wikipedia article

Timing: Allow about 1 hour 15 minutes

Here you will apply what you have just learned about assessing scientific information to evaluate the ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018). This article typically appears on a web search for ‘plastic’, ‘ocean’, ‘debris’ and ‘microplastic’, all terms you might use if you were looking for some introductory material on the topic of plastic pollution.

As this is quite a long article, if you have limited time available you can choose to only skim read the sections entitled ‘Policy’, ‘Institutional Arrangements in Canada’, ‘Collection’ and ‘Action for creating awareness’.

As you read the article, you should address the following aspects:

Apply PROMPT, and score the article out of 5 against each of the six criteria (where 1 = good and 5 = poor). You can write notes to justify the score you have given in the spaces available below, if you wish.
Identify any new terms and add them to a glossary list, if you wish to produce one.
Note any aspect that is mentioned as an ongoing area of research that particularly interests you.
Consider if any aspects are underdeveloped.

**Table 2** Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018)
Presentation	Is the information as readable as it could be, given its age, condition and format? Is the information clearly laid out and easy to navigate? Is it obscured by busy designs, animations or images?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 1, Your response 1
Relevance	Does the information you have found meet the need you have identified? Does it make sense in the particular context in which you are working?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 2, Your response 2
Objectivity	Does the author or owner of the information make clear their own position, and/or alternative views? Who funded the research, where was it conducted, and consequently, is there any potential for bias in the interpretation? Is it published in a peer-reviewed journal? Are the findings evidenced by reliable references?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 3, Your response 3
Method	Is it clear how the research was carried out? Were the methods appropriate? Does it permit the author to come to a sound and reasonable conclusion?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 4, Your response 4
Provenance	Can the author or source of the information be considered a reliable authority on the subject? To address this, consider things like: Do they have several publications in this area? What is their position: are they an academic in a university or a research institute, or a citizen scientist? Has the information been peer reviewed by appropriate individuals?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 5, Your response 5
Timeliness	When was the information produced? Is it recent, dated or obsolete? Does the age of the information matter on this occasion?
	Table 2 Evaluation with PROMPT for ‘Plastic pollution’ entry in Wikipedia (2018) 6, Your response 6

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

When you have finished reviewing the article, reveal the discussion below to see the results from a ranking in July 2018.

Discussion

The scores that you gave to the article based on each PROMPT principle will depend on your own impression of the information presented. This is a necessarily subjective exercise in which it is up to you to determine how reliable you think the report is.

However, for reference, the table below shows some reflections on each aspect, including where we felt some ideas require further development. You are not expected to have gone into as much detail as is shown below, but it is provided to show how the framework can be put to use. Note, also, that the article may have been developed further since this evaluation in 2018.

**Table 3** Evaluation with PROMPT for *Plastic Pollution* entry in Wikipedia (evaluated on 09/07/18)
Presentation	Is the information as readable as it could be, given its age, condition and format? Is the information clearly laid out and easy to navigate? Is it obscured by busy designs, animations or images?
	In July 2018, this article was the subject of several discussions over how it could be improved. Many of the sections are quite readable, whereas others, such as ‘Institutional Arrangements in Canada’, are harder to read. The figures are illustrative and useful. There are some contradictions, e.g. the term ‘nurdle’ is used in several different contexts – the first one ‘Microdebris is more commonly referred to as nurdles’ is a narrow definition and so is technically incorrect, as according to the Oxford Dictionaries website (2018) a nurdle is ‘a very small pellet of plastic which serves as raw material in the manufacture of plastic products’. Score = 2
Relevance	Does the information you have found meet the need you have identified? Does it make sense in the particular context in which you are working?
	Some of the information is very general, whereas other sections are very focused on a specific geographical location. Score = 2
Objectivity	Does the author or owner of the information make clear their own position, and/or alternative views? Who funded the research, where was it conducted, and consequently, is there any potential for bias in the interpretation? Is it published in a peer-reviewed journal? Are the findings evidenced by reliable references?
	This is not a very balanced article because the importance and benefits of plastics to society are not discussed. Similarly, efforts to tackle plastic pollution receive only limited discussion. For example, the article states that when bioplastics are broken down, methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) is released. However, it fails to balance this with the fact that when most naturally-occurring materials break down, they too will release methane. The section entitled ‘Effects on humans’ fails to mention the great many benefits that the use of plastics brings in a multitude of applications to human health. Likewise, it discusses health effects but fails to identify an appropriate pathway for plastic pollution to contribute to this. It is unlikely that exposure through the ‘nose, mouth or skin’ is realistic for additives in plastic pollution, and in reality it is more likely that the exposure of humans to bisphenol A (BPA) from plastics comes from food packaging, not plastic pollution. Likewise, little coverage is given to schemes to tackle the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean, such as beach clean-up or ocean clean-up programmes. Score = 4
Method	Is it clear how the research was carried out? Were the methods appropriate? Does it permit the author to come to a sound and reasonable conclusion?
	As Wikipedia is generally editable by anyone with internet access, it is not clear what efforts contributors took to research their entries to ensure that they were balanced and free from bias. Score = 4
Provenance	Can the author or source of the information be considered a reliable authority on the subject? To address this, consider things like: Do they have several publications in this area? What is their position: are they an academic in a university or a research institute, or a citizen scientist? Has the information been peer reviewed by appropriate individuals?
	Most of the data is referenced; however, the reliability of some of this data is debatable – there are several articles that are news items, which will already be susceptible to a journalist interpreting the work of others. For example, the following statement is not supported by the associated reference (Fernandez et al., 1999), which has a different focus and does not even mention immune disorders or birth defects. ‘Plankton, fish, and ultimately the human race, through the food chain, ingest these highly toxic carcinogens and chemicals. Consuming the fish that contain these toxins can cause an increase in cancer, immune disorders, and birth defects.’ Indeed, the ‘Abstract’ section in Fernandez et al. (1999) points at an inverse relationship between the ingestion of fish and some cancers, stating that they found ‘a consistent pattern of protection against the risk of digestive tract cancers with fish consumption’. Furthermore, the section entitled ‘Oceans’ talks about additives in plastics as ‘toxic chemicals’. However, if we take BPA as an example, its acute toxicology (i.e. its effects over short periods) is classified in the lowest category, 5, because its median lethal dose (LD₅₀, rat, oral) is 3.25 g/kg. This means it has similar acute toxicity to common salt (sodium chloride, LD₅₀ (rat, oral) = 3 g/kg), which we consume in much higher levels. Note it is BPA’s chronic toxicology (i.e. its long-term effects) that is of more concern, as it is a potential endocrine disruptor. This means that it is a substance that can interfere with the body’s hormone system above certain doses. So, it would be better for the article to be clearer about the type of toxicity being referred to, in order to help prevent any concern from the public. Score = 4
Timeliness	When was the information produced? Is it recent, dated or obsolete? Does the age of the information matter on this occasion?
	The timeliness is potentially good as it can be edited regularly; however, some of the references are now quite old, with some dating from 1973, 1997 and 1999. Furthermore, older references have not been updated so, to give an example, the section on the ‘Decomposition of plastics’ is confusing as it states in one sentence that polymer degradation takes longer than expected in the sea, and in the next that plastics in the ocean degrade quicker than expected. In reality, the scientific problem here is complicated; the term ‘plastics’ covers a wide range of compounds that will display differing degradation rates in the ocean, but they are not differentiated between in the Wikipedia article. Score = 3

The total PROMPT score given to the article is 19, based on the individual scores for each criterion. It is somewhat difficult to put this score into context, other than to say that if an excellent article merits a score of 6 (i.e. 1 points × 6 criteria) and a completely unreliable one scores 30 (5 points × 6 criteria), then this Wikipedia report tends slightly towards the higher end of the scale, on the basis of our analysis.

Because of the way that content is produced for Wikipedia, it is likely that this score will alter with time, as the article receives further updates. However, the salient message is that any use of Wikipedia in your studies should be undertaken with a high degree of caution.

As stated in the discussion for the activity above, it can be difficult to assess the relative reliability of a given article if you do not have anything else to compare it to. If you are interested in this idea, you might like to complete the following optional activity, which will also allow you to further practise the skills required to perform a PROMPT analysis.

Optional activity: Comparing the relative reliability of articles

Timing: Allow about 1 hour 15 minutes

If you would like to try another PROMPT analysis, then study and evaluate John Smith’s chapter on ‘Plastic debris in the ocean’ in the United Nations Environment Programme Yearbook 2014 (UNEP, 2014, pp. 48–53), and compare this with the score that you gave the Wikipedia article you have just read.

9 Scientific research continues to develop

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Scientific research is always developing in a range of directions, as you heard when listening to the interviews with four OU scientists in Section 3. This requires us to carefully evaluate the science and how it is reported. To demonstrate this, some research relating to plastics will now be considered here.

In the environment, plastic materials tend to break down slowly, often by UV degradation or physical fragmentation, to produce smaller particles or microplastics like those shown in Figure 6. Note the diverse shapes (filaments, fragments, and spheres) and that not all items are microplastics (e.g. aluminum foil (C), glass spheres and sand (D), white arrowheads).

Figure 6 Microplastics in sediments from the rivers Elbe (A), Mosel (B), Neckar (C), and Rhine (D) from Wagner et al. (2014). The white scale bars all represent 1 mm.

Microplastics form the subject of a great deal of current research, such as the review by Wagner et al. (2014), and the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) publication on marine microplastic pollution (Wentworth and Stafford, 2016). Both these articles identify where there are gaps in the current scientific knowledge, which require input from a range of scientific disciplines. For instance, microplastics are derived from many materials and have been identified in seafood, but the health effects have not been determined as yet.

Plastics in marine ecosystems are becoming recognised as a serious pollution issue, but there are few studies that illustrate the contribution from freshwater catchments. In one notable example, tests were carried out at seven locations in the upper Thames estuary over a 3 month period. Submerged items were intercepted and analysed in nets anchored to the river bed. There were significant differences in the numbers of items at these locations, but the majority were some type of plastic (Morritt et al., 2014). While floating litter is visible, this study also shows that a large volume of submerged plastic is flowing into the marine environment.

Plastics are anthropogenic materials (i.e. made by humans), which are widely found in the marine environment and along shorelines. The ability for plastic to be caught in sediment and subsequently buried is dependent on the environment where the plastic is deposited, and also the plastic’s density and abundance.

A recent paper reports a new ‘stone’ formed through intermingling of melted plastic, beach sediment, basaltic lava fragments, and organic debris on a Hawaiian island (Corcoran et al., 2013). The material, referred to as ‘plastiglomerate’, has clastic types (i.e. it is formed from fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing rocks and minerals) mixed into what was molten plastic from fires. These clasts were distributed over all areas of the beach. The results indicate that this anthropogenically influenced material has great potential to form a marker horizon of human pollution, signalling the occurrence of a new (informal) geological time period, known as the ‘Anthropocene’.

It is encouraging that the European Commission published its first ever Europe-wide plastic waste strategy in January 2018 (European Commission, 2018). The key aim of this was to promote a more ‘circular’ economy with regards to plastics, which recycles more materials and minimises both waste and energy usage. A need for more innovation in technology and materials was also highlighted.

As previously described, plastic materials often contain several other chemicals within their structure to influence and improve their properties. For example, plastics often contain phthalate esters (more commonly referred to as phthalates) or bisphenol A (BPA, Figure 7) to improve how easily they can be moulded. Other additives can be found in plastics, including chemicals that are added to act as dyes, antioxidants, UV absorbers and flame retardants.

Figure 7 Common items which typically contain bisphenol A or a chemically similar substitute compound.

There is significant scientific and media interest in determining the level of these chemicals that can leach out of plastics during their use, particularly when in contact with food and drink, and that are safe for human health. This has led to the restriction of the use of some of these chemicals.

There are concerns over the effects on human health from the ability of BPA to act as an endocrine disruptor, which is a chemical that interferes with the natural system of hormones, particularly estrogen and testosterone. (Note there are only slight chemical similarities between the BPA and estrogen and testosterone structures, which perhaps explains why BPA is only a weak endocrine disruptor.)

Substitute chemicals for BPA usage include bisphenol F and bisphenol S, and there are growing concerns over their health effects, too. These chemicals may affect the growth, reproduction and development in aquatic organisms. Consequently, there is growing interest in the reactivity of these substances on biological systems, as this may influence an organism’s health. This is especially important as these compounds are found in a wide range of everyday materials, and materials labelled ‘BPA free’ may actually contain structurally similar compounds that may themselves affect human health (Rochester and Bolden, 2015).

It should be remembered that plastics are not all bad for the environment and human health. For instance, as Li et al. (2015) suggest, new so-called hydrogel materials have applications in biomedicine (e.g. as adhesives or carriers for drugs) as well as environmental remediation (i.e. to absorb pollutants). Furthermore, it could be argued that plastics would pose less of an environmental problem if humans disposed of them in an appropriate way, and so research is ongoing into new ways of recycling plastics (Carné Sánchez and Collinson, 2011; Krall et al., 2014).

If you are interested further in the wider topic of plastics in society and the environment then there are a collection of further articles available on OpenLearn discussing our Plastic Planet.

Conclusion

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course S350 Evaluating contemporary science. It took you through a series of examples and exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

The first two sections introduced this course and what is meant by contemporary science. This included examples of science in the news, potential applications arising from academic science at The Open University, and a discussion of reasons scientists should engage with policy makers, business people, NGOs and the public, in order to influence decision makers and use their science to improve people’s lives.

In Section 3, different perspectives on contemporary science were compared, from four scientists who work in different scientific disciplines. Section 4 further explored how contemporary science works, considering different approaches scientists take when they research, and how they assess and communicate the products from their research. This is very important, as science influences our daily lives, but research may be reported in a variety of ways and should be carefully evaluated to avoid introducing bias.

Section 5 proposed that communication is at the heart of scientific progress and public debate. This involved an interview between Richard Holliman and Vic Pearson, in which Vic discussed her involvement in science communication and engagement as a research scientist in the School of Physical Sciences at The Open University. Next, Section 6 considered the interpretation of science news using the ‘Score and ignore’ framework suggested by Kevin McConway, Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University.

Section 7 then introduced a contemporary topic in scientific research, namely plastics and how they affect modern society in both positive and negative ways. This led into Section 8, which introduced the PROMPT framework, and used it to evaluate a Wikipedia page about plastic pollution. Finally, Section 9 explored some ways in which research continues to develop around plastics in society.

In summary, you have learned about and practised some important skills related to accessing and analysing information about science. We hope that this free course has whetted your appetite to learn more about evaluating contemporary science, and that you will be inspired to continue studying this area and develop further key skills, perhaps through S350 Evaluating contemporary science itself.

Glossary

The Open University — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:07:00 GMT

audience: Those persons who are believed to be – or who actually are – the hearers or readers of communication. Early conceptions of audience members perceived them to be passive receivers of information. More recently, audiences have been conceptualised in more sophisticated ways to acknowledge that, in certain circumstances, they may also choose to use, engage, personalise, contribute and participate in acts of science communication.
conferences: A meeting held within disciplines or across disciplines, characterised by researchers submitting their ideas to the conference planners. They, in turn, decide firstly whether the idea has merit, and secondly whether the proponent will present the ideas, either in the form of an oral presentation to an audience (often supported by presentational media), or at a poster session. Conferences are typically divided among plenary sessions in which everyone attends, and other sessions, seminars or workshops, several of which can be held simultaneously.
discipline: A branch of knowledge or teaching.
engagement: In this context, concerning scientific research, engagement encompasses the different ways that researchers meaningfully interact with various stakeholders over any or all stages of a research process, from issue formulation, the production or co-creation of new knowledge, to knowledge evaluation and dissemination (Holliman et al., 2015, p. 3).
journals: A specialised periodical publication, often of scholarly work or research. Most professional journals in science use some form of peer review to judge whether publication of a given paper should proceed.
peer review: A process involving the review of proposed or completed research, usually in the form of articles submitted for publication to an academic journal, as a book for commercial publication, or a grant proposal for funding by an external institution. Peer review is conducted by persons of equal standing and expertise (i.e. ‘peers’) within a relevant academic domain. It is used to determine whether that research should be published, a grant should be awarded or a book should be commissioned. It is usually upheld as a neutral standard by which research is published based upon the merits of the work. Critics note that neutrality can be defeated by a number of factors, including the fact that the mediating editors know both who wrote the paper and who the reviewers will be (see Wager, 2009).
public sphere: ‘By public sphere we mean first of all a domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed’ (Habermas, 1989, p. 55). It is possible to argue that the introduction and growing influence of the internet / world wide web make networked communications one of the primary contemporary locations for communicating science in the public sphere.
research papers: Research papers traditionally contain these sections: introduction, method, results, discussion and conclusions, although the order may vary according to a given journal’s requirements.
scientific consensus: There are no hard and fast rules about what constitutes a scientific consensus in practice and how it might be represented, either among scientists, or in the wider public sphere. In effect, scientific consensus is an elusive, yet apparently desirable, property. Typically, scientific consensus becomes manifest, often through collaboratively-authored documents, when it is challenged (Holliman, 2012). Speak to any academic research scientist and they are likely to value the ideal of scientific consensus. It can be hard fought for and form the bedrock of a scientific discipline.
stakeholders: A stakeholder could be a person (a citizen), group (prostate cancer patients) or organisation (a perfume company) that has an interest in an activity, issue or organisation. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the activity, issue or organisation under consideration.