Jack Stilgoe
Senior Researcher
Jack Stilgoe works on science and technology projects and specialises in issues of science, society and public engagement.
- President of the world This morning has been noticeably warmed by the collective sigh of relief breathed by the world. Over breakfast, as I stretched to catch snippeted Yes-We-Cans on the radio, my wife tried to calm me down by arguing that Barack Obama isn't our president. Except that he so is. In Europe, we have become used to being investors. A while back we were passively watching our banks collapse. Now we are now proud public owners of our own houses of cards. We now sense that, having watched America for the... continue reading on 5th November 2008 Comments (2)
- Plog It's been a while since our last shameless plog (blog plug). I could attempt to draw some connections, segueing from the Youtube success of Video Republic or riffing on the link between weak and strong ties, but I won't. My brother's album was out on Monday. He's ace. Buy it. I know that the Demos network are a solid jazz demographic, and if enough people buy it, we'll get him in to do a Demos gig. As the Von Trapp who didn't even make it down the stairs, I will stay well away from the... continue reading on 15th October 2008
- The politics of noise From space and sleep to human enhancement, from conservation to conversation, one of the things we try to do at Demos is bring new issues to the attention of policymakers and politicians. I'm currently excited about noise. This Summer, Defra released their noise maps, which are beautiful, but flawed. They focus on transport noise, so all the roads are red and the parks are green. One scientist tells me that you might as well use an ordnance survey map. Draw a few rings around the airports and... continue reading on 24th September 2008
- Things can only get better. That, or the world collapses The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been switched on. And we're apparently still here. Over at the Sci Foo camp, I bumped into Brian Cox, Physicist and former keyboard player for D:Ream. He works at CERN and told me about a science NGO I hadn't come across before. "Sane Science" are one of the organisations who have been, Cassandra-like, ringing alarm bells about the LHC. They point us back to the beard-stroking whimsy of the few scientists who once said that there just might be a... continue reading on 28th August 2008 Comments (2)
- Scifoo 2 - Foo Who? I love this place. Alongside Jane Lubchenco, I ran a session on a new social contract for science, looking at the politics of science and the potential for a new breed of citizen scientists. Jane has written about this before, and had some fascinating thoughts on what such a contract might look like. I argued that, although the once solid social contract was now undeniably in flux, this might be no bad thing. Pitching into the discussion were Phil Campbell, Martin Rees, Paul Rabinow and Steve... continue reading on 10th August 2008
- Scifoo 1 - The Wisdom of clouds I'm weekending at the Scifoo camp inside the Googleplex, Silicon Valley. Geeks, Nobel laureates, Astronauts and hangers-on have gathered at science's bleeding edge to share their thoughts with no agenda, no hierarchy and ridiculous amounts of food. As though it had been decreed, today's first session clawed towards Science 2.0. Tim O'Reilly, the man to blame for everything 2.0, began with some explanations. Web 2.0, apparently, is about participation. Google is king, even though its model... continue reading on 9th August 2008
- Making it up as we go along Synthetic Biology has again found its way onto the Today programme. The prompt this time is an admirable report (pdf) from bioscience funders the BBSRC, who asked social scientists Paul Martin and Andrew Balmer to map the social and ethical questions raised by this increasingly frenetic science. But the BBC's report is inevitably framed by Craig Venter, the energetic and unapologetic face of all things synthetic. Six months ago, when we hosted Craig Venter, I was convinced that the UK had a... continue reading on 10th June 2008
- Public science and public goods Our debate on university science a couple of weeks back has been picked up by Times Higher. It served the important, and possibly therapeutic, purpose of getting some things out into the open. As someone with strong opinions in this area, I found my independence as a chair stretched. But my desire was to expose some unacknowledged tensions and start a genuinely new conversation about where science in universities is going and what assumptions are steering it. The debate was instigated by... continue reading on 2nd June 2008
- Is politics stuck in the present? As the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill ducks and weaves through parliament, the debate around it reveals the poverty of the politics of the future. Politicians are pretty happy talking about VALUES, INTERESTS, THE EVIDENCE and even ETHICS. So abortion gets the headlines, alongside daddies for test tube babies. When it comes to the research aspects - hybrids, embryonic vs adult stem cells and all that - the evidence and the ethics are only part of the story. So Ann Widdecombe insists... continue reading on 21st May 2008
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The Talking Cure
Wednesday morning was the launch of The Talking Cure. Faizal and I wrote the pamphlet to try to capture the changing conversations taking place between professionals and patients around health. The discussion at the launch was fascinating and impassioned. Howard Stoate gave us his perspective at the only practising GP in the House of Commons. Richard Horton was as thoughtful and fired up as ever.
You can listen to all of the speeches, questions etc. here. continue reading on 19th May 2008 in Healthy Conversations