Science Week debates and comments

On the theme of science and responsibility: An article in the Guardian by Professor Steven Rose - extracted from a Royal Society Debate to mark Science Week - discusses the limitations of evolutionary psychology and its damaging implications for individual agency and responsibility.

The Independent published an extract from Rose's paper given at the Royal Society. This discusses issues that arise from the claims of neuroscience and neurogenetics to understand human behaviour. He attacks some of the findings of evolutionary psychology and discusses the issue of personal responsibility in its wake. Professor Lewis Wolpert discusses some of the other outcomes from the same Royal Society debate. These include a discussion, in the wake of the GM (Genetic modification/engineering) food saga, of various models of doing public understanding of science and the role of public values in policy making.

On the theme of the arts vs science: Nigella Lawson takes up the tail end of the debate that annually accompanies Science Week. She discusses the art/science divide in terms of class and argues that in contemporary society, the impenetrable nature of science accounts for its exclusivity and isolation.