IT鈥橲 the contrast that hits you first about the outback. The land is achingly
beautiful, while the towns tend to be ugly. They are also often very poor.
Closed mines, less labour-intensive farming and the economic rationalisation
that robs small communities of their banks, libraries and other services, have
led to job losses and poverty. Then there鈥檚 the sheer emptiness. Counties the
size of Denmark are home to barely 2000 people.
Let me say first that I do not buy those stereotypes that portray rural
people as dim. But I did think that they wouldn鈥檛 have much time for the eight
scientists, one composer, and various science journalists and promoters who
spent a week earlier this year travelling around the outback to spread the word
on science.
In some of the towns the only laid-on entertainment is the pub. Fittingly,
then, the linchpin of the expedition was 鈥淪cience in the Pub鈥�. The brainchild of
journalist Wilson da Silva, Science in the Pub has been bringing top Australian
scientists out of labs and museums for the past two years to discuss their work
with the public over a beer and a packet of crisps. The programme has included
such titles as: Can We Live to 150?, Waiter! There鈥檚 a Gene in my Soup, God and
the Big Bang, and Frogs are Dying; Who Cares?
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Taking off
Rural Australia often misses out on what the cities have to offer. But Robyn
Stutchbury, a science promoter, and Michael Burton, an astronomer at the
University of New South Wales in Sydney, secured funds from the federal government
and other organisations to charter a DC3 for the inaugural 鈥淪cience in
the Pub goes Outback鈥� tour. Besides playing the pub circuit, the team was going
to talk under the stars and in schools in isolated communities around New South
Wales and Queensland.
I, for one, was sceptical. When some scientists take on the public
understanding of science (known affectionately in Britain as PUS), they tend to
think it鈥檚 a case of simply talking with enough enthusiasm and/or authority.
Then their audience will realise how important science is and back the cause to
the hilt. But the exercise can backfire. People can throw the science back in
researchers鈥� faces, as is happening with genetically modified foods. Just as
often, nobody comes to listen鈥攕cience just seems too remote from everyday
life. With these thoughts in mind, I had to ask myself how the scientists would
go down.
The first event, Life, the Universe, and Everything . . . !, played to a
packed audience at the Silverton pub, just outside of Broken Hill (where,
incidentally, Mad Max was filmed). Initially, the mutterings from the
elbow-to-elbow drinkers were a little hostile, but soon more friendly debate
took over, ranging across topics as diverse as what science can do for society,
to creationism.
Only ten people showed up for the next gig, Global Warming, Climate Change,
and Land Use in Birdsville鈥檚 only venue, The Birdsville Pub. Sadly, someone had
died and the locals, all one hundred of them, were in mourning. A few more came
for Greenhouse Warming is a Lot of Hot Air at the Commercial Hotel in Longreach,
although most of the townsfolk had gone off to the agricultural show
instead.
Still, more than thirty came for Starry, Starry Night, an astronomical
extravaganza held in the Simpson Desert that featured鈥攁mong other
celebrities鈥攖he Milky Way, Aboriginal park ranger Don Rowland, composer
Ross Edwards, Fred Watson, astronomer-in-charge at the Anglo-Australian
Observatory, and David Malin, the AAO鈥檚 astronomer-photographer.
Here, the difference between town and country really hit home. Malin told me
that he had once talked to children in New York City who thought that his slides
of the night sky were computer simulations. They had never seen the stars. In
the Simpson Desert, far from the city鈥檚 light pollution, that would not be
possible鈥擜ustralia鈥檚 big sky is strewn with glorious constellations. And I
suspect that being guided through them, while Edwards鈥檚 latest composition
played in the background, was probably a bigger thrill for city dwellers like
me, than for those familiar with the night sky.
In total, maybe a few hundred people turned up for the travelling science
show. But the raw numbers belie the success of the project, for it was a success
despite my initial misgivings. The people who came along clearly relished
meeting the scientists and vice versa鈥攅specially in the pub. Da Silva as
compere and radio broadcasters Bernie Hobbs and Paul Willis kept the proceedings
suitably raucous, while making sure that everyone who wanted to be heard had a
turn at the microphone.
快猫短视频s in the public eye tend not to give the straight dope. They
worry鈥攑erhaps rightly so鈥攖hat admitting to the failures,
uncertainties or the more tedious side of research could somehow interfere with
winning favourable publicity and funds. Science in the Pub goes some way to
solving that problem. Alcohol has a way of relaxing everyone. 快猫短视频s,
experts in their fields, are generally reluctant to shed their cloaks of
authority. On the other hand, when a possibly tipsy bloke in biker gear asked in
one pub if the Hubble Constant really is constant, and then someone else asked,
鈥淲hat is life?鈥�, the scientists had to be on their toes.
In the end, the week became as much an exercise in scientists understanding
the public as in the public understanding science. 鈥淭hey wanted to know about
the science that affected their communities on a big scale鈥攖he nurses
wanted to know about drug addiction. And they actually had a fair amount of
knowledge. They knew about salinity and the water table problem,鈥� says Branwen
Morgan, a neuroscientist at the Garven Institute in Sydney. There were no
sessions on cloning or genetically modified crops鈥攖wo topics dear to the
heart of farmers鈥攂ut had there been, no doubt they would have been on top
of the list.
快猫短视频s taking science to the public? I鈥檒l drink to that. In fact, I
already have.