Why everyone was wrong about David Nutt

by William Cullerne Bown

I've published two pieces today on the David Nutt affair, a long one in Prospect and a short one in Research Fortnight (both paid-for sites). Both run counter to the general flow of opinion from the scientific world in that I think Nutt-ism is the problem not the solution - and, I argue, in a tragic twist, those who are keenest to champion the cause of evidence-based policy have actually done it the greatest damage in this affair.

The core of the argument, as explained in detail in Prospect, is that:

* Nutt has framed his dismissal as a conflict between politics and science

* This frame has been adopted uncritically by most of the media and scientific community

* But science does not really say nearly as much about the classification of drugs as Nutt suggests it does

* Nutt's failure to clarify the distinction between what the evidence does and doesn't say has undermined the role of all scientists advising government, and the cause of evidence-based policy in general

* To back Nutt in this dispute ostensibly because he is standing up for science is at best a gross mistake, and at worst a closing of ranks by scientists around one of their own.

In the Prospect article I look at the general consequences of this; in Research Fortnight I look at the specific issues it raises for the scientific community. Here, I'm briefly going to tackle the media issues.

The general problem of the uncritical acceptance by the media of the frame that Nutt provided them with troubles me. It is not a case of journalists misreporting what scientists tell them; it is a case of journalists failing to question what they have been told by a scientist. How bad the reporting has been is exemplified  by the misleading way Colin Blakemore was presented in this story (for which, I should add, I see no reason to blame him).

Blakemore has appeared widely in the media. His role in the story has generally been to buttress the idea that there is some kind of general problem between science and politics that the Nutt affair exemplifies. But - and it's a huge but - he is not an independent figure in this. In fact, he is a co-author with Nutt of the key Lancet paper that Nutt cites when arguing that his views on classification are "scientific".

Unfortunately, you would never have guessed that from the coverage in the media. I'm only going to bother listing here a few samples, mainly from journalists and media I generally admire - there have been many more. So here's a brief list of a few of those who got it wrong:

Justin Webb on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4

Jermey Paxman in a Newsnight debate on BBC2 on 2 November

Nature

Bloomberg

Mirror

Telegraph.

How could so many good journalists get it so wrong?

Moon and Antarctica - legally safe?

by William Cullerne Bown

My short article in New Scientist, arguing that the space powers are engaged in a new race to the moon that is best understood as a slow-motion re-run of the Antarctica story has provoked a wave of comment there. Since I intend to continue writing on this subject (and would welcome comments) I have decided to post a full reply here.

Most interesting to me has been law-inspired criticism and here’s a typical comment in full, from "lawroberts":

Unfortunately for the author, Antarctica is an inappropriate analogy for the status of state claims to the Moon.

First, the claims of ownership that the author notes are a largely irrelevant, historical artifact. Antarctica is governed by international agreement - the Antarctica Treaty. The Antarctica Treaty effectively prohibits national claims and has deferred the issue of resource exploitation.

While it is true that a number of nations when signing the Antarctica Treaty reserved their pre-existing claims of jurisdiction and control, those rights only take effect in the event of the collapse of the Antarctica Treaty.

Anyone making a claim of the possibility of a future colonial model based upon pre-existing claim must take into account the fact that unlike Antarctica there are no surviving, pre-existing claims of state jurisdiction and control. In addition, the fact that the Outer Space Treaty represents a customary law standard makes it extraordinarily difficult to assert a future claim of national control even were the nation in question to renounce the OST.

The two central criticisms are that a) the kind of competitive colonisation I fear is nonsense as it is already illegal; and b) that the comparison with Antarctica is flawed as potential conflict there has been effectively pre-empted by the Antarctica Treaty. Here’s why I think both these criticisms are wrong.

Space law is adequate?

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 states that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". That seems pretty clear. And indeed, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs helpfully offers this Q&A:

Q “Can any State claim a part of outer space as its own?”

A. “No. ... ” [for the reasons given above]

But the UN has a vested interest in such wishful thinking and to take all this at face value is flawed for two reasons. First, it mistakes our hopes for the rule of law for reality. A Banana Republic really is different from a Republic, even though it may in writing have an entirely Republican constitution and institutions. Nations repeatedly show themselves willing to violate international law, including often the space powers themselves. Eventually, as Israeli settlers know, occupation leads to ownership.

Second, the framework provided by the Outer Space Treaty is in fact brief and weak. For example, the US has argued that "peaceful uses" can include deploying weapons to defend its satellites, which, even if it is peaceful, is likely to give rise to an arms race. This is precisely why the Moon Treaty was drawn up - and, presumably, why the Moon Treaty has not been signed by the space powers. Various diplomatic attempts to strengthen the legal position have been going on for years without getting anywhere.

This is not to say the legal framework does not matter and will not constrain the activities of the space powers. But it will be entirely possible for the powers to proceed with a strategic contest for the moon for decades, staking de facto claims and building up their positions without violating any laws. The analogy is with the nations which have built up their nuclear capability without actually building any bombs, which Iran is currently accused of. The strategy is to develop your position without violating any treaty, to the point where the strategic aim (a bomb, control of part of the moon) becomes unstoppable. The fact that this activity does not violate any treaty and in that sense is legal, does not mean it will not lead to war.

As an illustration of the way things might develop, take a look at the scenario drawn up by the International Institute of Space Law in 1993 (pdf here).

Antarctica has been pacified?

The Antarctica Treaty is obviously helpful in reducing tensions. But it has notably failed to deal with the central question of who gets to exploit which resources. The treaty explicitly does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims. And the facts on the ground show continued efforts to strengthen claims by, for example, Britain, Argentina and Chile, whose claims overlap. See this story from some oil people.

Drayson's plans for a government Chief Technology Officer

by William Cullerne Bown

Today I'm working on a leader on Paul Drayson's plan for a Chief Technology Officer.

You can find him expounding it in this video between minutes 14 and 24

My starting point: Great idea. What do you think?

Is the moon the new antarctica?

by William Cullerne Bown

Little piece by me about new empires in the New Scientist http://bit.ly/3RlVUj

Now on Twitter

by William Cullerne Bown

Now you can find us and follow us on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/ResFortnight for UK news flashes

http://twitter.com/ResearchEurope for European news flashes

http://twitter.com/WilliamCB for my opinions.

HEFCE launches post-RAE consultation

by William Cullerne Bown

The consultation on replacing the Research Assessment Exercise with a metrics-based approach, at least in the sciences and medicine, has just been launched by the HEFCE.

HEFCE's published a Consultation document and two reports that it has been looking at, a general one from the bibliometric team at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and a smaller one on interdisciplinary research from Evidence in Leeds. The main web page for what's now termed the "Research Excellence Framework" is here.

There'll be more here later in the day, but my first impressions are that there are few surprises in the proposals. Outside of six subject groupings (three for medicine, three for the rest of science), "light touch" peer review will be retained. In the sciences, universities will choose the staff to submit and assessment will then be based on bibliometrics, research income and numbers of postgraduate students.

There's no mention of selecting papers, so although it's not stated, it seems HEFCE is leaning towards assessing all publications, which could have a big impact on the willingness of academics to publish work they expect to get a low citation count, often for users. This isn't tackled directly, but HEFCE's flagging behavioural consequences as a concern and asking people to suggest additional metrics that could allow it to measure the value of research to users. 

Rather alarmingly for those who hoped the end of the RAE would eliminate a huge swathe of work, HEFCE talks about increases in workload in the short term. The issue seems to be in verifying who has actually published what, despite the promise of new technology.

And HEFCE's already flagging that the timetable for doing all of this is short and that it may struggle to find the expert resources it needs to make it all a success.

Colin Macilwain leaves Nature for editor’s chair at ResearchResearch

by William Cullerne Bown

Well this feels like a big day. I'm stepping down from being the Editor at ResearchResearch and Colin Macilwain's taking over.

In fact, it feels like such a big day that we've even put out a press release.

Colin (left) joins after fourteen years at the journal Nature, including five years as news editor.

Nothing's happening until January, and even then I'll still be writing. In fact, I'm looking forward to spending more time with my interviews. But it still feels strange.

In the press release, I say, “Colin is an inspiring journalist. He knows more about research policy around the world than almost anybody. His concern for accuracy, relevance and - ultimately - truth has been there for everyone to see week after week in Nature. He’s a leader and I’m sure our news, both on paper and online, will flourish under his guidance.”

And anyone who knows Colin knows that's all true.

Aimless

by William Cullerne Bown

A review by the Ministry of Defence’s top civil servants has concluded that R&D at the department, on which the UK spends £2.6 billion a year, has “no unifying vision or clear strategic direction”.

"Maximising Defence Capability Through R&D" was posted unannounced by the MoD on its website earlier this month. It was written by a team co-chaired by Roy Anderson, the MoD’s Chief Scientific Adviser, and Peter Spencer, the Chief of Defence Procurement.

The review team found that R&D management is segmented, with little re-use of crosscutting technology. Development is not managed as a programme and there are no metrics to assess performance.

Interpretations of what counts as R&D differ across the MoD, leading to a lack of clarity.

The value and utility of R&D outputs are rarely measured in their own right, in part because payment milestones are not always linked to development achievements.

The review team spent part of their time looking at a sample of individual projects. Several had not been exploited successfully, nor were they likely to be in the future, thanks to lack of coordination between R&D sponsors.

The team also found that there is no central repository of knowledge and findings from MoD-funded R&D and no formal mechanism for disseminating R&D findings for possible use on other projects. The quality of road mapping and technology planning was variable, especially for immature and cross-cutting technologies.

The majority of MoD’s R&D spending results in intellectual property owned by industry to which the government enjoys user rights. This is not catalogued centrally and the team found little evidence of localised IP management. As a result, the MoD does not sufficiently value past R&D or realise its full potential benefit.

In a forward to the report, Paul Drayson, the defence minister, promises change will now be "vigorously pursued”. But that seems a pretty wimpish response to what is in reality a damning verdict on recent years at the MoD. It seems the top brass have been going into the technology battle without a plan of any kind. Feeble.

Research as subsidy

by William Cullerne Bown

Returning from the big Lisbon conference on the European Research Area, my colleague Laura Hood brought an intriguing snippet back from Brian Ager, director general of big pharma's trade association, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

Ager was understandably unhappy about the long delays in reaching a deal between pharma firms, the Commission and member states over the Innovative Medicines Initiative. The IMI is supposed to pool public and private funds in a new, industry-led organisation to fund R&D. It's one of a series of Joint Technology Initiatives that sound nice in principle but which are bogged down in arguments over the exact terms of the deal - eg who should own the IP on resulting discoveries? This, of course, is precisely the kind of substantive issue that has already killed Plan A for the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system. So, while Ager's frustration is understandable, so is the slow progress. The EU is discovering that there ain't no deal until there's a deal.

But the thing that intrigued me was Ager's warning that, in response to the IMI, the US is already preparing its own initiative, and that this could siphon away potential investors.

Away from civil aviation, where it's been entrenched for decades, this is the first time I've seen such open competition between governments on hi-tech projects. This seems to suggest that the global competition that we're getting used to for research talent is expanding into other dimensions. It revealed in a rather crude way the attempts by big firms to play governments off against each other. And it reinforces the view that public R&D funding is, in increasingly important ways, just the last subsidy allowed by the WTO.

Manchester pushes on for a 'Big 5'

by William Cullerne Bown

Will Manchester make it? Oxford and Cambridge have always been there. Imperial and UCL have pushed on to make it a Big 4 of UK research universities in recent years. And now Manchester under John Gilbert (left) is bidding to make that a Big 5.

You can shake your head and say, "Too late". But Gilbert apparently doesn't know when he's beat. Manchester is now competing strongly with the others on research council grants. And the latest in his lengthening line of star acquisitions is John Sulston, winner of the medical Nobel, who is going to chair a new research institute focusing on ethical questions in science and technology.