News | Friday, 16 May 2014
Do science and politics mix?
Politicians in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere often claim that their policies are ‘evidence based’. Prof. Lord John Krebs will draw in a Leopoldina-Lecture on his experience as an academic scientist who has worked within the UK government to illustrate the complexity of the relationship between scientific evidence and policy. The Lecture on Wednesday, 21 May, begins at 6pm in the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Jägerberg 1, Halle (Saale).
Lord Krebs’ examples will include policy in relation to food, animal diseases and climate change. He will discuss how science is just one voice among many that influence policy, how disagreement amongst scientists can make it difficult for the voice of science to gets its message across, and how uncertainty, while familiar to scientists, can be lead to misrepresentation of evidence.
Prof. Lord Krebs has served as the Chief Executive of the UK Natural Environment Research Council, Chairman of the UK Food Standards Agency, and the Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee. He is the Principal of Jesus College, Oxford University and Professor of Zoology. He is the co-author of a best selling text book “An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology”.
