Unsettling scientific stories: expertise, narrative and future histories

C P Snow was wrong, and as a novelist, he should have known better. Famously, his 1959 Rede lecture argued that Western culture privileged the humanities at the expense of the sciences, to the extent that ignorance of the sciences could be worn as a badge of honour by the intellectual elite. This position fundamentally fails to appreciate the extent to which modern Western intellectual culture - literary, artistic and material - has been underpinned and inspired by the sciences both in theory and in practice. Both the producers and consumers of popular culture have engaged enthusiastically and critically with new scientific knowledges and the social possibilities and problems they raise, and nowhere is this engagement more visible than in the variety of imagined futures that modernity has produced. This project will examine how these futures evolved over the course of the long, technological 20th century, beginning in 1887 with the publication of de Ferranti's design of the Deptford Power Station (the beginning of large scale electricity generation in the UK), and continuing to the publication in 2007 of the International Panel on Climate Change's 4th Assessment Report (which put the existence of anthropogenic climate change beyond reasonable doubt).

At its heart are three detailed case studies, which explore how new scientific developments conditioned cultural understandings of the present and constructions of the future through three important periods of modernity. We begin with the optimism and excitement of the innovations in physics and experimental cultures during the late Victorian/early Edwardian period, move on to look at the ways that discoveries in the biological sciences in the high modernity of the inter- and post-war period changed conceptions of humanity and nature, and end as modernity falters at the turn of the century in the face of environmental and resource crises, alongside the new understandings of ecological sciences and complexity. The case studies are contextualised and enhanced by three additional studies which will develop a broader understanding of how publics engage with science fictions and speculative science futures. They will explore how science was presented in popular periodicals through this long 20th century; consider how past visions of the future help us to understand contemporary social choices; and examine how contemporary science fiction writers and readers are anticipating the future now, in the face of the emergent scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, challenging issues about energy futures, and new possibilities engendered by genetic manipulation. These context studies will also provide the resources that will inspire a dialogue between the project researchers and the wider interested publics, both lay and expert, conducted through an interactive website and science fiction reading groups, which will enable these publics to comment on and critique both the process and results of this research. In this way, the project will not just make scientific and technological ideas and information more widely available to the democratic citizenry, it will produce better academic conclusions as a result of public involvement.

In sum, drawing on traditions in history and sociology of science as well as studies of popular culture, we will show how science has been a source of unsettling social change as new knowledge opens up new possibilities, anticipations and hopes - but also new fears, conflicts and unintended consequences. At the same time, we explore how fiction and culture more broadly has unsettled scientific certainties by making science a source of entertainment, wonder and pleasure, and enabling readers and publics to challenge expert knowledges by asking difficult questions about the ethical, social and political implications of the futures opened up by scientific innovations.

There are at least three levels of beneficiary for which this project will have positive impact: government policy/public sector, the third sector and the general public.

One of the central objectives of the project is the close examination of a series of sustained imaginary encounters between science, technology, society and the environment, particularly in relation to the consequences of conglomerations of individual choices. The case studies will focus on fictional and projected futures which resonate strongly with the general public, as evidenced by their popularity and success; the contextual studies will consider how members of the public themselves imagine their futures. As such, the project will provide an invaluable series of historical and present-day insights into the ways in which ordinary people respond to incremental and abrupt changes in lifestyle and opportunities. This will represent an important resource in relation to future planning and increasing national robustness in the face of environmental and social stresses which are likely to become ever more pressing over the next years. To facilitate this, as well as our blog, we will make bespoke reports of our results available directly to agencies such as the Government Office for Science, the National Resilience Capabilities Programme, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (and devolved equivalents), and so on. In addition, we will invite named representatives to the final project conference, where a special session will be organised on future planning, with particular reference to the interactive elements of the project website. We will show that these exemplars of public engagement with and reactions to different kinds of social and scientific change over time can be used to prepare for prospective futures and to challenge the robustness of current plans.

Additionally, impact will be felt in at least two different areas of voluntary/private agencies and societies: those interested in enhancing the public's interactions with and understandings of science, and those concerned with promoting environmental and global awareness. Each project element will produce results that will be relevant and useful to the work of organisations such as the British Association, the Royal Society and the Science Museum, and we will make reports directly to them, as well as inviting them to follow our blog from the project's outset. We will also present our work and demonstrate our website at local and national meetings focused on celebrations of science and scientific achievements. Environmental and campaigning groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and CND will also find elements of the project to be particularly useful to their work, and we will foreground these in our reports to these organisations.

Finally, the general public will also benefit from the project's focus on public engagement. Understanding the extent to which social and cultural life is underpinned by (potentially fragile) expert systems has never been more important to our democratic society, but this is not a problem that can be solved simply by teaching the public more about science. If we are concerned with the impact of scientific and technological developments on everyday life, then the experts in everyday life are just as qualified to comment on and influence that process as are the scientists and academics: dialogue is to be preferred to diatribe. Hence, our project will continuously seek opportunities to engage with and respond to critical public commentary, both through specific user groups (reading groups, science fiction societies) and more broadly through the project website. We will use these commentaries to influence both the process and focus of our analysis. As such, this project will not only provide citizens with the opportunities to widen their critical democratic awareness, it will produce better conclusions as a result of public involvement.