■Outline

Martin Bauer will discuss key ideas of his recent books ‘Resistance – and the Practice of Rationality and ‘Atoms, Bytes & Genes – public resistance and techno-scientific responses. Strategic technology encounters resistance in public opinion, and this resistance, rather than on a mechanistic model of push-pull, is more usefully modelled on an organic ‘pain analogy’: focussing attention; enhancing the ‘bodily self-image’, evaluating on-going activities and urging strategic adaptation of the mobilization effort. The particular puzzle in this context is the historical insignificance of resistence in the area of computer and information technology; is this a case of ‘endogenous pain killers’? He will also talk about his attempts to construct cultural indicators of science on the basis of large scale, multi-national surveys of attitudes to science. This suggests, that a single model of public attitudes to science does not fit the cultural diversity, not even across Europe. He will end with some observations on the state of the cultural authority of science in the UK, in particular, after a former minister of education recently declared ‘this country has head enough of  experts’.

■Program

17:00-17:05     Introduction
17:05-18:05     Lecture by Professor Bauer
18:05-18:30     QA

■Registration
 Please register at this registration form by noon on May 25th.
 If you cannot open the form, please send email to GIST Secretariat, gist-ml@grips.ac.jp.
 Registration email must include:

1) your name, 2) institution, 3) position, and 4) e-mail address.