Preaching to the choir

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Last night, I attended my first British Library Talk Science event: “Science in UK Government: Where’s the Evidence?”, and made it to the second half of the night’s Westminster Skeptics. A bumper night for science, evidence and critical thinking, one might think.

Actually, I think we have a bit of a problem. Of the many people tweeting at the BLTS event (#blts) I recognised many of the names and Twitter handles. I could even put a few to actual faces. Going across town to Westminster Skeptics, I met up with many of the regulars for the Q&A session and a chat afterwards, some of whom have become friends over the last 7 months of my attending and interacting on Twitter, others I could just place either faces or Twitter handles again. And as Jack of Kent pointed out, the Simon Perry, our speaker last night, is not someone who has made his name elsewhere and become a skeptic, but rather made a name as a skeptic.

The long-winded point I am attempting to make is; has skepticism become an echo chamber, where we all know each other and agree with one another? Rather than wandering around the country, talking to each other in pubs, should we be focusing more effort in starting dialogue with others outside of the skeptic fold. In no way am I insinuating that the Skeptics in the Pub movement is a bad thing; it is fun, social and motivates skeptics, but I’m not sure of its value in publicising the skeptic values and position.

We’ve had a warning about this before, as Evan Harris found out to his (and our) dismay. If you had looked on Twitter around the first week of May, I think you would have thought Evan was a dead cert to hold his Oxford West and Abingdon seat. As a community, we were making so much noise at each other that to us, Evan appeared more popular than he turned out to be. This was something he remarked upon last night as “observer bias”; when you are both observing and involved in something, your perception is distorted.

I also think this fits in with JoK’s recent post “The Image of Skepticism“. Coming across as one insular group can also hurt our credentials. The development of skepticism into a close-knit group with its own in-jokes (homeopathy-dilution jokes, skeptic Top Trumps) can make us look like “the nasty party”. We also run the danger of having the possibility to develop a “herd mentality”, where individuals don’t appraise the evidence, but take it as a given because other skeptics (or those in authority) have already adopted a viewpoint.

I’m not sure what the answers to these points or questions are, but I do think that recognition of some of these problems in the growing skeptic community is important. Do other people feel the same way? Or am I off by a country mile here?

Night at the museum

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Once a month, on the last Wednesday, the Science Museum opens its doors at night for adults only until about 10pm. Not only are the general exhibits open, but there are also special events and a recurring silent disco (in between the space exhibits!) and a pub quiz. Another notable additions include a number of bars and DJs being set up in exhibition spaces which adds to the relaxed atmosphere. Each month also has a theme and last night’s was “Genius”.

This was my second Science Museum Lates and the first one I’ve brought my camera along to, so here are a few photos documenting what we got up to last night:

Adult table football (Sadly I don't have any pictures of us)

Firstly we played this somewhat hilarious game of 5-a-side “table football” where we were all attached to sliders along scaffolding tubes for 5 minutes. Not entirely sure how this relates to genius; I guess through the tenuous link of “footballing genius” to remind us that a genius doesn’t have to be about academic intellect, but it was fun none the less. We lost 6-2!

Fun with the bubblewall

More bubble wall fun

Then it was off to play like children in the LaunchPad, as you can see we were particularly fascinated by the bubble wall thing! Before going to see a demonstration of Newton’s laws, as they related to rockets!

Newton's 3rd law in action via a human rocket.

Culminating in a hydrogen balloon explosion. 😀

After all that LaunchPad fun it was off to test our brains in a massive genius-themed pub quiz (complete with colouring competition!). We didn’t win either I’m sad to report – despite a valiant colouring attempt mounted by 2 of our teammates followed by a brief look around the plastics and the Islam exhibition rooms.

A few more of my photos are in this Flickr set and photos from myself and other participants across the other Lates nights are all in the Flickr group ‘Science Museum Lates’.

My only complaint (if you can call it that…) is that with so much going on, there is so little time to look at the exhibits! Maybe it should be another hour longer! Otherwise this is a great idea and definitely gets people into the museum who wouldn’t otherwise have gone, hopefully teaching a bit of informal science too and being a great fun night out.

The next one is 30th June – theme TBC I think. See you there!

Look ma! I’m on the telly!

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So this is a bit late given it happened on Saturday, but I (once again) had the pleasure of watching Over the Rainbow live from the studio. This time I had the fortune of just turning up at the studio and hoping to find a kind soul with a spare ticket. I turned up at about 3.15pm and luckily found Lionel who (it later turned out) had a spare priority ticket, and so was in about the first 10 people to be allowed in to the studio! Thanks Lionel!

The gods must have been looking down upon me favourably that day, because I then got selected to be one of 8 people who got to sit in the stage right front row seats, when they weren’t being occupied by the munchkin kids who performed at various points. This gave me a prime opportunity to catch myself on screen, which I have duly uploaded here.

For what actually happened during the final (and the rest of the series) I can recommend Monkseal, Over the Rainbitch and (the extraordinarily named) Millie Moo and Chewbagga blogs. All 3 of these have me in fits of giggles at some of their insights during the series. Anyway, back to (me) the screenshots.

Here I am in the first show during the former Dorothy’s performance of Empire State of Mind:

Ex-Dorothys perform. See me in the bottom left!

This was pre-recorded just before the first show, I guess so they didn’t have to all change into their ‘dorothy dresses’ live at the same time – would have been a wardrobe nightmare! I was sitting right next to the Dorothy benches as well, which meant I got to overhear their chat and watch them mess about before they performed. Highlights included the muchkin boys mocking Steph because with their hair all gelled up they were nearly as tall as her and them pulling faces at each other across the stage from the wing spaces. I’m glad that people who work in theatre’TV in “real-life” have the same fun/serious balance as I do in student theatre! Also overheard were most of the ex-Dorothys (particularly Jenny and Stephanie) complaining about the fit of their new colour coordinated shoes – now that the sequined slippers are on the shoedelier behind the Lord – and being desperate to take them off at the first oppotunity.

I was also on telly a few more times at about that size, but sitting so close to the benches meant I was in a prime spot for the eliminations! Here is a screengrab from the second show when Sophie went to meet her family:

As Sophie greets her parents, there I am, lurking in the background!

Just before Sophie’s elimination, as her and Danielle walked down the stairs, I’d also like to claim responsibility for this smile to the crowd as I wished her good luck:

Nervous smile to the audience

At least, I’m 80-90% sure it was at that: it was at the same time as I called out, but equally there were a lot of well-wishers!

Another notable moment that didn’t show on screen was as Lauren was eliminate; during the farewell, Danielle carried the shoes to the Lord and stopped singing (or seemed to), which obviously worried Sophie as she was carrying the song so she gestured with a wave to all the ex-Dorothys to join in and help her out. It is funny some of the things you can see in the studio and not on screen!

It is a shame for me that Sophie didn’t win; on Saturday she finally gave the brilliant performances that I’d kinda hoped she would all series, especially her version of ‘Tomorrow’ against Danielle’s ‘76 Trombones‘. In fairness to Danielle, it was more of a rubbish song choice than anything else (as Sheila pointed out), but it did demonstrate Sophie did finally have the voice/talent required which I think was a revelation to many. I’d love to know what the exact votes were for Danielle and Sophie – it must have been very close I think.

In fairness, I’m not too worried; I’d pay to see almost any of the top 10 perform that role and have already booked to see The Wizard of Oz twice! And as for Sophie, given past precedent with these shows, I’m sure we’ll see her in the West End in the next year or two; and I’ll go and see that too!

ENRON

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One of the opening scenes of the show (Copyright: AKA promotions)

Thanks to the lovely people at Masterclass, I had the opportunity to see ENRON at the Noel Coward Theatre this afternoon. Masterclass are a charity operated out of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, that provide young people with theatre arts experiences (workshops, seminars etc), so that they can get on in theatre themselves: from acting to directing to writing to producing.

I can barely remember the last time I set foot inside a West End theatre, and especially to see a drama so I wasn’t sure what to expect, despite the rave reviews the show has had.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The first thing to catch my eye (being of a techie persuasion) was the 12 pendant light fittings hanging at floor level as the preset.  These are presumably LED as they change colour throughout the show as they fly in and out. These move relatively independently, with the downstage-centre 6 being often at a different height to those at the perimeter and are used brilliantly and simply to denote the change of location as we move into the low/red of the Finance Department and the floor-level/white spaciousness of Skilling’s office. This synergy between the set (Anthony Ward) and lighting (Mark Henderson) continues throughout the show and is something that makes the show feel very different and very watchable.

The show also makes use of projection (Jon Driscoll). This is normally one of my pet hates to within a show (especially with the student shows I have become accustomed to), because it is notoriously hard to make work – both physically and artistically. I think the reasons it works here are two-fold: as the show is quasi-historical, it can show archive footage, which really adds to the context of the plot and also the director (Rupert Goold)has not been afraid to shadow the screen. Realistically, casting a shadow on a front-projection screen is always going to happen and unintentionally it can look terrible as it diverts attention to the shadow, but by doing it with intent, the distraction is lost and here (at least) it works perfectly.

The dance and physical theatre aspect wasn’t something I particularly expected but, together with the comic turns (such as the Lehman Brothers), give the audience a sometimes needed break from the dialogue. This is not to say that the show is wordy or too complicated, but (as someone not that familiar with the backstory – I was barely a teenager…) the show did require some thought and I think I would have been exhausted by the end was it not broken up the way it is.

In fact, this is a strength of both the writing (Lucy Prebble) and directing to tackle some fairly abstract concepts, explain them, and then anticipate where the humour should be to keep us all engaged. The only place I started to get lost was in trying to understand the ‘raptor’ metaphor used to illustrate (I think) the ever increasing debt that the executives become slaves to, but the finer details were lost on me.

As usual, I will devote the least space to the aspect that most reviews would give the majority – the performers. The large (for a drama) chorus is a nice touch and allowed for a good amount of ‘hustle and bustle’ in the busy office scenes as well as delivering the physical set pieces. The principals came across as entirely believable, although as I didn’t have any idea prior knowledge as to how they should behave, I suppose that isn’t surprising. Having said that, the whole show did exude a sense of power which I can’t quite put my finger on, but it was certainly an atmosphere that worked. I slightly question the portrayal of Andrew Fastow (Paul Chahidi) as after he pathetically climbs his way to the top, you are left feeling almost sorry for him when it all comes crashing down at the end, which I didn’t feel was in keeping with the rest of the narrative.

Slight squabbles aside, this was a fantastic piece of theatre and if this is flying the flag for modern British theatre then I’m excited!

Over the Rainbow – live from the studio

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Inside the Over The Rainbow studio
Stealthily taken shot from where we sat.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of watching Over the Rainbow not from my sofa, but live from the studio at Wembley. As luck would have it, it was a particularly good week to pick, being ‘musical theatre’ week and a double eviction. We also got to see Charlotte Church perform, but to be honest, it was a little bit ‘meh’ in my opinion.

I’m not going to commentate on the show, as there are plenty of other blogs that do that perfectly (such as Over the Rainbitch, who I only found today, and whose comments seem spot-on), but instead address a few things that you’d have to have been in the studio to notice.

Applause

As when I have been to a TV recording before, the audience don’t decide when to applaud – we are told when the applaud and when to keep quiet by a couple of people standing between the audience and the stage. This means when everyone claps whenever the girls reach a high/loud point, it isn’t because they are all idiots, but because they are told to. In fairness, it does look quite good on the telly like that, it is just really annoying.

The same went for being forced to clap all the way through Tamsin Outhwaite’s number. And she wasn’t even there: it was a pre-record, as evident by the fact that the audience in her segment aren’t clapping and yet applause is heard.

Pick-ups/do-overs

Obviously the live show is live, so any pick-ups wouldn’t be possible anyway, not that it really needed them, but even the second show Graham Norton only made a single mistake that had to be re-shot – that cannot be an easy task, being faultless for a good few hours. I was impressed. We did have a few pauses for costume changes, but I think that is fair enough – why rush around live like mad things if you don’t have to.

Charlotte Church

Her song warrants its own section because she had to do it 3 times to get it right, and do the interview with Graham twice as she forgot to plug the single the first time round (duh!). Not particularly forgiveable given she is supposedly the experienced singer to mentor the Dorothys, who manage to (more or less) get 3 or 4 songs right each week in a single take. It was especially torturous as the song is pretty crappy anyway.

The Dorothys

Our first taste of the girls was when we realised we were sitting close to where they sit the guests/VIPs, so we congratulated/commiserated Stephanie on last week’s departure. The live show was relatively uneventful – I think it came across on telly the same way as it was in the studio. I definitely

think that Jenny and Sophie’s songs were chosen to try and unseat them; unpopular songs were never going to get as many votes as the well known numbers the other 4 produced. Combined with Jenny’s dog fiasco (again, I call fix…), it was predictable to see her go I think.

Sitting where we were, she then came up to join Stephanie which meant we got to have a chat (and a photo) with both of them. They were both lovely and relatively unfazed by the number of people wanting a chat/hug/photo. This confirmed my suspicions that I think I’d like to marry Jenny… 😉

In the results show, the only point of note was Sophie in the mash-up, as she managed to get the dance wrong (twice, I think). Having watched it back last night, I think she escaped having it broadcast though, but we saw! I also thought that Jessica did a good job of keeping composed after her elimination, and seemed to be in good spirits as she left, thanking well-wishers including us. It was also notable that the first person to talk to her after she came down from the moon was the Lord himself, who greeted her with a big hug, so it looks like she is gong to be in his good books for a while to come.

I’m glad that I didn’t manage to make it on TV, as I think I would have felt very self-concious,and despite the 2 and 1/2 hour wait to get into the studios, I’d definitely do it again and I hope I get tickets for either (both?) of the next two shows. It also made me remember how much I love live musical theatre, so I think a few more West End trips are in the offing!

Over the Rainbow – the halfway point

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As background, this is about the BBC TV show Over the Rainbow, where they search for a girl to play the part of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I’m not all about sciency/politics things you know!

Firstly, I know we’ve had more than half of the shows (no idea where the time has gone…), but with 6/11 girls still in and a double eviction next week, I think it counts! The questions for me are: how were my predictions from the audition stages and have I changed my mind!

My picks from the top 10 were listed in 3 groups like so. I’ve struck through those which have already been eliminated.

Jessica
Stephanie
Dani

Amy
Danielle
Jenny
Lauren

Sophie
Bronte
Steph

And then Emilie was the wild-card who has been and gone.

So apparently I can’t pick them! Although I still think Jessica stands a great chance.

Contrary to my original rankings, I’m quite glad that Stephanie went tonight as while I still think she would have been great technically, she just isn’t as interesting to watch as some of the other Dorothys. In some ways, now we’ve seen more of the girls on screen, in my mind I have mentally moved the goalposts so now they can’t just look and act like my mind’s eye thinks Dorothy should be but also have to win me over generally. I’ve fallen into a horrible trap of not judging them objectively at all, rather falling for the different personalities we are shown. Given I’m sure that is how most people vote, I’m actually surprised the programme-makers don’t have get the girls to engage more with the public and garner up more votes. Why don’t they publish diaries/twitter accounts/web-only video and the like? Certainly seems to be a demand for it if the way people lap up the official facebook page.

Embracing my change of heart, I’d like Jenny, Sophie or Lauren (I realise I’ve just named half the field…) to win as they are just very watchable, both in their performances and in flirting with the camera in the prerecorded segments. Otherwise, I stick by my shout of Jessica from way back!

I’ve also warmed a lot to Steph and her addresses to the camera, but I can’t see her as Dorothy: she just doesn’t seem vulnerable enough for me. I’d like to see her in something where she could use that confidence, Chicago maybe?

On a separate note, I’m going to see it LIVE next week at Fountain Studios in Wembley! I’m ridiculously excited, both by seeing it all live, but also in a geeky way by seeing how they work that mix of live theatre and live broadcasting. I’m sure it will be amazing, and I’ll try to write it up here. (Obviously without any spoilers, given the backlash in the Twitterverse last night over the leaking of potential spoilers!)

My first Panorama

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Boston Harbour

The view from Long Wharf at Boston Harbour

I’ve finally got around to making my first panorama! As I was walking around Boston I saw the opportunity for a panorama, even though I had not the faintest idea how to go about. Anyway, memory is cheap so I took the shots and figured I’d work it out later if I got time.

Inspired by seeing the original shots come around this afternoon on my digital photo frame and seeing a friend upload some panorama’s from his trip abroad this evening, I decided to get down to work.

I used a recently downloaded version of Hugin to stitch it together and it seemed relatively straight-forward although I didn’t delve into most of the settings. If anyone has any pointers, I’d be most pleased, but I’m pretty happy with it!

Science and Politics at a local level

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After blogging about the manifestos of the three main parties, I thought I’d email the three main party candidates standing in my constituency (Frank Dobson (Labour), George Lee (Conservative) and Jo Shaw (Lib Dem)) to find out what their personal views on these kind of issues are, so I sent them the following email:

Dear …,

I am writing to you and the candidates from the other major parties to find out your views on science and education issues in the General Election and I will be posting all responses to my blog at http://www.blog.jstreetley.co.uk and updating the Skeptical Voter wikipage (http://skeptical-voter.org/wiki/) so that all can see where you stand. I think these issues are particularly pertinent to this constituency given the large number of HE institutions within it, so I hope you will find time to answer these questions.

Do you support the use of public funds to provide unproven health products such as homeopathy? Including funding of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital within the constituency?
Do you agree that testing on animals (within strict criteria) is a necessary part of the development of medicines?
Do you believe the science budget represents a sound investment? Will you act to protect science funding?
Do you support the concept of tuition fees/top-up fees, along with any cap?
Is a good Science education as important as one in English or Maths? Why?

I realise your party’s stance on some of these issues is clear in their manifesto, but I would really value your personal opinions on these and I know others in the skeptic and science community will too.

Regards,
James Streetley

Some questions are taken from the Skeptical Voter Survey and others I have invented. Feel free to use them to quiz your own PPCs if you wish. I will post back as soon as each replies to me.

The Green Party Manifesto

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Yesterday, the Green Party manifesto was launched. Last year I remarked (in passing and via a Times article) that the Green Party are not that hot on science/research in their manifesto for the European elections. This year in their general election video, the story is not that different, with some of the same pledges coming out to play. I have already blogged on the main parties manifesto commitments to science and education, but coming later than the other parties, and being sufficiently, well, interesting, I’ll dedicate a whole post to their pledges.

Firstly, I should mention that the word “science” doesn’t appear at all in the manifesto. However, they do have some pretty far reaching science pledges, such as this one. (emphasis throughout is all theirs.)

Immediately ban causing harm to animals (including but not only primates) in research, testing and education, and invest in the development of alternatives to animal experiments.

I’m not entirely sure I have the words to describe what I think of this pledge. Use of animals in research is clearly necessary for progress in medical research (as are humans and human tissue), despite being a fairly terrible reality. I think the BBC sums up the arguments in both directions quite well, particularly the quote from William DH Carey in a letter to the BMJ. This pledge would halt some aspects of medical research; killing people and disadvantaging us as a nation. To me this alone means I could not vote for a Green candidate. Strong regulation is one thing, but an outright ban is preposterous.

Next an onslaught again genetic modification (GM).

work for a complete ban on genetically modified food in Europe.

Here we have a technology that could help end some of the more dubious farming methods that their manifesto also discusses at length, and yet the Green Party are against it. The mind boggles.

Finally, they have this beauty on CAM.

Make available on the NHS complementary medicines that are cost-effective and have been shown to work.

Another “words fail me” moment. Cost-effective and proven to work, yes. We call that evidence-based medicine, though, not complementary. I think Tim Minchin says this best in Storm:

You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”

In the interest of balance, I tried to find some science policies that I thought were positive, but alas there were none. Education is at least slightly better.

Move towards ending the need for private education by creating a programme of voluntary assimilation of private schools into the state sector. Schools that remain in the private sector would have charitable status removed and would pay all relevant taxes, such as VAT.

Finally, something I agree on. I feel strongly that education should be provided on a merit-based system, so that the brightest, not the wealthiest, get the best education. It is both best for the best individuals to be well-educated and for society who will eventually reap their benefit from the output of our brightest. Making it hard for private schools to operate is a step in the right direction.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of great things in the Green Party manifesto to be excited about such as pledges on:

  • ban sale of eggs from battery hens
  • maintain and extend blood sports ban
  • increase spend on waste management and recycling

and other both predictable and laudable pledges that you would expect from the Green Party. Sadly just not in the areas that are strongest to me.

Overall: Pitiful on science, a party I could not vote for.
Full Manifesto

Science in the Manifestos

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So following my earlier blog post on where the parties stood on libel reform, I thought I’d continue by examining another subject that I feel strongly about: science and science education. Now that the 3 main parties have published their manifestos, let’s see where they stand.

Labour

Labour were first out of the traps to release their manifesto, so it is only fair they get to go first.

[They] are committed to a ring-fenced science budget in the next spending review

This is great news, although an improvement and increase would be better. As Prof. Brian Cox has said (over and over), investing in science creates wealth, so an increase would actually help the economy in the long-term, and to cut it would make such a small saving in the short-term compared to long-term losses as to be non-sensical.

To help us do better in turning research outputs into innovation, we will provide focused investment for Technology and Innovation Centres, developing technologies where the UK has world-leading expertise

Not sure about this one; sounds very good, but we already have enough “focus” on impact statements for researchers and trying to second-guess how useful the research will be. The problem is, sometimes you can’t know what the eventual outcome of the research will be until you do it. The oft-quoted example is Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web that came out of CERN with an outcome beyond that originally expected.

We will also support university research through the Higher Education Innovation Fund…

Not entirely sure what they are getting at there. This isn’t a new body, the HEIF already exists to the tune of £150m this coming academic year. I presume they just mean they will continue what they have already announced. Not much of a pledge.

More young people will be able to study single science subjects

We reject a return to the 11-plus or free-for-all admission system

…raising the education leaving age to 18.

Single sciences are definitely the way forward to inspire young people to continue in science. Enjoyment of any subject comes from having a good understanding of it, and this is particularly true in the sciences, and I think this can best be taught separately. And whilst the sciences do all converge, it is also important to recognise that there is no such thing as “science” as a single entity and that the subjects can be quite different and so it is perfectly possible to enjoy different facets of science without much reference to the others.

Continuing to be against the 11-plus is no great surprise, although as a someone very much in favour of Grammar schools (and educated at one), it does disappoint me.

As for raising the leaving age, I can’t say I’m thrilled at that. Diversification of education and apprenticeships might lessen the blow somewhat, but I still remember being at school with those who distinctly didn’t want to be so left when they could. Not sure I could have taken it for another 2 years!

Overall: Nice, but vague.
Full Manifesto

Conservatives

Second out to be published and my party of choice, but what do they have to say?

a multi-year Science and Research Budget to provide a stable investment climate for Research Councils

delay the implementation of the Research Excellence Framework so that it can be reviewed – because of doubts about whether there is a robust and acceptable way of measuring the impact of all research

Multi-year is good, long term would be better for Research Council stability. Where is the increase? Or at least ring fence as Labour have promised. I am disappointed that there is not a more concrete promise in there.

The explicit recognition of the problems encountered when measuring research impact is excellent. It is a minefield and so the implication that the Conservatives want to find a “robust and acceptable” measure is exciting indeed. This also pleases my sense that manifestos should contain specific detail!

creating a better focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in schools

Another admirable ambition, but I feel that it is almost pointlessly vague.

allow all state schools the freedom to offer the same high quality international exams that private schools offer – including giving every pupil the chance to study separate sciences at GCSE

As someone who attended a state school that taught the International Baccalaureate Diploma, studied separate science from the age of 11 and has gone on to 2 science degrees (soon to be 3), I am living proof that a detailed science education can be inspiring and empowers those who want to learn. Therefore, I can’t sing highly enough the praises of this pledge.

Overall: wishy-washy, especially given the length of the document, more detail would have been nice.
Full Manifesto

Liberal Democrat

Last out of the blocks this morning, and one that I have been eagerly awaiting having seen Dr Evan Harris talk before about the Lib Dem commitment to science. I have to say, I was not disappointed:

Respect the convention that the science budget, once allocated through the Comprehensive Spending Review process, is not used for other purposes

Not as strong a way of pledging to protect the science budget, but I suppose “every little helps”. Still no ring-fence and certainly not a pledge to increase it though. Sad, but probably honest at least.

Ensure that the decisions on the funding of research projects are made on the basis of peer review not Whitehall interference, while recognising the need for government to identify broad strategic priorities in a transparent manner.

Reform science funding to ensure that genuinely innovative scientific research is identified and supported, instead of basing funding decisions on narrow impact factors.

These two pledges are similar to the Tory pledge on funding and the Research Excellence Framework, and are welcome. Along with the introduction to the science section of the manifesto, I think the way these pledges are worded is proof that the Lib Dems get science. To me they just seem to hit the mark better than the similar Tory pledge. I wonder if it is more of Dr Evan Harris’ work.

Ensure that all state-funded research, including clinical trials, is publicly accessible and that the results are published and subject to peer review

A pledge for open-access publishing! I really didn’t see that coming as it isn’t exactly of mainstream interest and I wonder how the higher cost of open-access publishing would be covered with the inevitable increased grant funding it would required. To me, just the recognition of the issue is brilliant though, and something the Lib Dems should be commended for.

Safeguard academic freedom and the independence of scientific advisers by amending the Ministerial Code to prevent government from bullying or mistreating advisers and distorting evidence or statistics

They also sneaked in this pledge regarding evidence-based policy into their science section, which again, I’m sure will go down well with the science community.

Give 14–19 year-olds the right to take up a course at college, rather than at school, if it suits them better. This will enable all children to choose to study, for example, separate sciences or modern languages at GCSE, or a vocational subject.

This completes the set of parties wishing to bring back single science education at GCSE level. It is worrying that they don’t think it should be taught within the school but offered as an option elsewhere, in contrast to what Tories appear to pledged though.

Overall: With more detail and specific science pledges, it seems like the Lib Dems understand the science vote.
Full Manifesto (edited 2015 to point to an archived manifesto)

Summary

In many ways, it is hard to differentiate between the parties based on their science pledges, with them all wishing a return to separate sciences and to review the way in which science grants are allocated, so it is very hard to definitively choose based on science policy alone. To me the Lib Dems have the upper hand at the moment, both because they have some superior content and pledges, but also because the way it is written and the specifics it goes into just seem to show a better understanding and honesty over the current science issues, but I think that is purely a personal feeling.

In fact, I think that applies all the way through the Lib Dem manifesto from my skim read of it so far, and it is almost making me turn from committed Tory voter – especially if I want to stand a chance of outing Frank Dobson in my area – but that is another story entirely.

To help us
do better in turning research
outputs into innovation,
we will provide focused
investment for Technology and
Innovation Centres, developing
technologies where the UK has
world-leading expertise