Farewell to the rule of thumb
Forget school league tables. A US-developed expert system will give a fuller picture of school performance says Carol Nahra. Researchers at the University of Maryland are developing an innovative...
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Slim platter with a WAD of information
World Academic Database Macmillan, +44 171 881 80; macdir@ macmillan.co.uk, in association with the International Association of Universities Pounds 225 +VAT ISBN 0333 664442 Dual use DOS/ Windows CD...
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First Impressions
This week's First Impressions comes from an artist who could be so self-effacing that he occasionally used a handkerchief to obscure the tools of his trade: "I, like many another boy, burst into the...
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Appointments
University of Sussex. Ben Martin, professor of science and technology policy studies, has been appointed director of the Science Policy Research Unit. Department for Education and Employment Tim...
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God's little helper
James Watson, the joint father of molecular biology, has just arrived in a UK that now boasts one famous cloned sheep. But, as he tells Kam Patel, the prospect of cloned humans saddens rather than...
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Is the tune-in a switch-off
Two weeks before the launch of Channel 5 Katrina Wishart asks five academics - Do we need a fifth terrestrial television channel and what do you think of the programmes it is offering? Channel 5's...
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Rememberer of loves past
Anthony Minghella tells Harriet Swain about his journey from Hull academic to Hollywood film-maker and discusses historians' charges that the hero of his new film The English Patient was a Nazi spy....
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Hard facts and erratic people
Are risks culturally constructed or objectively measurable? John Adams suggests a model that can accommodate both views. The last time the Royal Society tried to write a report about risk management...
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Solutions that can become inflexible friends
Lucy Neville-Rolfe argues that business should not be over-regulated. The Government often comes under pressure to introduce further regulation in response to crises or disasters. However, regulation...
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The organiser's view
In a democracy government is inevitably a joint venture between experts including civil servants, lay persons and politicians. Good government entails mutually supportive relations between them. Lord...
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Types of risk
The significance of making a distinction between three types of risk: directly perceived risk, risk perceived through science and virtual risk, can be explained with the help of a model which...
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Why talk of risk is full of hazards
The Royal Society's last conference on risk in 1992 was notable for the squabble between pure and social scientists. Julia Hinde looks at why those involved failed to agree and asks if the prospects...
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Immoral maize?
How should government and the scientific community respond to public fears over genetically modified foods? Derek Burke says the establishment has learnt to listen to the consumer, but Robin Grove-...
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Judging experts by the company they keep
Tim O'Riordan discovers why the public trusts some experts but not others. I and two research colleagues recently asked a cross section of Norwich residents whom would they trust to tell them the...
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Overcoming the fear of flying with Joe Public as co-pilot
John Durant argues that any assessment of risk that hopes to command public confidence must mix scientific expertise with unqualified lay opinions. Living in what the German sociologist Ulrich Beck...