Press Release 78/2001

June, 1st 2001
 

A Debt Payable by Science - or One to Be Collected by Modern Society?
Conference on Public Understanding of Science to be held at the ZiF

The problem of communication between experts and laymen which is less developed in Germany than in other countries - say Great Britain - will be the topic of a conference from June 6th to 8th at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) of the University of Bielefeld. This conference on the Public Understanding of Science which has been organized by the Bielefeld chemist Professor Achim Müller and to which the discoverer of football molecules Harold Kroto and the “father of the pill” Carl Djerassi have been invited will be about the question whether science has a debt in this matter payable by debtor to society, or whether modern society as the creditor is called to collect this debt itself.

Natural science and technology have progressed at breathtaking speed. Factual knowledge has increased explosively. This is what raises fundamental problems of communication in the opinion of Achim Müller, the discoverer of the “Keplerates”: “On the one hand, an extreme specialization leads to a situation where less and less natural scientists communicate with one another. If there are grave problems of communication discernible already within science itself, how much greater, on the other hand, must be the chasm between people having a general education and the scientists doing research in special fields. This has created a situation which harbours difficulties for society at large as well. A lack of mutual understanding may lead to anxieties and hostility with regard to technology, with dire consequences for politics and the economy. Members of certain professions, among them scientists, increasingly find themselves in a position where they have to present their activities or even justify them before the general public. For this kind of communication, however, the language of their special disciplines is completely unsuitable, while the task to inform about a special field in a language understandable for all is as a rule not an element in (scientific) everyday professional life. Despite the fact that science journalists try to mediate between these two different worlds, their activity can solve this problem only in part, and hence not to satisfaction. In view of this problematic, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is offering a Communicator Award.

As a particular problem the ZiF Conference will tackle the ambivalent image of chemistry in the eyes of the (non-scientific) public. In this manner, this conference will offer an example of how public understanding and, as far as possible, public goodwill can be established. The focus hence will be on the concrete case of applying public relations to science.

Program of the Conference on Public Understanding of Science:

6. Juni, 20.00 Uhr, Lesung, H.W. Bellwinkel (Bochum): Thomas Mann und die Naturwissenschaften.

7. Juni, ab 8.50 Uhr, Eröffnung der Tagung durch die Geschäftsführende Direktorin des ZiF, Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, und Achim Müller, Fakultät für Chemie der Universität Bielefeld.
Harold Kroto (Brighton): Science, a Round Peg in a Square World.
Henri Brunner (Regensburg): Rechts oder links in Natur, Kunst, Technik, Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft.
Wolf Peter Fehlhammer (München): "100 Jahre Deutsches Museum" - 100 Jahre PUS pur.
Andreas Dress (Bielefeld): The Evolution of Man: The Evolution of Mathematics.

7. Juni ab 14.00 Uhr, Harald Jockusch (Bielefeld): Von der Laborbank zu den Medien: Unser Beitrag zur Renaissance der Aufklärung.
Henning Genz (Karlsruhe): Alles voll Gewimmels - Das Vakuum der Physik.
Reinhard Kögerler (Bielefeld): Wie materiell ist Materie?
E. Constable (Birmingham): Making Chemistry Comprehensible.

8. Juni ab 9.00 Uhr, Peter Atkins (Oxford): Making Molecule Matter.
Günter Schmid (Essen): Chemistry Meets Physics: The Smallest Switches.
Achim Müller (Bielefeld): Chemie und Ästhetik: Die Formenvielfalt der Natur als Ausdruck ihrer Kreativität.
Hans-Jürgen Quadbeck-Seeger (Ludwigshafen): Chemie - "Old Economy" oder "New Frontiers?"
Martin Jansen (Stuttgart): Rationales Design oder Kombinatorik, wie steigert man die Effizienz bei Fest-körpersynthesen?

8. Juni, ab 14.00 Uhr, Heinrich Vahrenkamp (Freiburg i.Br.): Kein Leben ohne Metalle, z.B. ohne Zink.
Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus (Bielefeld): Das teutolab: eine chemische Verbindung zwischen Schule und Uni.

16.10 bis 17.00 Uhr, Round Table Diskussion - Was haben wir gelernt?

19.00 Uhr, Lesung, Carl Djerassi (Stanford): THIS MAN'S PILL: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of the Pill.

Informations: Tagungsbüro des ZiF, Telefon 0521/106 2768, Internet: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/ZIF/AGMueller_06_2001.html

Press and Information Office, 2001-6-1
pressestelle@uni-bielefeld.de