Left to Right: Dr Matthew McCloskey, Ms Debra Smith, Professor John Shine, Senator The Hon Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science & Research, Dr Kate Trinajstic, Dr Benjamin Kile (photo credit: Irene Dowdy/DIISR)
The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were presented by the Prime Minister and the Innovation Minister at the Prize Dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday 17 November. The MC for the evening was the ABC’s Bernie Hobbs.
Minister’s press release
Minister’s speech
Minister’s press release
THE SECRET LIFE OF BLOOD
What triggers cancer? That is the question Melbourne scientist Dr Benjamin Kile is determined to answer.
Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr will tonight recognise Dr Kile’s pioneering work through the $50,000 Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year – one of five Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.
“Dr Kile and his team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute are unravelling the secrets of blood. They have already discovered the molecular clock that dooms platelets – the blood cells responsible for clotting – to a short shelf life at the blood bank,” Senator Carr said.
“Dr Kile has also discovered a gene that’s critical for the production of blood stem cells in our bone marrow and is also associated with many cancers. Now he is working to extend the life of blood bank products, and to get to the heart of a big question: how does cancer start?”
The work of Dr Katherine Trinajstic from Curtin University will also be recognised through the $50,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year. The Perth-based scientist is investigating when our ancestors first gave birth to live young. Her work has uncovered the first ‘womb’ in fish that lived 380 million years ago, in what is now the Kimberley Ranges.
“Dr Trinajstic realised that the muscles and organs of those fish had been fossilised along with the bones. Now she is using synchrotron light and CT scanning to virtually dissect her fossils. She is also using the fossil record to help in the search for new oil and gas reserves,” Senator Carr said.
The Prime Minster will announce the three other winners of the 2010 Prime Minister’s Prizes:
- Dr John Shine, director of the Garvan Institute, will receive the $300,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science.
- Dr Matthew McCloskey, director of studies at Sydney Grammar’s Edgecliff Preparatory School, will receive the $50,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools
- Ms Debra Smith, head of science at Centenary High School in western Brisbane, will receive the $50,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools.
Full citations, photos, videos and overlay are available online: www.innovation.gov.au/scienceprizes.
Media contacts:
Aban Contractor, Minister’s Office, 0457 989 842
Graham Durant, Department, 02 6270 2947
Minister’s speech
Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
17 November 2010, Great Hall, Parliament House
[check against delivery]
These awards recognise high achievement.
They go to men and women with great courage.
The courage to inspire.
The courage to question.
The courage to pursue hard truths.
Those are the hallmarks of excellence.
And the Australian Government expects no less.
We know the discoveries of science can transform the world.
Yet some, it seems, would disagree.
Some would challenge the very legitimacy of science.
Scientific method
To be generous, this might be the product of our misunderstanding of scientific method.
To scientists, the contest of ideas is what drives science forward.
It allows us to test, refine, and improve our knowledge.
Yet in the popular mind, scientists can be seen as the keepers of truth and the arbiters of fact.
Too often, we assert that science provides ‘the proof’.
The historian in me asserts that science at best provides the consensus of experts, based on robust assessment of the known evidence.
That’s what we mean by peer review.
To be less generous, we make no such claims in politics.
And we certainly make no such claims in political journalism.
So when politics is dressed up as science, how can the public measure credibility?
In theory, political journalism claims that both sides of an argument need to be heard.
In practice, that means claims vetted and dismissed in the halls of science by peer review may well clog up the halls of public opinion.
Put simply, not all opinions are of equal intellectual value in scientific debate.
And quackery certainly doesn’t deserve equal time as credible research.
The point is well made by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their recent book Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury, 2010).
They demonstrate how the enemies of science have been able to undermine public confidence and buttress vested interests over the last fifty years.
The authors build their case on numerous examples, from the infamous tactics of the tobacco industry, to the debate around asbestos, to the ongoing campaign against climate scientists.
Science journalism
Our ability to counter this trend in Australia must surely be compromised by the absence of serious science specialists in our mainstream press.
Think for a moment of how few special science rounds there are in our major dailies.
The Australian Science Media Centre has identified just eleven dedicated science writers writing in the major national and metropolitan papers. Eight of them double as environment, technology, or general news reporters.
So who’s giving us the science news? More and more, it comes from what Robyn Williams calls ‘the Dark Side’ – the world of public relations. In a recent edition of The Walkley (February 2010), he points out that PR officers outnumber journalists twenty to one in the Australian Science Communicators.
Then there is social media, some of which is well-informed.
But a lot of it is not.
There is a mass of anecdote, opinion, and special pleading – all demanding to be treated as the intellectual equivalent of science.
There are too many people who are willing to acquiesce to that demand.
Since the days of Galileo, individual scientists have been reluctant to engage in public controversy.
A sense of isolation can be intimidating.
And intimidation is a powerful silencer.
That’s why the friends of science within the political system have to speak up.
But we need more.
Modern science is dependent on collaboration. On the work of teams.
We need today a team of champions who are prepared to challenge the merchants of doubt.
We need our scientific community to inspire Australia, so that our scientists have the courage to carry our nation’s hopes and dreams.
Our award winners tonight are equal to that task.
