User:Cml3nc/sandbox

Colin's Edits/Additions
British Science Association

Above Foundation:

One of the most famous events linked to the Association Meeting was an exchange between Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in 1860 (see the 1860 Oxford evolution debate). Although it is often described as a "debate", the exchange occurred after the presentation of a paper by Prof Draper of New York, on the intellectual development of Europe with relation to Darwin's theory (one of a number of scientific papers presented during the week) and the subsequent discussion involved a number of other participants (although Wilberforce and Huxley were the most prominent). Although a number of newspapers made passing references to the exchange, it was not until later that it was accorded greater significance in the evolution debate.

Additions: I want to add to the original intro of the page because it is very lack luster and doesnt have a lot of information. I want to include information of the association to let the reader know what the British Science Association is about, what their goals are, and what they are doing in the present time.

Draft: The British Science Association's mission is to get more people engaged in the field of science by coordinating, delivering, and overseeing different projects that are suited to achieve these goals. The British Science Association envisions a society in which a diverse group of people can learn and apply the sciences in which they learn. The British Science Association is managed by a professional staff located at their Head Office at the Wellcome Wolfson Building along with four regional staff across the UK. The British Science Association offers a wide variety of activities and events that both recognize and encourage people to be involved in science. These include the British Science Festival, British Science Week, the CREST Awards, Huxley Summit, Youth Pannel, Media Fellowships Scheme, along with regional and local events.

Huxley Summit: Named after Thomas Huxley, the Huxley Summit is a leadership event run by the British Science Association, where 250 of the most influential people in the UK are brought together to discuss scientific and social challenges that the UK faces in the 21st century and to develop a link between scientists and non-scientists to ensure that science can be understood by society as a whole. On November 8th, 2016, the British Science Association held the very first Huxley Summit at BAFTA, London. The theme of the summit was "Trust in the 21st Century" and how that would affect the future of science, innovation, and business.

Media Fellowship Schemes: The British Science Association's Media Fellowship provides the opportunity for practicing scientists, clinicians, and engineers to spend a period of time working at media outlets such as the Guardian, BBC Breakfast or The Londonist. After their time with the media placement, the fellows attend the British Science Festival which will offer these practitioners valuable working experience with a range of media organizations along with learning from a wide range of public engagement activities and be able to network with academics, journalists and science communicators.

Under "History"
During this second meeting, the first objects and rules of the Association were published. Objects included systematically directing the acquisition of scientific knowledge, spreading this knowledge as well as discussion between scientists across the world, and to focus on furthering science by removing obstacles to progress. The rules established included what constituted a member of the Association, the fee to remain a member, and the process for future meetings. They also include dividing the members into different committees. These committees separated members into their preferred subject matter, and were to recommend investigations into areas of interest, then report on these findings, as well as progress in their science at the annual meetings.

Additional sections were added throughout the years by either splitting off part of an original section, like making Geography and Ethnology its own section apart from Geology in 1851, or by defining a new subject area of discussion, such as Anthropology in 1869.

The Association relinquished control of the Kew Observatory in 1871 to the management of the Royal Society, after a large donation to grant the observatory its independence.

In 1872, the Association purchased its first central office in London, acquiring four rooms at 22 Albemarle Street. This office was intended to be a resource for members of the Association.

Under "Perception of Science in the UK"
At the beginning of the Great Depression, the Association’s focus began to shift their purpose to account for not only scientific progress, but the social aspects of such progress. In the Association’s 1931 meeting, the president General Jan Christiaan Smuts ended his address by the proposal of linking science and ethics together but provided no means to actuate his ideas. In the following years, debate began as to whom the responsibilities of scientists fell upon. The Association adopted a resolution in 1934 that dedicated efforts to better balance scientific advancement with social progress.

J.D. Bernal, a member of the Royal Society and the British Association, wrote The Social Function of Science in 1939, describing a need to correctly utilize science for society and the importance of its public perception. The idea of the public perception of science was furthered in 1985 when the Royal Society published a report titled The Public Understanding of Science. In the report, a committee of the Royal Society determined that it was scientists' duty to communicate to and educate the public. Lord George Porter, then president of the Royal Society, British Association, and Director of the Royal Institution, created the Committee of Public Understanding of Science, or COPUS, to promote public understanding of science.

Cody's Edits/Additions
Perception of science in the UK: The Association's main aim is to improve the perception of science and scientists in the UK. Membership is open to all.

Prof Sir George Porter, on becoming President in September 1985, was scathing against so-called 'soft sciences' such as psychology, and even economics (both part of the Association). He claimed that academics in these areas were far too eager to try to put unsubstantiated assertions into practice on the public and that undergraduates were often taught unsubstantiated assertions, as if they had been established by rigorous scientific method. He claimed this was damaging the public perception of science.

The following September he said that the general level of scientific understanding in Britain was lamentably low, with many senior politicians, religious leaders and controllers of the media scientifically uneducated. He said of Britain's education system that although it provides the finest education anywhere for the young man or woman who wants to be an academic scientist, it leaves the majority ignorant of the scientific world where they will live and work and it was the duty of scientists to drag kicking and screaming into the twenty first century those who have no taste for the subject. On science education in schools he said of all the many crises in education and science, perhaps the most serious is the disappearing species of the good teacher of physics, mathematics and to a lesser extent the other sciences and that if it is allowed to go much further, there will be no recovery for generations, comparing it to China's Cultural Revolution which he said produced a lost generation.

Sir Kenneth Durham, former Director of Research at Unilever, on becoming President in August 1987 followed on from Sir George Porter saying that science teachers needed extra pay to overcome the scarcity of mathematics and physics teachers in secondary schools, and that unless we deal with this as matter of urgency, the outlook for our manufacturing future is bleak. He regretted that headmasters and careers masters had for many years followed 'the cult of Oxbridge' because it carried more prestige to read Classics at Oxbridge and go into the Civil Service or banking, than to read engineering at, say, Salford, and go into manufacturing industry. He said that reporting of sciences gave good coverage to medical science, but that nevertheless, editors ought to be sensitive to developments in areas such as solid state physics, astro-physics, colloid science, molecular biology, transmission of stimuli along nerve fibres, and so on, and that newspaper editors were in danger of waiting for disasters before the scientific factors involved in the incidents were explained.

In September 2001 Sir William Stewart, as outgoing president, warned that universities faced 'dumbing down' and that we can deliver social inclusiveness, and the best universities, but not both from a limited amount of money. We run the risk of doing neither well. Universities are underfunded, and must not be seen simply as a substitute for National Service to keep youngsters off the dole queue. He also said scientists have to be careful and consider the full implications of what they are seeking to achieve. The problem with some clever people is that they find cleverer ways of being stupid.

In September 2003 Sir Peter Williams, the outgoing president, said that the world was facing a shortage of scientists because too many young people dropped the subject at an early age.

Edits wanting to be made: Either try to find the sources for the quotes use, or cut them all out all together and talk about a different subject. So maybe the history of well known people work are apart of the association.

Edits: Remove: Prof Sir George Porter, on becoming President in September 1985, was scathing against so-called 'soft sciences' such as psychology, and even economics (both part of the Association). He claimed that academics in these areas were far too eager to try to put unsubstantiated assertions into practice on the public and that undergraduates were often taught unsubstantiated assertions, as if they had been established by rigorous scientific method. He claimed this was damaging the public perception of science. [why do you want to remove this? It's relevant. K8shep (talk) 19:01, 19 March 2019 (UTC)]

Replace with: Professor Sir George Porter became the president in September 1985. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967 along with Manfred Eigen, and Ronald George Wreyford Norrish. (Work in Progress) Peer Review by Squatch_BH_1117 (Talk)

March 22, 2019

Peer review Noah Williams

I feel that one of the main goals of these edits to this article is to remove biases, and that is very good. I was going to mention looking into any possible scholarly information on the social atmosphere of the time, but I later saw that it had already been mentioned.

Cody, before removing the section about Porter's "scathing" of certain fields of study, you should look to see if there are any sources that directly quote his opinions that may have been voiced. A likely place to find this would be old Association minutes if you can find them.

Colin, I really like how you have attempted to pass on a "mission statement to the reader. An interesting addition could possibly be finding any direct quotations about the origin and beginning of the Association and describing how it has evolved in terms of "mission."

Collin

 * I like your idea of adding a new paragraph before history but it isn't clear if you are adding a while new sections of just adding to the intro already there.
 * I think adding to the original intro is best because it is very short and brief and could use some work to further explain the BSA.
 * Also, the mission statement that you added would fit great into the table on the right side the the wiki page that has facts about the BSA

Andrew

 * I think there are a couple sentences in your additions to foundation that should be cited because you state incited facts
 * The changing of the header from of “Perception of Science in the UK” to “Modern beliefs of the British Science Association” is a great idea and should be implemented when rewriting that section
 * On top of that when rewriting that section I think it would be easy to become bias so keep that in mind
 * Agree with Dr. Sheppard about not removing a cited sentence in the article but rather you could possibly move it to another section where it applies better

Cody

 * I think that the “Perception of Science in the UK” section shouldn't be deleted entirely because even though it isn't cited it does have a lot of useful information
 * However, I think you have two options for this section. One, keep most of that section intact but cite as much as you can and then continue to add on to it and remove whatever you don't need. Or two, start from scratch and rewrite it using that same ideas of the original but this time use articles to back up the ideas so that you can cite it

Overall

 * Great start to the draft
 * I think a great addition would be adding a timeline of major events from the year it was founding to today. From this the audience can get a sense of how it was when it was first founded to how it has progressed to become what it is today.
 * Also, you could make a new section that states "contribution" with subsections of what the BSA has done to contribute to society. The "electrical standards" is an example of a contribution and could be moved to that section. In each of these sections you should focus on what they did and what they effect was explicitly to avoid any bias.
 * Lastly, when we are taught how to I think some more pictures and chart should be added so the article does not look as boring