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Biomedicine in museums

Are science and society frenemies? And what, if anything, does this mean for sci-med-tech communication?

Sometimes conference announcements only become interesting in the very last sentence. Like this one for “Frenemies: The love-hate relationsship between science and society”, taking place at Universiteit Twente on 14 September.

Science is put in the dock, so it seems. Experts are under attack, there is public agitation on the internet. Yet we cherish expertise as never before, and cite expert sources whenever they suit us. Are we friends, or enemies, or both? […] This symposium looks at the dynamic role of expertise in our society. How should we understand the notion of expertise? What operates as credible expertise, and when? Is scientific expertise overrated, and are other forms of expertise too easily dismissed? Or is it precisely the other way around?

Seems like any other conference on scientific expertice to me. But then comes the interesting part:

And what, if anything, does this mean for communicating science and technology?

If you plan to attend, send an email to pauline.teppich@utwente.nl with subject REGISTER #FRENEMIES.

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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