Scientific debate finds new home in bars and cafés

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Scientific debate finds new home in bars and cafés</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Engaging the public in scientific debate is an immense challenge. But a growing movement is taking science straight to the public by staging events in pubs and cafés. The idea, called Café Scientifique, began in 1997 in France but is going global, and events are now organised in 11 countries.</p>
<p>A typical Café Scientifique involves a short talk by an expert speaker, followed by informal debate about issues of the day such as the ethics of genetic testing. Events have also been run in teacher trainer colleges to build teachers’ confidence about discussing science.</p>
<p>As the movement grows, its organisers are looking at ways of developing the idea further. Already, video conferencing has been used to link audiences in the United Kingdom with those in Turkey and the West Bank.</p>
<p><a onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" target="_blank" href="http://www.nature.com/login/scidev_login.taf?ref=/nature/journal/v429/n6990/full/429333a_fs.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full news story in <em>Nature</em></a> </p>
<p>Reference: <em>Nature</em> 429, 333 (2004)</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/scientific-debate-finds-new-home-in-bars-and-cafs/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/scientific-debate-finds-new-home-in-bars-and-cafs/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Engaging the public in scientific debate is an immense challenge. But a growing movement is taking science straight to the public by staging events in pubs and cafés. The idea, called Café Scientifique, began in 1997 in France but is going global, and events are now organised in 11 countries.

A typical Café Scientifique involves a short talk by an expert speaker, followed by informal debate about issues of the day such as the ethics of genetic testing. Events have also been run in teacher trainer colleges to build teachers’ confidence about discussing science.

As the movement grows, its organisers are looking at ways of developing the idea further. Already, video conferencing has been used to link audiences in the United Kingdom with those in Turkey and the West Bank.

Link to full news story in Nature

Reference: Nature 429, 333 (2004)