300,000 additional households into work due to Universal Credit – fanciful thinking?

The Universal Credit was announced with much fanfare in late 2010 – with the aim of ‘radically simplifying the system to make work pay and combat worklessness and poverty’ [1]. A key claim made in the DWPs Universal Credit White Paper is that the new measure will reduce the number of workless households by around 300,000 within two to three years of its implementation. This claim – sourced to “internal analysis using the Department for Work and Pensions’ Policy Simulation Model” – has been widely picked up and reiterated in the media, including by Nick Clegg in The Guardian [2].

Sceptical about this 300,000 figure, we used a Freedom of Information request to get details of the analysis the DWP used to generate it. Closer inspection shows that this figure was generated by inappropriate use of a fairly narrow piece of research and by making and sandwiching together broad assumptions and best-case scenarios – giving an over-optimistic prediction. There is evidence that some in the DWP were aware of how tenuous such conclusions are, but this uncertainty was hidden in what was presented to the public.

In the DWP’s analysis, 250,000 of the predicted reduction in workless households is accounted for by the assumption that 1,300,000 workless households will ‘respond’ to the introduction of Universal Credit, 500,000 of whom will be financially better-off because of its improved ‘incentives’ and that around half of this sub-group will move into part-time jobs. These figures are based on ‘research evidence and assumptions about future levels of conditionality and support’. However, the DWP document fails to note what evidence this is or to make clear the assumptions upon which these inferences are based, especially the presumption that half of this sub-group will move into part-time jobs (why half and why part-time jobs?)

The DWP's simulation draws broad conclusions about why In-Work Credit was effective, based on a much narrower study of the New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP) which makes explicit – on p. 1 – that “findings are illustrative but not statistically representative” [3]. The aspects of the New Deal assessed were optional, involved relatively few people and were resource intensive; they offered a lot help with getting into work and staying in work. These characteristics probably help to explain why the transitions into work from NDLP lasted on average for three years (most transitions from welfare to work don’t [4]) but it would be wrong to assume that this will apply to those affected by the Universal Credit.

It is assumed that 1,930,000 people will receive a form of Better-Off Calculation under Universal Credit, that most of them will be in workless households, that 20,000 people make the transition into work every year for three years as a result of the Calculations and that these transitions last for three years on average. Again, these projections draw on research involving optional and resource-intensive aspects of NDLP. It is unrealistic to apply the same assumptions to the nearly two million people who are expected to receive a form of Better-Off Calculation under Universal Credit.

The DWP goes on to assume that 1,330,000 people will be eligible for In-Work Credit and that this will smooth the transition between benefits and work to the extent that 40,000 of them will move into employment, which will be sustained on average for three years. Again, the DWP applies research from NDLP to a much larger and more diverse group of nearly two million individuals who are believed to be in workless households.

The 300,000 figure generated by the DWP analysis is thus over-optimistic and based on unsound analysis. It should, at a minimum, come with clearly specified ‘health warnings’ regarding the uncertainly surrounding such estimates: after all, the Policy Simulation Model is acknowledged to be a ‘simplification of the real world and subject to a number of sources of uncertainty’. It appears that some within DWP did feel that strong caveats were needed: Tracked Changes in the internal analysis released to us show that an earlier draft made clear that “we think this is a plausible estimate, but recognise the true impact is very uncertain”; however, the final draft simply states that “we believe this is a plausible estimate based on reasonable assumptions”.

It is very worrying for the DWP to be complicit in producing and publicising unsubstantiated claims. These claims are used to justify reforms that will disproportionally hit the most vulnerable members of society – those who already stand to lose most from the recession and government cuts. If the Coalition really cares about getting more people into work, there is a real need to move beyond catchy but unsubstantiated headline figures – and to make better use of high-quality research in order to assess what benefit reforms might achieve and who they might hurt.

1: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare-reform/legislation-and-key-documents/universal-credit/
2: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/09/nick-clegg-benefits-jobless-reform
3: http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2009-2010/rrep712.pdf
4: http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/supporting_people_to_stay_in_w.aspx

what is currently taking place in and emerging from Afghanistan could go well beyond any failing American imperialism. This projection – this throwing forwards – of globalisation will tend to ‘land’ in unexpected places, will tend to exceed the ambitions of those seeking a straightforwardly pro-US version of globalisation. Moreover, the forms of organisation currently in play in Afghanistan mean that – in the projection or throwing forwards of globalisation – it is no longer at all clear who is doing the throwing: instead of globalisation being US-led, a certain kind of project of globalisation may be an emergent property of the networks currently active in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Given the efficacy of such networks it could well – once again – be the case that networks flowing from, within, over and through Afghanistan are able to defeat a superpower.

I argue (p. 733) that non-Western states are often and inappropriately seen as primitive and disconnected:

Moving away from the assumption of a Western norm can open up other ways of thinking about certain processes. Sidaway argues that African states “are configured not simply by an absence of connection, power and capital, but by a particular form and experience (conceivably a surplus) of these” [2]. Analogously, it would be wrong to conceptualise Afghan networks as a failed representation of an external model…the startlingly ‘successful’ networking and globalisation taking place there may point to other potential models and futures.

Various networks are, it seems, also proving highly significant in the emerging unrest. The role of online social networks has captured a great deal of attention: these have been used in significant ways by many involved in the protests. As Peter Beaumont argues

Precisely how we communicate in these moments of historic crisis and transformation is important. The medium that carries the message shapes and defines as well as the message itself. The instantaneous nature of how social media communicate self-broadcast ideas, unlimited by publication deadlines and broadcast news slots, explains in part the speed at which these revolutions have unravelled, their almost viral spread across a region. It explains, too, the often loose and non-hierarchical organisation of the protest movements unconsciously modelled on the networks of the web.

However, what we’re seeing here is not some virtualising move beyond space and place. Instead, for Beaumont

the importance and impact of social media on each of the rebellions we have seen this year has been defined by specific local factors (not least how people live their lives online in individual countries and what state limits were in place). Its role has been shaped too by how well organised the groups using social media have been.

In my article on networks (p. 740), I note that

Painter advocates a move beyond any network-territory dichotomy: network and territory discourses should be conceptualised as different aspects of the same reality [3]. [Certain] network discourse can be read as an overlay network: a network that overlays territorial discourses, and functions across and over such discourse…Interactions between networks and territories are complex and it is not simply a case on one replacing the other [4]. In Smith’s terms, “Power is never deterritorialized; it is always specific to particular places. Reterritorialization counters deterritorialization at every turn”.[5]…One should therefore not ‘just’ focus on the problems that territorial and network discourses face in coexisting. Instead, networks can overlay territorial discourses in particular ways: networks can both draw on territorial discourses and play important roles in these discourses.

These networks were not simply technological. As Beaumont argues:

In Egypt, details of demonstrations were circulated by both Facebook and Twitter and the activists' 12-page guide to confronting the regime was distributed by email. Then, the Mubarak regime – like Ben Ali's before it – pulled the plug on the country's internet services and 3G network. What social media was replaced by then – oddly enough – was the analogue equivalent of Twitter: handheld signs held aloft at demonstrations saying where and when people should gather the next day.

It is not clear what will be (or, even, what has been) achieved with these networks. I argue, after Arquilla and Ronfeldt, that

unpredictability…is an inherent part of the efficacy of networks in conflict. Netwar works so well because it “tends to defy and cut across standard spatial boundaries, jurisdictions, and distinctions between state and society, public and private, war and crime, civilian and military, police and military, and legal and illegal. A netwar actor is likely to operate in the cracks and gray areas of the society.” [6]

Writing about the protests, Hardt and Negri argue that:

the multitude is able to organise itself without a centre – that the imposition of a leader or being co-opted by a traditional organisation would undermine its power. The prevalence in the revolts of social network tools, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, are symptoms, not causes, of this organisational structure. These are the modes of expression of an intelligent population capable of using the instruments at hand to organise autonomously.

Networks and connectivity seem likely to offer populations valuable tools with which to organise and to campaign for social change. As the project of globalisation develops, it is increasingly unclear where its impacts will project to: these networks bring significant inherent unpredictability. Networks and connectivity offer powerful tools, though, for those seeking to express grievances or drive social change – and, to repeat the Ani di Franco quote which is used as an epigraph for Empire, “Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right”.

Notes:
1: I appreciate that it’s rather navel-gazing to be quoting myself at such length here. I’m (selfishly) interested, though, in looking at how some of my ideas around networks and connectivity might usefully be applied in other contexts. I understand that others may not share this interest, however.

2: J. D. Sidaway, ‘Sovereign Excesses? Portraying Postcolonial Sovereigntyscapes’, Political
Geography 22/2 (2003), p. 16

3: J. Painter, ‘Territoire et Réseau: Une Fausse Dichotomie?’, in M. Vanier (ed.), Territoires,
Territorialité, Territorialisation: Controverses et Perspectives (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes
2009).

4: In the article, I use the example of Al Qaeda. I should make very clear that I am in no way suggesting that current protest movements are in any way linked to Al Qaeda nor that they use the same type of violence. What is of interest, though, is the use of networks by very different movements.

5: N. Smith, The Endgame of Globalization (New York: Routledge 2005), p. 51

6: J. Arquilla and D. F. Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar (Santa Monica: RAND 1996), p. 13

Afghanistan is often thought to be a failed state because it is isolated from the networks of globalisation: for example, Afghanistan is viewed as part of Thomas Barnett's Non-Integrating Gap. On the contrary, the article will show that Afghanistan has - for decades - been very much integrated into a range of international networks. These networks have played major roles in Afghanistan and have also spread to have significant impact across the world: offering an example of what Friedman has referred to as the flattening of the world. Afghanistan is thus an example of the substantial role which networks and connectivity can play in 'failed' states and of the unpredictable outcomes that can result from such networks.

As I argue in the article (drawing on James Sidaway's work), it is not helpful to view Afghanistan as a failed replica of a Western state model. Instead, it's important to consider what these networks and this connectivity are able to do and what effects they might have in the future.

Dear Lord Drayson,

We have written two pieces for the Times and Guardian concerning issues around the Science: So What? (SSW) campaign and its use of a Fast Future report [1,2].

We are concerned that practices within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) unintentionally undermine their outreach. We have shown that the SSW web campaign was grossly cost ineffective and that internal measures of success were poorly conceived.

We consider these failings institutional (rather than simply part of the previous Government) and intend to submit DBIS and the current Government’s use of research to further scrutiny. With this aim we will be writing to David Willets to inform him of our findings, ask him about his problematic engagement with research while in opposition and seek his views on DBIS outreach strategies. We have noticed that you are willing to engage in criticism of the department now that you are no longer part of government and would welcome comment on the following:

• Whether DBIS adequately assessed the Fast Future report before using it.
• Whether it was wise to heavily promote such weak research, especially given DBIS’s role in research in the UK.
• Whether DBIS responses to criticism of the report were appropriate.
• Whether this approach was prevalent throughout BIS (or more widely in Government), or specific to the SSW campaign.
• Whether there are any lessons to be learnt from this episode – we would welcome any thoughts regarding either Government practice or better ways for researchers to engage with Government.
• Any other issues which you feel we should address.

Thank you in advance for your time. We would welcome a reply via e-mail or post. Alternatively, this letter will be posted at http://www.watsonblogs.org/jmendel and you can comment there; you can also tweet Jonathan Mendel @JonMendel. We will assume that any replies are ‘on the record’, unless specified otherwise.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr Alexander Holmes
Dr Jonathan Mendel

[1] http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/06/research-so-what-prbased-research-science-communication-and-the-waste-of-185m.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/07/science-future-jobs-research

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is a government department whose responsibilities include the UK’s scientific and university sectors. They support research and teaching as well as overseeing efforts to encourage people to take up scientific and research careers. Under the previous government, the department ran a campaign called Science: So What? So Everything (SSW) to encourage young people via websites, media reports and special events, to be inspired by the contributions of science to their lives.

SSW was not without its problems. The campaign included a website that was expensive and inefficient: BIS spent £1.85m on a website that compared poorly with science communication sites set up for far smaller sums. The site got little traffic for a campaign of this type and there were serious concerns about the quality of some of the research that BIS was promoting. In particular, a report on future jobs in science by the Fast Future consultancy was heavily promoted during the campaign despite failing to meet some basic standards.

The department and its SSW campaign have both come under fire, with various researchers criticising them in public and private. We were interested in how BIS responded internally to these criticisms, which sought to improve their activities. So we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out.

Good quality research depends upon robust, critical appraisal. As BIS is a major player in the UK’s research work – and as the SSW campaign was intended to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics – we hoped their own practices would reflect the standards that contribute to the UK’s deserved reputation for excellent research. We hoped, for example, that since the department plays a role in assessing the quality of research in UK universities the research it commissioned itself would be robust. Our findings are hardly encouraging. They suggest BIS did not respond appropriately to concerns about the SSW campaign and that their way of measuring success was questionable to say the least.

The report on future jobs in science was commissioned and promoted by BIS, under the former Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, as part of the SSW campaign. This report was garlanded with supportive statements from the then science minister, Lord Drayson, and even the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. However, as soon as it was released, major concerns were raised by bloggers and academics about the methodology, the inappropriate use of Wikipedia and implausible claims about nanotechnology, amongst many other problems. These serious issues were largely missed by the mainstream media, beyond a blog on the Guardian's science website and an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) that criticised the report.

The Conservative Party – then in opposition – also failed to challenge the report effectively. It even issued a press release that added further errors. For example, it argued that a worldwide survey used for the report “determined that ‘Virtual Lawyer’ is the fantasy job which people in Africa, Peru and Pakistan think is ‘likely to be the best paid’.” But as the Fast Future report makes clear, this was based on responses from only one person in Peru and one in Pakistan. It would be rather tenuous to assume their compatriots share their views. It is unfortunate that the Conservative Party’s criticisms of such a flawed document were themselves so ill conceived. More worryingly, the press release went out with David Willetts’ name in the headline along with a lengthy quote. Willetts is now minister for universities and science.

When BIS evaluated the success of the future jobs report, it used media coverage as a gauge and all but dismissed its critics. Our FOIA request shows that the PR agency Kindred (which worked for BIS on the project) focussed on mainstream media coverage when evaluating the success of the campaign around the Future Jobs report. They noted that this report achieved “178 pieces of coverage across national, regional, consumer and online media…A combined OTS (opportunities to see) of 60,985,597…An AEV [Advertising Equivalent Value] of £2,248,866.” This is a poor measure of success in science communication. Public understanding of and engagement with science cannot usefully be measured by column inches in the press, without also considering the accuracy and efficacy of the project in question.

There were also crude attempts to assess the online impact of the Future Jobs report coverage of the SSW campaign. Kindred report that the story “generated a seven-fold increase in volume of traffic to the campaign website.” The increase raised the traffic to “7,733 website hits during the six days after the launch of the activity (compared to 1,167 websites hits for the same period before the activity launch)”. For a science communication campaign aimed at millions of young people and backed by a £1m-plus budget, this trumpeted increase is pathetic.

In dealing with criticisms, BIS and Kindred focussed on managing negative publicity rather than on correcting mistakes or meaningful engagement with critics. For example, when the nanotechnology blogger James Hayton criticised the Fast Future report, an e-mail exchange supplied in response to our FOIA request argued that “James’ blog isn’t particularly well known…Not that this means his criticisms aren’t well-founded, but I doubt appeasement will be a worthwhile strategy.” The emails are so heavily redacted, it is impossible to know whether the email was from a civil servant or a BIS contractor. In deciding whether to respond to Hayton's blog, these e-mail exchanges gave considerably more attention to whether Hayton’s criticisms would appear on the Guardian science blog and how to distance BIS from any criticism than was given to the accuracy and significance of his points: “Given the reach of the Guardian blog, we believe that it is a worthwhile exercise for Rohit [Talwar, the author of the future jobs report] to provide some form of response”. The e-mail exchange states that “while tacitly looking over Rohit’s response, it needs to come from him (rather than Kindred, and certainly not BIS)”.

Responses to mainstream media criticism of BIS’s practice were no better. In response to the Times Higher Education Supplement article, BIS are quoted emphasising the “speculative” nature of the research behind the future jobs report. It is left to Talwar to claim that the approach taken is “accepted best practice in horizon scanning”. The importance of the THES was downplayed, with one email exchange citing a single tweet stating that “Jonathan Mendel [quoted in the THES article criticising the future jobs report] is a prat” as evidence that there was little interest in the story. Substantive criticisms from the THES article and elsewhere were not addressed in the documents supplied to us.

When preparing a statement on the response to the future jobs report for the then science minister, Lord Drayson, a draft saying that the “vast majority” of coverage of the campaign was positive was revised to marginalise criticism further: simply stating that the campaign “has generated a great deal of positive coverage”. Failures by BIS to uphold basic standards raise concerns about how they engage with the professions within their remit and are frankly embarrassing for those of us who work within and are keen to promote the UK’s excellent research sector.

While BIS failed to redact Hayton's name from the documents released to us and left at least one other individual easily identifiable, they redacted so much from the e-mail exchanges that it is not always clear which organisation is saying what. Given that the government is now arguing that “transparency across all departments a necessary and important part of making government more accountable” it is unfortunate that this FOIA response was excessively and clumsily redacted. We appreciate it can be important to protect the identities of individuals, but there is a real public interest in knowing whether particular statements were made by government departments or by contracted organisations. Not only have BIS been involved in commissioning and promoting substandard research, their current data-handling practices are making it harder for researchers to assess the problems with BIS’s practice.

Despite these redactions, what stood out in the documents BIS released to us was how government, PR agencies and mainstream media worked as a closed and vicious circle. The Government commissioned and promoted bad research; PR agencies promoted this to the media and the media overwhelmingly reported the government line. The project was then deemed a success because of the positive media coverage. Critical engagement with research and appropriate analysis of the tools, goals and achievements of research communication were very much marginalised and the Conservative Party’s press release only added to the misinterpretations it should have been challenging. Recent government announcements, such as changes to housing benefit, also seem worryingly under-researched in how they are presented by the government and reported by the press. Given the damaging nature of such vicious circles, there is a real need for those of us outside of these circles to find ways to criticise and challenge bad policies and practice in order to improve them.

Despite concerns about David Willetts’ role in the Conservative criticisms of SSW, we hope the new government will engage better with researchers. This means being open to a genuine dialogue and listening to constructive criticism. However, although pre-election Conservative and Liberal Democrat rhetoric emphasised evidence-based policy, we are yet to see any convincing signs that this government will engage well with those who have genuine concerns about its policies. Consider the manner in which Nick Clegg has challenged Institute for Fiscal Studies work to argue that the government’s policies are progressive (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/25/nick-clegg-budget-report-partial). We have real concerns about whether the government has even done the necessary research to know if its policies are progressive or not. Promises of engagement and evidenced-based policy seem to have become less of a priority than ensuring that mantras of cuts, austerity and reform remain in the headlines.

Postscript
The recent announcements by the Secretary of State for DBIS, Vince Cable, and subsequent criticism raise concerns that this government is not setting an example at ministerial level with respect to the appropriate evaluation of evidence.
Some of the angriest responses to Dr Cable this week were over his misleading interpretation of data from RCUK on the quality of research produced in the UK science sector for which he has yet to clarify despite a robust correction from RCUK. Given the ease with which certain politicians can misinterpret research and win uncritical media coverage for these misinterpretations we are concerned that Dr Cable may have established an inaccurate headline figure that will be used in subsequent debates on science funding in the media. Evan Harris (ex-MP, and former Liberal Democrat science spokesperson) has called on his former colleague to correct this figure:

Lest that figure of 45% should stick in the mind of the public, as it is presently stuck in the craw of the scientific community, what's needed first is a proper acknowledgement from the business secretary of the true assessment of the quality of British science. It is important for Mr Cable to put the record straight.

While it is important for Dr Cable to correct his mistake, this should not be the end of the matter. The government appears to have ignored the arguments of the previous parliament's Sci & Tech committee report on science funding, chaired by a Liberal Democrat and featuring Evan Harris. This report was highly critical of planned £600m cuts by the previous government and argued strongly - and from a wide evidence base - that even in difficult economic terms it is highly unwise to cut basic research. As Harris argued after Cable's speech there are concerns that:

To believe it is possible to get more good science from less funding is the political equivalent of a belief in cold fusion: an aspiration not supported by logic or reproducibility...there is very little room to identify wastage...The real question is one for the government to address. Is there any evidence from anywhere that can be cited showing any changes to current funding allocations could reliably generate "more" from less? Even then it is not clear what the "more" is.

We would agree that this is an important question for the Government to answer: 'more for less' in research terms would be nice; however, one would not want to base major policy decisions on unevidenced, under-researched and barely plausible claims. Is there any good reason for the Government to think that more research for less is either
plausible or likely?

Despite the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, offering a commitment to science before the election and more recently extolling the virtues of long term thinking with respect to funding the government must be judged by its actions not its words. Thus far the failure of ministers to correct glaring mistakes and to engage with important previous reports is far from reassuring. It could be disastrous if this style of government were to persist.

The Government justified these changes in part through emphasising that "there are some families receiving £104,000 a year in housing benefit". However, they have been criticised for failing to consider the evidence relating to such statements:

The rates Osborne used show that prior to yesterday's reforms, anyone granted housing benefit on a five bedroom house in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London's most upmarket boroughs, would have got £2,000 a week.

"It is what the rate would be," said a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions [DWP]. "We don't have any figures on how many people are claiming that rate."

However, she added that a search of the Daily Mail and the Sun newspaper websites would throw up stories of people being paid the same if not more.

To follow up on this, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Treasury (George Osborne is Britain's Chancellor) asking how many households were known to claim over £104,000/year or £2,000 per week in housing benefit. I was told that the Treasury "does not hold the information that [I] requested". It was suggested that I contact the DWP; however, it was the DWP which referred a journalist to the tabloid press when asked for figures. This suggests that the Government did not have a strong grasp of (and perhaps had not even looked up) the statistics used to promote a key policy.

After these changes were announced, the Evening Standard reported that "Westminster council said it may have to house poor families outside central London." I therefore asked Westminster some questions under the Freedom of Information Act.

A first thing to note is that only 2 households in Westminster (out of 28,000 claiming LHA) were claiming £2,000/week of this benefit; 81 households were claiming £1,000/week or more. Westminster is one of the more expensive places in the UK to live. While other parts of the country may have more high-level claimants, these figures do suggest that rather few people may be claiming at the 'headline' levels which Osborne used when trying to justify his planned changes.

Worried by the Standard story, I also asked Westminster for any documents relating to the possibility that the Government's proposed housing benefit reforms will lead claimants to leave the borough or which discuss encouraging and/or assisting housing benefits claimants to leave the borough. However, Westminster informed me that "no such documents exist". Councillor Phillipa Roe (Westminster's cabinet for housing) told me that

Council policy is that all households are very welcome to find accommodation in the centre of London if they can find these within the housing benefit caps.
The intention has not been to force claimants from the borough but to support the reduction of the national housing benefit bill and restrain a system which was driving up and distorting private sector rents.
I was therefore commenting on what may occur in some cases as a result of the new caps. The local authority will be providing whatever support is possible to mitigate against this, but both tenants and private sector landlords will have to adjust their sights according to the new rates.
Until the detailed legislation is developed and accompanying regulations, it is however not possible to say exactly now many households will be affected.

These responses to my enquiries suggest that we may be facing some policy- and media-related problems. A benefit on which many of the most vulnerable members of our society depend is being cut. While particular statistics are used to promote policy changes, the Government does not appear to have researched these figures as well as one might have hoped. Some media representations of these policy changes have also been problematic: often (with honourable exceptions) adding to the spinning of these policy plans rather than effectively questioning the ideas and beliefs which may or may not underlie them. Osborne's use of statistics here appears to have been a rather unfortunate case of policy-based evidence; what is equally unfortunate is that many media outlets have uncritically reported this policy-based evidence or even managed to add to the confusion and to the (understandable) alarm which many feel about these changes. Assuming that these tactics will continue to be used, it is increasingly important to find ways to critically engage with Government ab/uses of research and statistics.

Heffernan bemoans the fact that, she believes

Deconstructing science is a fool’s game. In the ’90s, literary critics used to try. They’d argue that science is a system of metaphors, complete with a style and an ideology, rather than the royal road to the truth. They were laughed at as cultural relativists, posers high on Gaul­oises and nut jobs who didn’t believe in gravity. Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva

Science writers play rough. They like hoaxes, humiliations and Oxbridge-style showdowns that let them use words like “claptrap” and “gibberish.” There’s a reason people don’t call themselves deconstructionists and pick fights with science anymore. The old battle is won: books called “The Science of X” fly off shelves, while “The Culture of” books are remaindered.

Heffernan's complains that the prominent science blogging network Science Blogs

has become preoccupied with trivia, name-calling and saber rattling. Maybe that’s why the ScienceBlogs ship started to sink...Clearly I’ve been out of some loop for too long, but does everyone take for granted now that science sites are where graduate students, researchers, doctors and the “skeptical community” go not to interpret data or review experiments but to chip off one-liners, promote their books and jeer at smokers, fat people and churchgoers? And can anyone who still enjoys this class-inflected bloodsport tell me why it has to happen under the banner of science?

Hammering away at an ideology, substituting stridency for contemplation, pummeling its enemies in absentia: ScienceBlogs has become Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd. Though Myers and other science bloggers boast that they can be jerky in the service of anti-charlatanism, that’s not what’s bothersome about them. What’s bothersome is that the site is misleading. It’s not science by scientists, not even remotely; it’s science blogging by science bloggers. And science blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.

I do have several concerns about Heffernan's piece. Firstly, I am not sure what her criticisms have to do with Derrida and/or deconstruction. She clearly objects to the tone, ethics and/or mores of a lot that takes place on ScienceBlogs - which is fine - but I do not see any need to invoke a 'Derridean cloak' in order to make such criticisms. While there is a lot of debate about what deconstruction may or may not be - Derrida argued that "All sentences of the type "deconstruction is X" or "deconstruction is not X" a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false" - but I do fail to see what is Derridean or deconstructive about Heffernan's piece.

Secondly, it is unfortunate that - while Heffernan starts by discussing work on the culture of science - her own research into ScienceBlogs and science blogging more broadly seems so weak. Heffernan only quotes a handful of examples from ScienceBlogs (two of which are arguably quoted out of context). While complaining about the lack of discussion of science of ScienceBlogs, she fails to note that a lot of the science blogging on ScienceBlogs and more broadly does focus very much on scientific issues. It is unfortunate that Heffernan focussed on such a narrow range of material.

Heffernan subsequently noted that she regrets recommending the Watt's Up With That blog in the NYT piece, stating that

I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism. I’m don’t endorse the views on the Watts blog, and I’m extremely sorry the recommendation seemed ideological.

I would argue that using the tools of the social sciences and humanities to research science is extremely important - I have a conflict of interest here, as I am doing some work around science blogging and would love to develop a couple of other projects on science and science communication if anyone is nice enough to fund me! However, such approaches rely on putting work into researching the topic: to write well about the culture of science (or science blogging) one needs to do some research into what is taking place in these fields. A 'Derridean cloak' is not an excuse to avoid doing basic research or learning about ones subject - instead, deconstructive approaches may open up highly productive ways of doing engaging with this.

Thirdly, Heffernan constructs a number of problematic divisions in the social and cultural terrains she is writing about. She introduces the piece with a discussion of a "science-culture battle" and argues that "battle is won: books called “The Science of X” fly off shelves, while “The Culture of” books are remaindered." Perhaps due to my own social and cultural position - part of the attraction of Geography is it's interdisciplinary nature - I don't see this as a straightforward battle with 'science' and 'culture' sides. This is not a zero-sum game and I am delighted if colleagues writing on topics such as climate change or hydrology are able to gain large audiences. I am also pleased, of course, when work on culture and society attracts large audiences - and sometimes it does, as in the case of geographers such as David Harvey - but I don't see any kind of battle here. It is important for those of us working in the humanities and social sciences to engage with science and scientists, but I don't see how metaphors of battle are helpful in building productive relationships here. Also - while people sometimes disagree with one another and sometimes do so in strong terms - discussion of 'battle' seems to both exaggerate what conflict there is and to pass over the many productive relationships that do exist.

Heffernan criticises ScienceBlogs as

not science by scientists, not even remotely; it’s science blogging by science bloggers

On the face of it, I would have expected to be rather more positive about Heffernan's article. She recommends the study of the culture and language of science - something which I would see as invaluable - and gestures towards theoretical approaches that I am sympathetic towards. However, the article is theoretically weak (I still fail to see a Derridean element to it), empirically poor (it displays inadequate knowledge about the ScienceBlogs and science blogging on which it focuses) and itself constructs problematic divisions and metaphors which would seem ripe for deconstruction and critique.

While Heffernan discusses relationships between scientists and other researchers in terms of a battle, I would argue that it is important to draw on and to develop effective and productive ways of working with and disagreeing with one another. Pieces such as Heffernan's are unhelpful for those of us doing social and cultural research: they give a poor impression of what we do (or try to do) and make it much too easy to dismiss a whole range of work as 'postmodernism'. Rather than re-entering or restarting perceived science-culture battles, poststucturalist approaches might be more useful insofar as they can pull apart some of the taken-for-granted beliefs which underly such 'battles' and open up new types of relationships.

Heffernan announced the NYT piece with a tweet saying that "Science blogs are very strange". Social research can help us to understand the diverse ways in which scientists, science bloggers, journalists and even geographers are strange - and thus, perhaps, to find new and creative ways to work with and around our strangeness.

Writing a paper on the topic has been interesting in part because of the degree of self-reflection in this community. As noted in the interview, bloggers have very much engaged with ideas around - for example - whether blogging is distinct from the mainstream media. It was also a nice surprise to get home from presenting the paper and talking about related topics in the pub to find that the paper had been tweeted (a worryingly good and very brief summary of the key points - I may have to start drafting papers in 140 character chunks); I have also now signed up for a Twitter account, in part in order to follow such debates.

I now find myself writing a blog post about Alice's blog post about Hauke and my research on science blogging; I will tweet the link to this post after publishing. Much new media discussion can seem like a kind of echo chamber and this type of reflection on reflection on reflection might appear to be an example of that issue. However, what makes the type of science blogging Hauke and I have been researching especially interesting is the focus on activism: the virtual realities of new media are used (with some notable successes) to impact upon our social and political realities. It has been interesting to see how ideas around science blogging (from many more interesting discussants than myself) have been reverberating around in virtual spaces. What will also be important, though, is the wider impact that these ideas are having and will have in future.

I'm pleased about how the article turned out and very happy with how efficiently the Times dealt with its publication. As I'm just at the end of a year of teaching, it seems appropriate to pull out a paragraph of the article which reminds me why it's such a privilege to be helping students to learn about research:

Part of the joy of doing research - and of speaking, writing and reading about research - is that it offers us new ways to understand, engage with and change the world. PR-based research, though, just aims to package up parts of the world and sell them to us. Learning about research can help us to work better, play better and do a better job of holding businesses, researchers and Government to account. These skills can't be bought and can't be sold but -- once learnt -- are valuable tools for dealing with the advertisers, PR agencies and governments who try to fob us off with shiny yakawow campaigns instead of offering any more meaningful engagement.

Duncan Smith drew on the Neuroscientist Bruce Perry's work in order to argue that neuroscientific research suggests

that children who "witness a lot of abuse", or whose mothers have "different, multiple partners" will have brains that develop at a "quite different" rate from other children.

For Duncan Smith

"We now know that we can pretty much figure out where an 18-year-old will be at the time that they are two and a half or three years old. Signs are there. There are of course physical signs, including the scale and size and capacity of their brains to be able to deal with challenges. But it is also in their behaviour."

He added the inability of a child to have "imbibed the concept of empathy" from their parent could have profound impacts on their later life.

However, Duncan Smith's position is made harder to maintain because Perry has challenged his interpretation of his research: Perry states that

Smith's comments were an "oversimplification" that "greatly misrepresents the way we would explain the impact of neglect or trauma on the developing brain". He added: "to oversimplify this way is, essentially, to distort".

"I do believe that overstating and misunderstanding the neurobiology can lead to confusion, anger, distortion and potentially to bad policy," he said, adding that the claims appeared to be "a terrible distraction from the important issues related to the need to create family friendly, and developmentally informed policy that is aware and informed about the importance of early childhood and brain development".

denied he had misrepresented Dr Perry's work, whom he acknowledged as the source of his claims about brain development.

He said the focus of his policy work was on early intervention in the crucial early years of childhood, and his references to brain size related to "absolute extreme neglect and abuse".

"I haven't misrepresented his findings. I don't talk about every single child," he said. "The brain size is an example of what happens at the extreme end of that neglect and abuse, which is something I know that he has written about."

There was no need for Duncan Smith to draw on and misrepresent neuroscience in order to argue against abusing and neglecting children - there is widespread agreement in Britain that this is bad and damaging (and one could also, for example, look at psychological research on abuse and neglect - even if nothing were to show up on brain scans). However, Duncan Smith used a misrepresentation of neuroscientific research in order to make particular political and moral claims. It is unfortunate that a senior politician in a major political party feels the need to speak out against mothers (not fathers?!) who have more than one partner: there is no good reason to think that non-conventional family structures are in any way inherently harmful, and if someone becomes a single parent while their baby is young then it seems rather harsh to expect them to have only one partner over the next 18 years. However, if one were to want to argue that this is immoral then this should be done on moral grounds instead of trying to lean on the authority attributed to neuroscience.

It was good to see that both Perry and the Guardian challenged Duncan Smith's claims. Hopefully, during and after this election campaign it will become increasingly hard for politicians to misuse and misrepresent research.

the DCSU deploys this month to southern Afghanistan, where it will serve as a dedicated cultural advisory team for Task Force Helmand. The news item says the unit is charged with “build[ing] a picture of Helmandi society for commanders in Task Force Helmand and battlegroups across the province to help them identify and understand issues relating to the local cultural, political, economic, social and historical environment to help commanders make better and more informed decisions.”

It sounds a lot like the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, with a key distinction: Most of the team members are uniformed military. According to a February MOD news article, most of the advisors will be “senior military officers.” While uniformed military are members of U.S. Human Terrain Teams, the initial focus was on recruiting social scientists and anthropologists to embed with military brigades.

Wider impacts in the MoD seem likely:

As well as deploying to Afghanistan, the units' personnel will also support cultural training in the wider military and other government departments

Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations) Air Vice-Marshal Andy Pulford said that a focus on cultural issues is essential to success in Afghanistan. He said:

"Cultural awareness has been a weakness in the past. The unit is essential to equipping the military with a better understanding and appreciation of the region, its people and how to do business there."

There is clearly an emphasis on social sciences here: the MoD reports that

the cultural specialist level two course which is specialist training at a masters level, covering anthropology, psychology, sociology and influencing skills, lasting around ten weeks.

Sharing his experience of Afghan culture with his British colleagues at this week's brigade headquarters course was Major Mohammed Safi from the Afghan National Army.

He explained why he thought the need for cultural understanding is so essential:

"The enemy and insurgents exploit the lack of cultural understanding to win over the local population and entire villages who feel they have been shamed or dishonoured by actions taken by foreign troops.

"The insurgents exploit grievances from villagers about issues such as searches, lack of respect, shaming of women, and use this as a major recruiting argument amongst people who, fundamentally, oppose them.

"This is really important for the soldiers. International forces have to know about the culture and understand which areas to respect; how to enter a house, how to search people.

"The soldiers who go to Afghanistan need to know what they can and can't do."

There are calls to embed social sciences much more widely, too:

Commander John Garratt RN, a team leader within the unit, explained how the MOD has long recognised the need for cultural training:

"Every soldier, sailor and airman currently deploying to Afghanistan already undertakes a period of pre-deployment training [PDT] that includes some 'dos and don'ts' of cultural training.

"PDT helps us all to avoid doing things that are seen as 'negative' in the eyes of Afghans. There remains however a need for greater emphasis to influence the hearts and minds of everyone, from the youngest child, up to the most influential leader."

He went on to state that he sees a time in the near future when all soldiers, sailors and airmen will be given exposure to cultural training far earlier in their careers.

Most problematically, Corera gives Iain Lobban (GCHQ's director) the opportunity to discuss what Corera calls “speculation about things called Echelon and some systems for being able to listen to all kinds of private communications”. Lobban is allowed to assert unchallenged that “it’s simply not like that”. However, there is some convincing evidence regarding the Echelon system. For example, a 2001 European Parliament report [PDF, p. 133] concludes

That a global system for intercepting communications exists, operating by means of cooperation proportionate to their capabilities among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand under the UKUSA Agreement, is no longer in doubt. It may be assumed, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that the system or parts of it were, at least for some time, code-named ECHELON. What is important is that its purpose is to intercept private and commercial communications, and not military communications. Analysis has revealed that the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed.

Also interesting is that Joanna, a GCHQ mathematician, states that a brute force attack on encrypted files would take 50-100 years to crack the encryption. This is surprising: with 256-bit AES encryption (easy to implement on a home computer) it would take massively longer than 100 years for an implausibly large and powerful computer to crack the key through a brute force attack (PGP's CTO offers an interesting discussion of some of the issues here). The 50-100 year statement is therefore interesting, and there are a number of possible reasons for it:
- Joanna may have been outright mistaken. Possible, but seems unlikely - mathematicians tend to be rather precise, and good with numbers.
- GCHQ may have invented some kind of secret ultra-computer which goes far, far beyond what is currently thought to be possible. However, it is hard to conceive how such a thing might work (at least, way beyond my technical ability) and, if it had been invented, one would expect GCHQ to have avoided dropping any hints on a BBC programme!
- GCHQ's targets tend to use lower levels of encryption. This is possible, and seems most likely (though it's quite possible I'm missing something). Encryption which takes 'just' 50 years to brute force would generally be quite good enough for terrorist groups.
Sadly, Corera didn't seem to follow up on this - so we don't have any more information regarding why this odd timescale was mentioned.

Surprisingly, Dave (on GCHQ's Information Assurance team) claims not to employ “so-called bad people, the hackers. We don't employ hackers”. I would be rather concerned if the UK government did not make use of 'white hat' hackers in order to test their security, and it would be surprising if an agency like GCHQ did not employ any hackers (there can be lots of grey areas here - but hackers certainly aren't all bad people!) Again, Corera failed to challenge this claim.

A local news story about the programme focuses on what it revealed about the dress code of mathematicians. While the programme could have been really interesting - had it taken a more investigative approach - I suspect, sadly, that what was broadcast does not reveal much beyond some anecdotes about mathematicians wearing socks and sandals. A major missed opportunity.

promoted by many including Lord Drayson, the Science Minister, and Gordon Brown...is substandard...used "unjustified methodologies" to reach its conclusions and was "overly reliant" on weak online sources and media reports, with some sections referencing only Wikipedia.

Although sources are referenced...the report lifted "significant passages of text" word for word.

a small group of radicalised [Islamist] young men now constitute the single biggest threat to our national security