PRESIDENT'S LOG:Science is still thought of as something for pointy headed boffins – the challenge is how to change that image, writes FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

A LITTLE WHILE ago I was standing in a queue at a supermarket check-out, and couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between two ladies in front of me. Actually, I could have helped overhearing them, but I need to get my material from somewhere.

Anyway, Lady Number 1 was telling her friend about her son, who had just graduated from a university with a science degree. “I don’t talk to him about it,” she confided, “because I can never understand a word he says.” She paused. “So different from my Sean, he’s a lawyer.”

Now I couldn’t help interrupting. “Sorry,” I said, “I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but are you saying your lawyer son is interesting and easy to understand when he talks about law?”

She answered instantly: “Oh Lord, no – totally incomprehensible.”

And then Lady Number 2 chipped in: “My husband’s a solicitor, and I absolutely forbid him from talking about law things at home. Except when I have insomnia.” General mirth all round.

But actually, there is a really serious point in all this, because it is an illustration of how we have persuaded ourselves that science cannot be, or at any rate is not, communicated in an interesting manner. And because some people have this image of scientists as socially insecure boffins droning on about stuff that is either too boring or too difficult to attract our attention, the image of science as a vocation has suffered.

Or has it? A few weeks ago I attended a workshop on science communication hosted by the Science Gallery in TCD. Let me pause here and suggest that if you haven’t been to this wonderful facility you should get there quickly. It is anything but boring, and it is led in a really imaginative way by its director, Michael John Gorman, and it has the active support of scientists and others (including artists) from all over the country.

One of the notable things about the gallery is that it has attracted over half a million visitors, almost 10 times what it had originally anticipated. A particular aspect of its work has been to demonstrate the connection between science and the arts.

Others present at this workshop included Brian Trench, professor of communications in DCU, and Luke O’Neill, professor of biochemistry and immunology in TCD and a well-known public commentator on science. A fascinating dialogue developed between them about the extent to which science builds on creativity and leaps of imagination, or depends on people who (in the words of Luke O’Neill) have to be “quite boring on a day-to-day basis as they go about measuring things.”

Professor O’Neill is clearly not one of the latter, as last November he was able to attract over 800 people (most of whom were manifestly not scientists) to attend a lecture in the RDS on the occasion of his being awarded the Boyle Medal for scientific excellence.

As a country we know that we need more scientists, because unless we have them we won’t be able to thrive economically. We know that the future is going to be all about how we can harness science to address some of the world’s most intractable problems: about health, quality of life, the environment, relief from hunger, and so forth. We know that the really significant industrial advances will be in these areas, and we know that we must encourage investment to come here.

But while we know all of that, and we know that the prosperity and security of future generations depends on it, we still sometimes treat science as if it were something that we should avoid. How can we explain our tendency to suggest that young people with really high CAO points should, preferably, become lawyers or accountants? While science courses get far fewer recruits on much lower points? It is totally bizarre.

Part of the answer to this is to communicate much better. We need to persuade young people, and others, that science is not just important, but also exciting and creative. Perhaps also, we need to make the connections between science and art, and between science and design. Yes, scientists do measure things, but what they measure may turn out to be what provides future generations with food or health; or sometimes it may be something of great inherent artistic beauty.

One of the great triumphs of modern Ireland is the annual Young Scientist Exhibition. The interest this arouses shows again and again that we have it in us as a country to value and promote science. Let us ensure that this is carried over into public life and into our national sense of priorities. We need to do this now.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski is president of Dublin City University.