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Pcst-12 Proceedings66. Risk communication: already there in 18th century?Ilaria Ampollini, University of Bologna, Italy

In the context of the PCST2012 session on Risk communication, I presented original research on a French astronomer and populariser, Jérôme Lalande, who wrote, in 1773, a paper on comets and their unstable trajectories. My presentation aimed to add an historical prospective to risk and risk probability communication, which is still today a highly debated issue and which started to acquire importance already in the 18th century, because of the increasing capability of science to make accurate previsions.

In his Mémoire sur les comètes, Lalande stated that a comet could come close to the Earth, thus producing catastrophic events. He didn’t make any forecast, he simply showed that only sixty paths were well known, out of the infinite number of tailed stars: consequently, the mathematical and the physical impossibility of an impact with the planet could not be dem-onstrated. He was supposed to give a lesson on his work at Paris Académie des sciences, so he announced the day and the time to his public on the Gazette de France, as he was used to do. When the Académie, due to lack of time, cancelled his lecture, people thought he had been censored, in order not to reveal an imminent apocalypse. Rumours and fears spread out.

As the police ordered, Lalande published a popular version of the Mémoire, titled Réfléxions sur les comètes qui peuvent approcher de la Terre, in order to clarify the scientific contents, but it did not help. The panic did not stop: instead, it soon reached French provinces and other European cities; several newspapers propagated the story, and many intellectuals com-mented on it.

This single episode is particularly representative of the period, characterised by a new di-mension of the relationship between scientists and the lay public. The more science became specialised, the more the distance from the public increased, as regards the language, the concepts and the field of studies.

As we read in a remark contained in Académie des sciences’ official records for 1773, this short-circuit was likely due to the gap between the meaning of ‘unlikelihood’ in common sense and its mathematical, physical meaning.

‘…Mais si on calcule la probabilité que cet évènement aura lieu, on la trouve si petite, et la probabilité qu’il n’aura jamais lieu est si approchante de la certitude, qu’on peut en employant ce mot impossible, dans le sens du langage ordinaire, et dire hardiment que la rencontre d’une Comète avec la Terre est impossible, et que nous n’avons rien à craindre de ces Astres.1’

Discussions of this kind closely resemble the recent debates on risk and risk probability com-munication, particularly those concerning high-energy accelerators or natural catastrophes.

1 Grandjean de Fouchy, J. P., ed., Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences avec les mémoires de mathématique & de physique tirez des registres de cette Académie, Impremerie Royal, Paris, 1773.

12th International Conference on Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST),Florence,Italy,18-20 April 2012.Published as book chapter in:Bucchi, M.,&Trench,B.(Eds.)(2012).Quality,Honesty and Beauty in Science and Technology Communication: PCST 2012 Book of Papers (Proceedings of the 12th International Conference"Public Communication of Science and Technology", Florence, Italy, 18-20 April 2012).Vicenza: Observa Science in Society,pp.277-280.

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What happened in 1773 is similar to what happened in 1999 in relation to Brookhaven’s Rela-tivistic Heavy Ion Collider: the Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek declared that the collider could produce strangelets2, thus possibly converting the entire world into a new type of mat-ter. He labelled his suggestion as not impossible as well as not plausible, but the damage had been done: the London Times headlined ‘Big Bang machine could destroy Earth’ and rumours about the end of the world spread out.

With all the due differences and considering the cultural and historical distance between these two episodes, there’s at least one significant analogy: the distance between specialised language and common sense, with common sense translating the scientific term not impossible into likelihood. Even if every day people translate science concepts, sometimes changing the significance too, problems emerge particularly when these concepts concern the risk produced either by technology or by nature. For instance, when scientists talk about the tunnel effect probability, they never say it is equal to zero, but none of them actually thinks that a pen could get through the desk:

In quantum mechanics, there is a probability that this pen will fall through the table. All of a sudden, it will be on the floor. Because it can behave as a wave, it can go through; we call that the “tunnel effect”... If you calculate the probability that this happens, it is not identical to zero. It is a very small probability. But it never happens. I’ve never seen it happen. You have never seen it happen…3

However, when Frank Wilczek declared that the probability of strangelets being generated during the experiments was not equal to zero, people got into a panic. As Jos Engelen said during an interview,

CERN officials are now instructed, with respect to the L.H.C.’s world-destroying po-tential, not to say that the probability is very small, but that the probability is zero4.

The communication of probability has to deal with many language obstacles, because of unusual terms and complex calculus: although most of the time the public’s difficulty in understanding such terms does not clearly emerge, when we talk about probability of risk we do realize how many related issues need to be discussed.

So the point is not how do we communicate probability (which is still a good question, but not of prominent importance here), but how do we communicate risk probability, science uncertainty and the existence of different degrees of knowledge?

It seems that Lalande decided, whether just wishing to feed the rumours or guided by a precise idea of popularisation, to explain his conclusions using ‘science’ terms, like not impossible; on the contrary CERN officials deliberated to previously translate the same term to impossible, in order to avoid any other short-circuits.

Then the central question we would like to ask is which is the way to proceed, Lalande’s or CERN’s. Should science always ‘translate’ – and if so, who should be in charge, researchers or

2 Form of matter that might exist at the centre of neutron stars.3 Engelen Jos, interviewed by Kolbert Elizabeth, Annals of science, New Yorker, May 14, 2007. At the time, Jos Engelen was scientific director of CERN.4 Kolbert E., Annals of science, New Yorker, May 14, 2007.

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journalists? – or should we just spend more time in education and in explanation of its own language and issues?

PRIMARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Mémoire sur les comètes”, Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences avec les mémoires de mathématique & de physique tirez des registres de cette Académie, Grandjean de Fouchy, J. P., ed., Impremerie Royal, Paris, 1773.

Réflexions sur les comètes qui peuvent approcher de la Terre, Gibert, Paris, 1773.

Lettres, Papers-Manuscrits, MSS 000814 A, Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Journal, Dossier Lalande, Institut National, Paris.

SECONDARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amiable, Louis, Le Franc-maçon Jérôme Lalande, Charavay, Paris, 1889.

Boia, Lucian, La fin du monde. Une histoire sans fin, La Découverte, Paris, 1989.

Boistel, Guy et al., Jérôme Lalande, Une trajectoire scientifique, Presse Universitaire de Rennes, Rennes, 2010.

Darnton, Robert, L’età dell’informazione. Una guida non convenzionale al Settecento, Adelphi, Milano, 2008.

Delambre, Jean-Baptiste, Histoire de l’astronomie au dix-huitième siècle, Bachelier, Paris, 1827.

Diderot, Denis, Grimm, Friedrich-Melchior, Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique de Grimm et de Diderot depuis 1753 jusqu’en 1790. Tome 8, Furne, Paris, 1829-1831.

Dumont, Simone, Un astronome des lumières: Jérôme Lalande, Vuibert, Paris, 2007.

Gillispie, Charles, Dictionary of scientific Biography, Vol. 7, pp. 579, voce Lalande, Charles Scribner’s sons, New York, 1981.

Gould, Peter, “Lisbon 1755: Enlightenment, Catastrophe and Communication”, Geography and Enlight-enement, ed. Livingstone D. N. And Withers C. W. J., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999.

Grandjean de Fouchy, Jean Paul, ed., Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences avec les mémoires de mathématique & de physique tirez des registres de cette Académie, Impremerie Royal, Paris, 1773.

Hacking Ian, Il caso domato, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 1994.

Laplace, Pierre Simon, Exposition du système du monde, Bachelier, Paris, 1835.

Pecker, Jean Claude et al., “Jérôme de Lalande (1732-1807)”, Les Nouvelles Annales de L’Ain, Société d’Emulation de l’Ain, Bourg-en-Bresse, 1985.

Rossi, Paolo, ed., “Dalla rivoluzione scientifica all’età dei lumi”, Storia della scienza moderna e contem-poranea, Vol. I, UTET, Torino, 1988.

Shaffer, Simon, “Le comete e la fine del mondo”, Predire il futuro, ed. Howe L. e Wain A., Italian edition Edizioni Dedalo, Bari, 1994.

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Tagliapietra, Andrea, ed., Sulla catastrofe. L’illuminismo e la filosofia del disastro, texts by Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant; Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2004.

Voltaire, “Lettre sur la pretendue comète”, Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Garnier frères, Paris, 1877-1885.

Walter, François, Catastrofi. Una storia culturale, Angelo Colla Editore, Vicenza, 2009.

PERIODICALS

Gazette de France

Gazzetta di Parma

Journal de Paris

New monthly magazine and universal register, The, Colburn, London, July-December 1816

New Yorker