Science provides the best way of understanding the world. Public understanding of science is limited: science goes against common sense, the earth moves round the sun. Paranormal beliefs are all too common and they go completely against science, there is a mystical element in our brains. Unlike religion, science is universal and is almost entirely independent of the particular culture in which it is performed. It had is origin in ancient Greece. Whenever a new technology is introduced it is not for the scientists to take an ethical decision about how it should be used, but they must make public the implications.

The public has to negotiate competing claims about which products, practices and policies will work. If we expect people to make sense of these, then knowledge about evidence, and an understanding of how it is obtained and reviewed, is vital. However, this public language of science has been neglected. The public is encouraged to admire science and to be entertained and amazed by it. We should be doing more to equip people with insights into evidence and scientific enquiry, and expanding discussion about what we know and how we know it.

The rise of natural theology in the seventeenth century did not originate in theology, but in science. It was not started by theologians trying from above to impress a religious perspective on science. On the contrary, the natural theology of the century of the Enlightenment began as a grass-roots movement among believing scientists who were convinced both that God's existence could be proved and some of His attributes described from below, that is, on the basis of the expanding world of scientific knowledge. Essentially they were arguing for the existence of a Deity whose direct intervention would explain the gaps in the scientific discourse. But this manner of reasoning made natural theology extremely vulnerable. It would clearly lose its power at the moment when the scientific discourse itself became sufficiently advanced to close the gaps by its own force.

Expected utility theory tells us how we should make decisions under uncertainty: we should choose the option that leads to the greatest expectation of utility. This may, however, not be the option that is likely to produce the best result – that may be the wrong choice if it also creates a small chance of a great disaster. A small chance of disaster may be the most important consideration in decision making. Climate change creates a small chance of disaster, and some authors believe this to be the most important consideration in deciding our response to climate change. To know whether they are right, we need to make a moral judgement about just how bad the disaster would be.

Falsifiability is the cornerstone of science. However, Rutherford notwithstanding, almost by definition science functions at the limits of measurement accuracy and theoretical grasp, so that statistical analysis is central to scientific advance. This applies as much to physics as it does to psychology, as much to geology as to biology. I look at some of the potholes in the path of scientific discovery, showing how easy it is to stumble, and at some of the consequences for the scientific endeavour.

I wish to caution against undue weight being given to received wisdom and false assumptions of ‘expertise’, particularly in the context of new epidemics. I argue that, in some cases, reliance on received wisdom can lead to poor decision-making in public health terms, whether we are talking about Mad Cow Disease, the likelihood of a novel strain of influenza causing many fatalities, or the best way to reduce overdose deaths soon after release from prison. I shall also stress the importance of well-designed data-acquisition which is, or should be, the forte of statistician-scientists.

There is plenty of stuff out there that looks like science, sounds like science and yet which is no more science than the ‘cargo cult’ aircraft and landing strips constructed by Pacific Islanders in the 1940s and 1950s were functional technology. My talk is not so much about the usual suspects – homeopathy, crystal healing, UFOs and the like – but other areas of cargo-cult science that sit far closer to the high altar of respectability. We take far too much for granted in science, and this can be seen in the replicability (or otherwise) of peer-reviewed studies, the phenomenon of publication bias, the so-called Decline Effect and the persistence of folk myths such as the one that describes how aeroplanes fly.

Infectious diseases still jeopardize human health and even lives. In spite of the variety of advanced treatment methods, prevention is considered to be the most effective way to fight infections, and vaccination, no doubt, is one of the most effective preventive measures in the history of mankind. The vaccine controversy is based on a dispute over morality, ethics, effectiveness, and/or safety. There is no 100% safe or effective vaccine; however, benefits clearly overweigh risks. Ironically, as the numbers of cases of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases are falling, the controversies relating to vaccine safety are growing. Vaccines are generally victims of their own success. Controversies can afflict the positive acceptance of immunization, decrease the coverage and uptake and finally threaten the health of children and adults.

Universities in the UK have been offering ‘bachelor of science’ degrees in preposterous made-up pseudoscience. The Freedom of Information Act made it possible to winkle out some of the nonsense taught on these courses. When this was exposed on blogs and in the mainstream media, vice-chancellors were embarrassed into closing many of the courses. The fact that it had to be done this way reflects badly on the integrity of the vice-chancellors involved. And the total failure of every regulatory agency to achieve this reveals the bad value that they give.

Genetic engineering (GMO-technology) offers great opportunities to contribute to the public good by improving public health, e.g. by improving the micro-nutrient status of poor populations, cost effectively and – therefore – sustainably. The prime example for such a project from the public domain for public good is ‘Golden Rice’ (www.goldenrice.org). There are exclusive public funds involved (from altruistic organizations), no dependence from industry except for in-kind support and help in acquiring free licenses for humanitarian use. There is no financial reward for anyone involved. The only beneficiaries are the poor in developing countries. Theoretically, when considering the arguments of the anti-GMO lobby, this is an ideal application of GMO-technology. However, Golden Rice is considered a Trojan Horse, which must be prevented under all circumstances. The consequence: millions of avoidable blind and dead children. The author considers those who are responsible for this avoidable suffering of many innocent children (and mothers at childbirth) a crime to humanity. There are those who commit this deliberately and those who are participating passively, such as numerous ‘humanitarian organizations’ and ‘decision makers’ in politics and elsewhere. There is a wealth of scientific information and broad consensus that GMO-technology is at least as safe as any other technology involved in any context with our food or our environment. What we experience here is an example of ‘unreason’ and a perfect example in the context of The March of Unreason. Our ‘enlightenment’ and science-based successful European culture is on the verge of being replaced by unreason-based failure and lack of culture.

Assisted reproduction has been carried out within the Danish health care system since the beginning of the 1980s. The first independent act on artificial reproduction was adopted in Denmark 15 years later, in 1997. The issue of assisted reproduction is still a subject of debate in Denmark. The main driving forces in Danish society when establishing legal regulation in this area are existential, social and cultural/religious. The involvement of both scientific and lay voices and the timing of the ethical debate are important factors in the creation of the Danish legislation on assisted reproduction.

By predicting a global change of the Earth's climate, scientists are delivering an uncomfortable message. The release of the fourth IPCC report in 2007 has led to a surge of scepticism and criticism of both the science and the scientists. All this has received a lot of press coverage. Here I discuss the roots of climate change scepticism and how it has been triggered by the complex and novel aspects of climate science. I also call for more transparent and open practice in science, as more light is precisely what its opponents cannot afford.

Science is often seen as empirical inquiry that aims at proof or explanation, but eschews normative considerations. This, I shall argue, is inadequate. Scientific thinking and practice also depend on additional standards, including a range of norms that are not and cannot be established by empirical methods. It follows that science cannot and should not aspire to be value free.

The opposition between rationality and irrationality is often portrayed as a struggle between rational evidence-based science and irrational, ungrounded myth. I shall argue that this is too simplistic and that different forms of rationality need to be recognised – in particular, the rationality of everyday life. All scientific inquiry and reasoning is based and depends upon the practices, activities and antecedent beliefs of human knowers, who are embedded in cultural life-worlds in ways that science has hitherto ignored. Progress in civilisational rationality requires that the rationality of the life-world be understood.

It is argued that patterns of behaviour that distinguish human ‘moral communities’ have evolved culturally and been subject to natural selection. For this to work, these behaviour patterns must be maintained stably over substantial numbers of people and periods of time. Religious prescription – which is essentially equivalent to ethics – has provided this stability.1–3 It follows that ethics must also have evolved and been subject to natural selection.

If someone says ‘I'm good thank you!’, usually in response to a polite ‘how are you,’ I am tempted, and often do, reply: ‘That's an interesting claim or hypothesis – how are we going to test it?’ This paper is about testing that hypothesis, taken literally; the hypothesis that someone is good, how such a claim might be tested and what thinking about the exercise tells us about goodness and hence of course about how to increase goodness in the world and in people.

There are three elements that are essential to a system of morality: a moral community, moral values, and a moral code. There cannot be a purely private morality any more than a purely private language. The moral life of the community consists of the shared pursuit of non-material values: this is what distinguishes morality from economics. This pursuit is carried out within a framework that excludes certain types of behaviour: it is this that distinguishes morality from aesthetics. Moral laws are created by the moral community in a way similar to the way in which grammar and syntax are created by the linguistic community.