The attacks of September 11 2001 and in particular, the sending of letters containing anthrax spores the following October had a profound effect on society, and at the same time on science and its communicative mechanisms. Through a quanto-qualitative analysis of articles taken from four publications: two daily newspapers, the Corriere della Sera from Italy and the New York Times from the United States and two science magazines, Science and Nature, we have shown how the aforementioned events provoked the emergence of media attention regarding bioterrorism. A closer reading of the articles shows that today, science – including that found in science magazines – is closely related to politics, economics and the debate over the freedom to practice communicate. The very mechanisms of communication between scientists were changed as a result of this debate, as can be seen from the signing of the Denver Declaration in February 2003, which brought about the preventative self-censorship of publication of biomedical research findings.

It’s hard to be a science journalist these days. Still tired because of the “Long night of Science“ (probably the 6th during this summer) he or she is informed about the next “Children’s University days” and another “girls day” coming soon – alongside the daily zapping through the 50 press releases of the informationsdienst wissenschaft1 (are there really 50 newsworthy things happening every day in the labs of every European country?), not to speak of the dozens of press packages and glossy brochures of the pharmaceutical industry as well as the test kits of new products like a tongue cleaner (of which the phenomenal results are – of course – “scientifically proved”). In 2006 a journalist sometimes would wish that science communicators would communicate a little bit less – giving himself a little bit more time to find his own stories – just by himself.

If Europe is to become a knowledge–based economy1 knowledge must be freely available in Europe. The results of research across Europe can not be left inside laboratories and libraries. It has to available to the citizens, young people and commerce of Europe. And the main source of information for all these groups is the mass media, yet large parts of European research do not allocate sufficient importance to media relations.

In May 2004 the Balì Museum, Planetarium and interactive science museum, was opened to the public in Italy: 35 hands-on exhibits designed according to the interactive tradition of the Exploratorium in San Francisco, an astronomic observatory for educational activities, a Planetarium with 70 places. With a total investment of about three million euros, about two thirds of which were spent on restructuring the splendid eighteenth-century villa in which it is housed, the undertaking may be considered a small one in comparison with other European science centres. Three million euros: perhaps enough to cover the cost of only the splendid circular access ramp to the brand-new Cosmocaixa in Barcelona, an investment of one hundred million euros. But the interesting aspect of the story of the Balì Museum (but also of other Italian stories, as we shall see) lies in the fact that this lively and advanced science centre stands in the bucolic region of the Marches, next to a small town of only 800 inhabitants (Saltara, in the Province of Pesaro and Urbino), in a municipal territory that has a total of 5000. Whereas in Italy the projects for science centres comparable with the Catalan one, for example projects for Rome and Turin, never get off the ground, smaller ones are opening in small and medium-sized towns: why is this? And what does the unusual location of the centres entail for science communication in Italy? This Focus does not claim to tell the whole truth about Italian interactive museums, but it does offer some phenomenological cues to open a debate on the cultural, economic and political premises that favour their lives.

The many facets of fundamentalism. There has been much talk about fundamentalism of late. While most people's thought on the topic go to the 9/11 attacks against the United States, or to the ongoing war in Iraq, fundamentalism is affecting science and its relationship to society in a way that may have dire long-term consequences. Of course, religious fundamentalism has always had a history of antagonism with science, and – before the birth of modern science – with philosophy, the age-old vehicle of the human attempt to exercise critical thinking and rationality to solve problems and pursue knowledge. “Fundamentalism” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of the Social Sciences1 as “A movement that asserts the primacy of religious values in social and political life and calls for a return to a 'fundamental' or pure form of religion.” In its broadest sense, however, fundamentalism is a form of ideological intransigence which is not limited to religion, but includes political positions as well (for example, in the case of some extreme forms of “environmentalism”).

Organized creationism is not widespread in Italy. It is a rather limited resource politicians and columnists draw upon when wishing to stir up a “debate”. Judging by its results, Italian creationism is old-fashioned, still comparing Darwin’s theories with the Bible, hoping to find the wreckage of Noah’s Ark, holding conferences on the origin of apes, questioning fossil dating and distorting science debates with out-of-context quotations from disparate sources. It is not a lobby that could obtain considerable electoral support, win favour or drag scientists to court.

In addition to their intrusive presence in American schools, creationists - or more modern epigones thereof, known as “intelligent designers” - are also and unexpectedly to be found in other countries. Take the United Kingdom as an example. Over the past few years, Darwin’s homeland has actually been witnessing attempts to introduce literal faith in the Bible into school programmes in a way which does not significantly differ from the one adopted in the United States. It is multi-billionaire Howard H. Ahmanson who generously finances the Discovery Institute across the Atlantic, one of the dissemination centres of the creationist “creed”.

The discussion on the state of the art of scientific publications in Latin American countries generally restricts itself to its supposedly low visibility. This affirmation is generally conditioned to the exclusive use of large international databases, mainly of the USA and Europe, which include thousands of scientific publications that have marginalized a large part of the scientific literature produced in peripheral countries. Given this fact of low visibility, it became imperative for some Latin American countries, beginning in the 90s (20th Century), to develop their own mechanisms of projection of the results of their own scientific production. The experiences constitute an example for countries that, having significant scientific production, still do not have the means to facilitate access to local scientific publications. Although Bolivia still remains distant from these initiatives, a series of studies were identified that show the existence of a tradition of publication in scientific magazines and interest in their visibility, on a local and international level, which demands attention to the most adequate mechanisms in order to carry this out.

I would like to celebrate not one, but two major news stories about evolution that help further cast the forces of intellectual darkness — meaning creationism and intelligent design — back into the shadows where they belong.

The debate on Darwin’s theory of evolution is a unique case for observing some particular ways in which science is perceived and experienced in society. It is a dispute which is really not very scientific at all, since it ultimately derives from the attempt to discredit a corroborated scientific explanation (and to limit its teaching) by fundamentalist fringe groups of religious and political movements of various extraction. However, it is undeniable that the clash between creationists and evolutionists must also involve, in a critical and self-reflective way, the communicative weaknesses of science and its inability to assert itself as a widespread and fully shared culture, as was also stressed by the Nature magazine in April 2005. With an international viewpoint, ranging from the United States to Europe, from Australia to Italy, in this dossier we try to make a summary investigation of the current state of the debate, with a particularly attentive eye on the communicative strategies that contend in the two fields.