On Hanging Yourself in Public
August 9th, 2005Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Often here at Prometheus we take issue with scientists who assert that a certain view on science compels a specific political agenda. We less frequently comment of the opposite case, scientists who claim that a particular political ideology determines scientific findings. The reasons for this are pretty obvious; hardly any scientist would make such a claim.
But in a stunning example of what appears to be a public career suicide, Climatologist Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist for University of Alabama in Huntsville well known for his long-time collaborations with John Christy on satellite temperature trends, has written an article for Tech Central Station in which he claims that he “came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism.”
Now without a doubt there is an important debate underway in some parts of the United States about what should be taught in biology classes. And understanding this debate requires some considerable nuance. It requires, for example, an appreciation that some have used evolution as a vehicle to advance their own views on religion, which in a perverse way helps to motivate the ID movement. Both of these views go well beyond science, as evolution says nothing about religion, one way or the other. Such questions are, in the words of Alvin Weinberg, trans-scientific. And Spencer does a pretty poor job recognizing any sort of nuance in his piece. Contrast Spencer’s muddled perspective with the clear views expressed by the president of the American Astronomical Society in a letter to President Bush on this subject (thanks to Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer): “”Intelligent design” isn’t even part of science – it is a religious idea that doesn’t have a place in the science curriculum.”
One has to question the judgment of Roy Spencer opining in support of ID in a fairly simplistic way on a prominent WWW outlet (and also TCS for allowing him to do so; to be fair to TCS they have published a diversity of views on ID). The lapse in judgment seems particularly egregious occurring in the same week that, as word on the street has it, Science magazine will be publishing several papers that identify errors in his calculations of satellite temperature trends. Irrespective of the merits of his climate research, and by all accounts it is solid science, he will forever be known as the climate scientist who believes in “Intelligent Design.” I can see the characterizations now — “How can you believe the science of someone who doesn’t even believe in evolution?”
And this gets us to the larger point here. Spencer, perhaps inadvertently, gives support to the notion that scientific results are simply a function of ideology. This view, in conjunction with a view that “sound science” or “consensus science” compels particular political outcomes, leads to a transitive relationship where ideology determines science and science determines political outcomes, which in other words means that science is simply irrelevant to policy debates, other than a vehicle for ideological expressions. This would be a bad outcome because science matters for policy. Just not in the way that Roy Spencer and Paul Krugman would have you believe.
August 9th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
“How can you believe the science of someone who doesn’t even believe in evolution?”
I don’t believe in evolution. I don’t believe the science of anyone.
There is no need in science to believe anything.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Intriguing last para. Roger.
I’ve been watching Roy’s sad, slow decline play out on the pages of TCS. I’ve heard the same thing about the Science articles and see the almost weekly revisions of their v 5.2, and I wonder if the pressure is too much.
I, personally, wouldn’t conflate Roy’s apparent mental decline with the subject of your last para. There is an organized campaign going on to discredit science that must be addressed, but poster-boying someone is a tactic the campaign uses, and is thus illustrative rather than a watershed moment.
Keep up the good work sir,
D
August 10th, 2005 at 8:45 am
I’m not so that Spencer will hang himself by defending intelligent design. Just look into cosmology and the “Anthropic Principle.” It’s intelligent design pushed back to the origin of the universe. This has been going on in physics and astronomy for years and has gained adherents.
August 10th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Perhaps you could point to where in Krugman mentions policy in his column? I’ve read it six times and still don’t see it.
I also have some questions.
1) If, as you say, propoganda doesn’t sway public opinion, am I wrong to assume that a free press is healthier for Democracy than state run propoganda? If so, why?
3) If complex scientific theories provide ammo to both sides of a partisan battle, and therefore have no place in politics, why fund controversial science at all? Couldn’t we have a values debate over whether eating cheese causes thunderstorms?
3) If complex issues make it impossible to arrive at the truth, how did scientists reach consensus? How did the public decide global warming was an issue rather than cheese? Doesn’t this suggest that partisanship is not the overriding motivation for most people?
August 10th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Dylan-
Thanks for your comments and questions, Let me respond like a professor and assign some homework.
1. Lawrence R. Jacobs. “Manipulators and Manipulation: Public Opinion in a
Representative Democracy.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 26 (December
2001): 1361-1374.
Some excerpts:
“Public attitudes that are least susceptible to manipulation tend to be fundamental policy preferences (such as support for Medicare or spending on health care), which do not regularly change in a statistically significant manner over time (Page and Shapiro 1992). On the other hand, mass attitudes that are ambivalent or not well established toward particular policy proposals may be especially susceptible to being influenced by elites.”
And
“… we have eager manipulators without necessarily effective manipulation. The effectiveness of elite manipulation is contingent on elite dissensus, the nature of public opinion, and the decisions of multiple and often competing sets of political and media elites.”
In other words, the more politicized an issue is, the less effective propaganda is.
2. I try to address this question here:
Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2004. Forests, Tornadoes, and Abortion: Thinking about Science, Politics and Policy, Chapter 9 in J. Bowersox and K. Arabas (eds.) Forest Futures: Science, Policy and Politics for the Next Century (Rowman and Littlefield), pp. 143-152.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resourse-484-2004.20.pdf
3. This question conflates a number of things. I suggest reading these papers, which addressed both consensus and the role of science in values disputes:
Oreskes, N., 2004. Science and public policy: what’s proof got to do with it?, ESP, volume 7, pp. 369-383.
Sarewitz, D., 2004. How Science makes environmental controversies worse, ESP, volume 7, pp. 385-403.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for the links. The last one was a good one. I’ll read those.
At first glance, I see this as true. I mean, when someone does a study on a link between abortion and breast cancer, a pro-lifer might want to believe it, and a pro-choicer won’t. And to ask scientists if there is a link might imply a bias. Still, one would expect scientists to be able to answer it factually, and tell us if there is a link. Those who respect the scientific process ought to be able to accept those results, since it doesn’t answer whether abortion is murder or not, just as the question of global warming doesn’t answer whether we should implement Kyoto.
I’m still not clear what this means, though. Should we not conduct science on controversial matters? What do you suggest science’s role should be when it is controversial? Hopefully those articles will clarify.
August 10th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Okay. Just read your paper, and it does a very good job of describing the role of science and politics. However, it doesn’t answer the central question that got me on this tyrade in the first place.
To take the Abortion Breast Cancer example, I see how the question of abortion has to do with values, and that science doesn’t really change anyone’s mind, or deal with the issue at hand. But if all of the research shows there is no link, why is it out of line to denounce someone who fakes a study that shows a link, or gets a government web site to suggest science shows there is a link, when science clearly doesn’t? How am I suggesting science “compels” a certain outcome if I insist that journalism or taxpayer funded information sources correctly represent the science?
That’s all Krugman did. He said think tanks are faking research to trick reporters into misrepresenting science. Sure, in abortion politics, science doesn’t play much of a role. But why does that forbid you from insisting that any science that comes up be accurate?
August 10th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Dylan- Thanks for the exchange. Can I test your patience with one more paper reference on this point?
Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity, Daniel Sarewitz, Earth Matters: The Earth Sciences, Philosophy, and the Claims of Community (Prentice Hall, 2000), edited by Robert Frodeman pp. 79-98
http://www.cspo.org/products/articles/excess.objectivity.html
August 10th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
I think you are still missing Krugman’s point. Conservatives, seeing that science supported “liberal” views, have spent large sums trying to descedit that science. Not sure why protecting the environment or biological evolution are liberal, but apparently the conservatives decided that they are.
August 21st, 2005 at 8:02 pm
Well that didn’t take long. From ReaClimate’s William Connelley, “Also (can’t resist this) it turns out that Spencer is a creationist.”
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-is-point-of-ccsp-committee_21.html
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:04 am
I hope it’s not too late to add to this discussion. From a philosophy of science, or metascientific grounds, Roy Spencer is on very good ground. On the other hand Spencer’s statement that “from a practical point of view, the intelligent design paradigm is just as useful to biology” [as evolution] raises serious questions in my mind. I like to think of this as a question of form (does this hypothesis or theory met some theoretical criteria; is it well formed in the logical sense) versus substance (is there confirming evidence, has it withstood tests of falsifiability). The mistake I think many scientists make is to rely too much on arguments of form.
To illustrate the problem the philosophy of science faces with intelligent design consider the status of Flat Earth theory (to make up a name). Is Flat Earth theory (FET) science? From the point of view of demarcation criteria between science and non-science then FET does very well. FET makes testable claims. FET has great “scientific form”. In substance, however, FET doesn’t do so well. FET is testable, it has been tested, and it has been found false. Discussing the status of Creationism a number of philosophers of science have made similar points about Creationism. It’s testable (or falsifiable), it has been tested, and it has been found wanting.
But the situation for those who want to deny ID the status of science gets even worse. When put up against the history of science, one demarcation criteria after another falls to a death by exceptions. My sense of the literature is that mainstream thinking among philosophers is that rejecting ideas based upon demarcation criteria isn’t practical. The arguments are attractive, clean, neat, and most probably wrong. Even if the demarcation problem is solvable there is still the problem that we are rejection an idea based on philosophy rather than empirical methods. In other words the precise definition of science is an argument among philosophers and not an empirical one. Parallels to the appropriate role of science in politics and public policy come to mind.
Because of the problems with arguments of demarcation, it’s my opinion that the use of demarcation arguments open those who use them up to a justifiable charges of intolerance and perhaps bigotry. There is a further consequence as well. Many philosophers who have written on the subject point out that by rejecting ideas on theoretical / definitional grounds we forgo the opportunity to apply sciences most definitive methods of evaluation to the question. In saying this I reject the idea that:
‘”Intelligent design” is not so bold as to make predictions or subject itself to a test. There’s no way to find out if it is right or wrong.”
I believe proponents of ID are making predictions. To say otherwise I suggest shows a regrettable carelessness or ignorance on the part of the speaker. That said, as with Creationism before it, when it comes to a head to head test my hunch is that ID won’t be winning many converts.
February 17th, 2006 at 6:48 am
I can see the characterizations now — “How can you believe the science of someone who doesn’t even believe in evolution?”
Bingo:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=258#more-258