Hans von Storch on Political Advocacy
January 21st, 2007Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
[Hans von Storch posted this very thoughtful comment on the thread from last week on the recent partnership of leading climate scientists and the National Association of Evangelicals to advocate for political action on climate change. We think that Hans' comments deserve a bit more prominence so have reproduced them here. -RP]
I remember that there was a few years ago a web page in UK, which made public a statement of a religious group about climate change; a very concerned statement. It was signed by, among others Sir John Houghton (who signed in his capacity of former IPCC chair), Bob Watson and other brass of the IPCC guild [The UK statement referred to can be found here. -RP]. Thus, the disclosure of the encroachment of religion into top climate science levels is nothing new. It would have been better if this group had been open about this fact earlier.
We all are bound by certain culturally constructed values; religion is just one, and it has been particularly barbarian in times. In other times rather humanitarian. For a scientist the problem is that these values interfere with our analytical skills; not in the sense that we would execute statistical tests in a biased manner or that we would fail in our maths. But in the way we ask; in our preparedness to accept certain answers or to remain skeptical to certain answers. And finally, it may lead us to misuse our scientific authority to push for conclusions, which are beyond the realm of science.
None of us is free of this interference: this group is to be applauded for being explicit and honest. But they should also accept that claims of independence have to be given up when speaking about the social implications of anthropogenic climate change. They are, and likely have been, issue advocates. They are certainly still scientists, but they are advocates as well. In a sense they are publicly paid NGOs. NGOs play an important and welcomed role in the public discussion and decision process, like most other lobbying groups – but everybody knows what their agenda is.
Those of us who want to try to limit the influence of our values on our scientific analyses, should try to analyze these values and their potential influence on our professional performance. We should see our present activity in a historical context and reflect upon our cultural and social conditioning. We may be able to limit the degree of subjectivity of our work to some, maybe just a very minor, extent.
January 21st, 2007 at 7:00 pm
“Thus, the disclosure of the encroachment of religion into top climate science levels is nothing new.”
Such well written prose, full of lofty truths and laudable ethics. But is still a vapid strawman.
As if signing a letter jointly with a religious group makes you religious. Roger, your readers are more intelligent than this, don’t forget that!
January 21st, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Coby-
Thanks, but sometimes it is good to follow provided links. Here is an excerpt from the UK statement referred to by von Storch:
“* God created the Earth, and continues to sustain it. Made in God’s image, human beings are to care for people and all creation as God cares for them. The call to “love the Lord your God and love your neighbour” (Matthew 22:37–39) takes on new implications in the face of present and projected climate change. God has demonstrated his commitment to creation in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ who “reconciles all things” (Colossians 1:20) calls his followers to the “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18,19).
* Human induced climate change poses a great threat to the common good, especially to the poor, the vulnerable and future generations.
* By reducing the Earth’s biological diversity, human induced climate change diminishes God’s creation.”
January 21st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
A clarification on this “alliance” of evangelicals and scientists. A substantial number of scientists in this group are atheists or secular humanists. In fact, E.O. Wilson was very explicit about this in his book “Creation”, and this issue was addressed and acknowledged explicitly in the retreat that the evangelicals and scientists attended. This alliance is not about religion encroaching on science. It is about trying to educate evangelicals about climate change. It is about declaring shared values about concern for the environment/creation. Several people in the group are working specifically on policy advocacy (Richard CIzik foremost among them) by urging Congress and President Bush to confron the global warming issue. You do not need to be a Christian, an Evangelical, or religious in any sense of the word to value the environment. E.O. Wilson’s book has arguably made it acceptable to bring the word “creation” into the secular dialogue (which is ok i guess for the secular humanists if you don’t specify a creator). Other evangelical values, such as concern for the poorest of the poor, are not solely religious values and are shared by many secular humanists. Scientists engaging with evangelicals has the potential to put an end to the “science” part of the culture wars. Characterizing this alliance as religion encroaching on science is absurd in my opinion. Denying scientists such basic human values is not going to get us anywhere. Declaring such basic values does not prescribe policy in any way (especially given multiple values that conflict in some ways in terms of potential policy solutions). If this group had instead come out with prescriptions to raise CAFE standards, promote nuclear power, or whatever, that would be a different story, but even if there had been such presciptive policy advocacy, it is difficult to argue that religion is encroaching on science or driving policy.
January 21st, 2007 at 9:58 pm
As you acknowledge, those excerpts are all from the UK statement. This-comment-turned post is from a thread about the joint statement from the National Press Club. That is another common mechanism that results in real positions and issues being obfuscated, a kind of bait and switch: substantiate a characterization of one thing and then apply that same characterization to other things, only minus the accuracy.
I also note with some consternation the continued juxtaposition between wise admissions that we all have agendas/bias/personal perspectives and ominous warnings about trusting such people who must therefore be “issue advocates”.
If we are all of us issue advocates, and truly, I have no problem accepting this framing of things, then you must drop the idea that issue advocates cannot, by there very nature, be trusted.
January 21st, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Coby-
Thanks.
But who ever said the following?
“you must drop the idea that issue advocates cannot, by there very nature, be trusted.”
Also, von Storch’s comment about religion encroaching was clearly made in reference to the UK statement, which I have to say has just as stellar a signatory list as the US NAE.
Thanks!
January 21st, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Judy-
Thanks for your comments.
Here we have you distancing yourself from the NAE and on the original thread a similar comment from someone in the NAE-world distancing the NAE from the climate scientists.
I am sure that if the NAE had joined with a bunch of scientists to advocate general restrictions on stem cell research (not prescriptive, mind you) that there would be all sorts of responses.
The notion that “prescriptive” policy advocacy is a distinction that means anything continues to baffle me. I could come out advocating for a democrat for president in 208, but not “prescribe” a candidate. But so what? Advocacy is advocacy; it is about reducing the scope of choice.
Thanks!
January 21st, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Coby-
A further comment. if you do get a chance to have a look at my forthcoming book, The Honest Broker, be sure to note the distinction between the Issue Advocate and the Stealth Issue Advocate.
It is the SIA that I take issue with, not the IA. This is the distinction I think that HVS was getting at when he wrote, “NGOs play an important and welcomed role in the public discussion and decision process, like most other lobbying groups – but everybody knows what their agenda is.”
Thanks!
January 21st, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Roger,
“von Storch’s comment about religion encroaching was clearly made in reference to the UK statement”
Sorry, this is not a supportable interpretation, as I know you will have to agree. von Storch, in a discussion of the NPC statement, introduces the UK statement and then says “Thus, the disclosure of the encroachment of religion into top climate science levels is nothing new.”
He is plainly saying that the NPC statement is a more recent example of this very same disclosure of encroachment.
January 21st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Roger, you are right that I often forget the importance you place on the distinction between advocate and stealth advocate. But there is an important group that is hidden by this choice of language. Stealth implies intentionally hiding something, but I submit that the vast majority of us are unaware of our own assumptions, assumptions that “limit our choices” which seems to be the defining feature of advocacy.
You have, by dividing things this way, allowed for only nefarious reasons for coming to the table with an acknowledged agendas. I think this is the key to your bafflement about why people distinguish between prescriptive policy advocacy and general concerns like we should address global warming.
January 21st, 2007 at 10:31 pm
“coming to the table with an acknowledged agendas”
should read “coming to the table with unacknowledged agendas”. Sorry for any confusion.
January 21st, 2007 at 11:50 pm
“But they should also accept that claims of independence have to be given up when speaking about the social implications of anthropogenic climate change.”
This sentence can easily be interpreted as “social science is subjective or advocacy”. I strongly disagree. Not only is this not true, it may even be the other way around. As social scientists are much closer to policy, they should better know how to recognise the thin line between fact and value and should have been taught to be extra careful in those areas.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:35 am
Roger, I cannot understand your bafflement reflected in the following:
The notion that “prescriptive” policy advocacy is a distinction that means anything continues to baffle me. I could come out advocating for a democrat for president in 208, but not “prescribe” a candidate. But so what? Advocacy is advocacy; it is about reducing the scope of choice.
By advocating that someone consider a problem is not reducing the scope of choice. Your previous analogy about the Iraq war doesn’t work either in this regard. By stating that the strategy in Iraq isn’t working and urging the administration to reconsider their strategy does not reduce the scope of choice ( they may of course choose to stay the course after careful consideration). Nor does urging the administration to consider the global warming problem in any way reduce the scope of choice (they may of course choose to do nothing after careful consideration). By NOT considering these issues, the scope of choice is enormously restricted.
Asking policy makers to examine a risk and consider the options to address the risk (as described above) is very different from advocacy of prescriptive polcies such as a date for withdrawal, limiting the number of troops, whatever.
The general advocacy to consider a problem is about expanding options and choice. I’m surprised that you don’t get it.
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:06 am
Roger, one other comment on your statement, which reflects a substantial misunderstanding:
“Here we have you distancing yourself from the NAE and on the original thread a similar comment from someone in the NAE-world distancing the NAE from the climate scientists.”
The whole reason this thing is news is not because a bunch of evangelical scientists are joining forces with the NAE to “advocate”. It is because a group of secular humanist scientists met with evangelical leaders (many of whom have no explicit affiliation with NAE, although NAE was a cosponsor of the retreat). Yes, the secular humanist scientists “distance themsleves” from the religions beliefs of the NAE. But again the whole point of all this is that there are shared values (we both care about the environment and are concerned by the lack of attention the Bush administration is paying to this issue), in spite of all the other disagreements between these two groups.
Note, the religious leaders in this group arguably represent the intelligentsia of the evangelical movement, not necessarily a majority opinion of all evangelicals. Many evangelicals don’t like this “alliance” and don’t understand it.
Amongst the original 30 or so scientists and evangelicals, there is no “distancing” among us from our original statement. We continue to have active engagement via email, and of course some of the more publicly prominent people in the group are active in the media (there was a recent NPR interview with Cizik, Wilson, Chivian).
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:19 am
Thanks Judy- A few replies …
1. Replacing the current approach on climate change in the US with your preferred approach (or Iraq, or whatever) is NOT “expanding the scope of choice” — it is reducing it in a different direction. That is the essence of politics. In fact it is the essence of what political scientists call “interest group pluralism” where everyone is seeking to limit options in the direction of their own interests.
2. Problem definition is a very political act. It shapes what actions are considered and which are not. Advocating that climate change be viewed as a problem is indeed overt political advocacy.
See this paper:
Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1997: Asking the Right Questions: Atmospheric Sciences Research and Societal Needs. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78(2), 255-264.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-145-1997.13.pdf
3. You write, “the whole point of all this is that there are shared values (we both care about the environment and are concerned by the lack of attention the Bush administration is paying to this issue)”
Yes, the whole point is political advocacy. Again there is nothing wrong with advocacy it is central to modern democracy. You seem to want to distance yourself from the advocacy agenda of your group. You can’t.
Thanks!
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:34 am
Coby- Thanks for your comments. One quick response:
You write: “Stealth implies intentionally hiding something . . .”
This is not how I characterize “stealth issue advocacy” in my book. I acknowledge that the scientist may or may not be aware of their role in political advocacy. They may simply refuse to recognize it as you see in the comments here. The issue of the scientist’s motivation is not of particular interest to me the effects on the process are the same one way or the other. I discuss the issue of scientist’s motivations in my 2004 paper on the political debate over Bjorn Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist.
Thanks!
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:43 am
Roger, I disagree with this statement by van Storch:
“For a scientist the problem is that these values interfere with our analytical skills; not in the sense that we would execute statistical tests in a biased manner or that we would fail in our maths. But in the way we ask; in our preparedness to accept certain answers or to remain skeptical to certain answers.”
Is the scientific work of a scientist who thinks that a crashing fishery should be preserved, or a coral reef or tropical jungle, necessarily biases when he estimates the demographics and geographical distribution of the fish, or calculates how rapidly the forest or reef is being degraded? I`m not so sure, even though of course I would use the information of the fact of advocacy whe I weigh the reliability of such person`s work.
Judith, what you are doing is great and I commend you for it.
However, I disagree that we need significant ethical or morla changes. We simply need to find institutional approaches that regulate open-access resources.
Sincerey,
Tom
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 am
Like TokyoTom, I’m not so sure whether advocacy always introduces a bias. Here’s another question I do not know the answer to:
Is the scientific work of a scientist who thinks hurricanes are increasing as a result of AGW, necessarily biases when the scientists smooth data to hide scatter and then fail to apply undergraduate hypothesis testing to their data? Is it a bias when they then proclaim their hypothesis correct? And then challenge skeptics to spend the time to do the test, and then it turns out that the 15 minutes spent doing a student t-test shows her hypothesis appears to fail the test? (For more see http://truthortruthiness.com/blog/?p=31 )
I`m not so sure the stubborn refusal to test their own hypotheses shows the scientist’s work is biased by advocacy, but I still think scientist ought to get in the habit of applying these little hypothesis tests to their own little theories.
In any case, if we truly wish to save the poorest of the poor, advocating policy changes based on “scientific conclusions” that are proclaimed to be true before they have been tested using standard statistical techniques taught to freshman and sophomores in college may not be the best approach.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Margo states: “Is the scientific work of a scientist who thinks hurricanes are increasing as a result of AGW, necessarily biases when the scientists smooth data to hide scatter and then fail to apply undergraduate hypothesis testing to their data?”
Well, one might argue that the bias is introduced by the premises, as the global incidence of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons has not increased in, say, the last 17 years but has in fact decreased globally (even though Atlantic hurricanes have become more numerous recently. See http://iconicmidwest.blogspot.com/2007/01/adam-smith-on-sunday.html)
So, here you have a question presented even before the prima facie case for it could be plausibly made.
Very basic errors are creeping in from somewhere, and I think Roger’s take (and Hans von Storch’s) shouldn’t be discounted out of hand.
Additionally, I don’t think anyone has anything against scientists presenting their views to people with very different backgrounds. It is the issue of making “common cause” with non-scientists that is problematic. The idea that scientists can make any such arrangement a one-way-street, flowing from scientists to the non-scientists with nothing ever coming back the other way and exerting influence, is, frankly, naive.
I would like to believe Richard Tol’s contention that social scientists are routinely careful in such areas because they are used to mucking about in policy politics, but I think if one looked at the work of social scientists employed by various advocacy groups the tale would not be a laudable one. If anything social scientists have been too often influenced by the needs of their “policy partners.”
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Folks, I did not expect to get that many responses to my short comment. As usual, my wording was not perfect and some aspects obviously were misunderstood. As you know English is not my native language, so that subtleties may go wrong.
It depends of course how we see science. I see it as a service to the public, namely to help to come to better decisions. Science, be it natural or economic or social sciences, should not limit the range of possible decisions but describe the full range of options and the implications of these options to the extent possible. Scientists should recognize that they are Fachidioten – as we in German say – they have a rather limited field of expertise; dealing with the real-world problems requires insight into a much wider field of dynamics, interdependencies and options. Thus, scientists are simply not smarter than other professionals, say hair cutters, taxi drivers and journalists – apart of the one field they are by chance an expert in. Thus, when taking part in the public debate, we should do so while acknowledging that we have a biased knowledge base, namely that we know some part of the problem extremely well and others as good as anybody else on the street.
Bias in our work: of course, if we are convinced that we are approaching a climate catastrophe we are more easily willing to accept limited evidence for bad news as conclusive; while indications for weaker changes are accepted only after a more careful analysis. This represents a bias; this bias becomes more severe if we come to the margins of our competence. If you know something awful is going on then you do not need formal detection and attribution studies. Inhomogeneities in data sets, number of degrees of freedom in a data set are less important.
Finally – the alliance is not between religious scientists and evangelicals but between scientists, some of which are atheists, and evangelicals. It is to teach the evangelicals about climate change. Certainly it is to be applauded to teach people of little knowledge about the state-of-the-science knowledge. But the real purpose is not to teach these poor uneducated fellows, but to gain their support in apolitical agenda. The alliance is nothing but a purely political effort.
We had similar efforts in Germany a few years ago, when foresters knowingly oversold the concept of Waldsterben. These people believed to do good – but they failed. The chorus of fear had no real response (we are still driving on some parts of our Autobahnen without a speed limit) – and it had a detrimental effect on the ability of science to deliver. Because, “these scientists” were perceived as just like NGOs, but publicly paid. Why should we pay them if we get equally useful knowledge claims from the coal industry or from WWF?
The bottomline is that we have to do science in a sustainable way. Also my present PhD students should be able to provide in 30 years time a useful service, beyond the pursuit of specific political agenda, to the public. So, what do you folks think would be a sustainable practice of science?
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:15 am
Dr von Storch,
Do you have any documentation to support your accusation that any of the particular scientists who have join in this joint statement are “knowingly overselling” the science? If so, please share it. If it was not your intention to say this please clarify.
“If you know something awful is going on then you do not need formal detection and attribution studies.”
Two points: 1) it is quite enough to *think* that something awful is about to happen as a reason for raising alarm bells; 2) you do in fact need formal studies when there are voices like yours claiming there is no danger.
“But the real purpose is not to teach these poor uneducated fellows, but to gain their support in apolitical agenda.”
Such an absurdly cynical characterization. Of course the purpose of such an alliance is not to teach poor uneducated fellows, it is to communicate to them about a danger, calling that a “political agenda” may be technically correct on Prometheus but I repeat, it is absurdly cynical.
As a general point about this type of discourse, I find intellectual pontifications about how we must practice “sustainable science” absurdly irrelevant when we need to be discussing how we can have a sustainable civilization.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 am
Dr. von Storch:
Thank you for clarifying your intention, which appears to be to defend the halls of science against corruption by scientists who engage in political advocacy. You insist that “we have to do science in a sustainable way”, so that in 30 years time the public will still want to fund your PhD students to engage in scientific research. You are afraid that if public scientists from time to time pursue any specific personal political agenda, then this will undermine the “sustainable practice of science”.
My personal view is that you are both being unrealistic and overly concerned, and have too narrow a view of the role of scientists. The public does not expect that scientists will check their personal morals at the door when they enter the lab, or that such scientists will never once have or express a public opinion about the work in which they are engaged.
Scientists are members of society, not unfeeling automatons, and may rightly feel that they have obligations to society, their families and themselves to speak out on matters on which scientists feel troubled. I do not think that a few vocal public scientists will turn the public away from financing science in general – to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, so to speak. In fact, in the US at least, the public often looks for expertise and authority – which scientists are perceived to be able to provide – and our laws and morals also encourage scientists to speak up, at least if they believe that the government is acting wrongly (even as government administrators and politicians may prefer that public scientists keep their opinions to themselves).
Sincerely,
Tom
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 am
To Rich Horton:
Let me clarify. Natural scientists are typically trained to do research far removed from the public interest. They have had little preparation for a role in a wider debat; they’re professors used to patronising others; and they can’t tell their personal convictions from their scientific opinions. I think that many natural scientists in the climate debate are just a bit naive, and cannot tell fact from value.
I’m not alone. People like Funtowicz and Ravetz would agree.
On the other hand, social scientists are trained to do research that is very close to policy. They are taught the dangers of introspection, and the shades of gray between subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, and objectivity. When a social scientist crosses the line between fact and value, between research and advocacy, naivity is no excuse. A proper social scientists knows what (s)he’s doing.
I’m not saying that social scientists are not policy advocates. I’m saying that social scientists know that they are policy advocates, whereas I have the impression that many (but certainly not all) natural scientists are policy advocates without realising this.
Again, see Funtowicz and Ravetz.
To Coby:
Knowingly overselling the science is common practice, in getting a paper published, in getting your voice heard at a conference, in getting a proposal funded, in getting your name in the newspaper.
Overselling science in a policy debate is fine as long as there is a counterweight and a reconciliation mechanism. In climate policy, the debate has polarised and the two sides are making so much noise that the sensible middle cannot be heard.
I know for a fact that many of the scientists on the joint statement have a habit of overselling. The proof is the difference between their public and private statements, and the difference between their scientific and popular writings.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:39 am
To TokyoTom:
I strongly disagree.
The Enlightenment sought to overthrow religion and replace it with science. That failed. Science is the new religion, and scientists the new priests. Apparently, most people prefer to do and think as they are told to.
Therefore, scientists should at all times refrain from proclaiming about things on which they are not experts; and if they do so nonetheless, they should make it crystal clear to their audience that they are speaking as ordinary people, and not as experts.
Any other strategy will lead to the eventual loss of trust in science, and it will be replaced by another system of believe.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:33 am
” they’re professors used to patronising others; and they can’t tell their personal convictions from their scientific opinions.”
Good lord, man, have you no sense of irony?? And you wish to represent yourself as high minded and even handed!
“In climate policy, the debate has polarised and the two sides are making so much noise that the sensible middle cannot be heard.”
This has everything to do with corporate owned media and nothing to do with scientists.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
Richard -
Extremely good points. You say:
“Science is the new religion, and scientists the new priests”
Just as you cannot tell a Catholic their religion might be wrong, you cannot tell some alarmists here their’s might be wrong.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Roger, now I get it. From your previous reply to me, i infer the following:
If we “stay the course” (in Iraq, with energy policy, whatever) and do not advocate for the policy to be reconsidered, then there are theoretically unlimited policy options by definition (since we arent considering them and therefore can’t count them, we can’t falsify the hypothesis that there are unlimited options). But practically, there is only one option, i.e. stay the course.
If, on the other hand, we warn that there may be risks associated with staying the course and suggest that these risks be assessed and the policies be reconsidered in light of these risks, then theoretically we are starting to limit options by enumerating risks and potential policy options to address these risks (i.e. whatever we enumerate will be less than the potential infinity of theoretically unlimited options). Practically, we are substantially increasing the number of options by enumerating risks and policy options.
Identifying risks and suggesting precautionary planning and strategizing does not limit options, it ultimately expands them.
With regards to scientists actually doing anything useful in the policy arena potentially jeopardizing science funding, the recently released NAS Decadal Survey is explictly organized around societally relevant themes (which was “ordered” by OMB: be relevant, or lose your satellites).
With regard to scientists being unwitting public policy advocates, I am having a hard time understanding how that is possible. Here is a definition of public policy advocacy:
“Public policy advocacy is the effort to influence public policy through various forms of persuasive communication. Public policy includes statements, policies, or prevailing practices imposed by those in authority to guide or control institutional, community, and sometimes individual behavior.”
It is difficult enough to try to be an effective policy advocate, I would argue that it is all but impossible to be an unwitting public policy advocate. Scientists warning the public of a risk are not public policy advocates (witting or unwitting). Period. When a scientist advocates for a specific policy or recommends a specific practice, then the scientist is being an advocate. When a scientist associates with others who are advocates, the scientist does not become an advocate himself (scientists are likely to interact with a diversity of people with a diversity of advocacy positions).
Your attempts to identify stealth and unwitting policy advocates is very misguided. Not only is it misguided, but such labelling generates distate in the scientiific community for participating constructively in the policy process. Surely this is not your objective?
One last issue that has come up on this thread, re scientists and “values”. My thinking on this is largely from Allchin 1998. The conception that science should be value free is misleading. The scientific process itself is based upon epistemic values and inevitably incorporates cultural values. Some of the values in science govern how we regulate the potentially biasing effect of other values in producing reliable knowledge. An individual’s cognitive resources are drawn from his culture, influencing what they contribute to science. Contrasting values can work like an epistemic system of checks and balances. On relevant issues, we often need to integrate scientific values with ethical or social values. Scientists can articulate when, where, and to what degree a risk might occur. But other values are required to assess whether the risk is acceptable or not or how the risk should be distributed. So what exactly is the problem here? I understand the problem with conflict of interest associated with medical researchers accepting money from drug companies. Exactly how are the cultural values of climate researchers (perhaps religion, concern for the environment, seeking economic prosperity, concern for the poor, or some combination) supposed to pollute the science and jeopardize our funding?
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Richard:
Doesn`t this statement describe mankind generally? We could certainly see it at work in the Bush administration recently in its convictions on terrorism and democracy:
“they can’t tell their personal convictions from their scientific opinions. I think that many natural scientists in the climate debate are just a bit naive, and cannot tell fact from value.”
I agree with you that it is important for each of us to strive to separate our personal convictions from our views of science or other factual matters, but you just realize that our cognition systems just aren`t geared that way.
I certainly don`t see alot of evidence that scientists are viewed as high priests, though an escape into fundamentalism is very much in evidence. This is simply a reaction to globalization and to the breakdown of traditional societies.
Regards,
Tom
January 24th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Judy-
Thanks for your comments.
What you describe is “interest group pluralism” in which different interests (“factions” according to James Madison) seek to restrict the scope of choice to their preferred outcomes. So in regard to the Iraq example, the Bus Administration wants to reduce policy outcomes to “stay the course” (or “a new way forward” – “surge” – whatever), while its opponents want to reduce the scope of choice in different way. The battle between different factions is the essence of politics. An assumption underlying this vision of democracy is that the ecology of interests will bring to political debate a full range of options.
But what happens if such political debate only brings to public debate a bunch of bad options? Here I argue there is room for another approach besides getting behind established and entrenched interests. My new books discusses this in detail.
You write, “When a scientist associates with others who are advocates, the scientist does not become an advocate himself.”
I am afraid that this simply doesn’t fly. The scientist who associates herself with advocacy groups is indeed acting as an advocate by lending their name and authority to the groups cause.
All of this is discussed in gory detail in my forthcoming book ….
Thanks!
January 24th, 2007 at 10:25 am
TokyoTom:
Just listen to radio, watch tele, read newspapers: How often do you hear or read a phrase like “Scientists say we should …”. There are two things “wrong” with that sentence.
Firstly, facts (science) and values (politics) are mixed, because strictly science can only predict what would happen if we do A or B; it cannot say that therefore we should do A.
Secondly, the scientist is placed in a position of authority. We should do this, because the scientist, who is smarter and wiser than we are, thinks it is the best thing for us to do. Scientists are thus placed in a position of moral authority, besides being experts.
In the olden days, priests used to combine moral authority with explaining how the world works.
That should be resisted.
Instead, some scientists seem to enjoy their power. The thread on Heidi Cullen provides another excellent example. Dr Cullen writes that she thinks it is her scientific duty to get people out of harm’s way, for hurricanes as well as global warming. She thus assumes the role of a priest; she knows what is best for us, and she knows how to solve our problems.
Scientists teaming up with priests is scary indeed.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Judy,
I found your comment thought provoking. You suggest something is wrong with labels, but what, precisely is wrong with labels?
Scientist is a label. So are doctor, lawyer and plumber. We use these all the time to describe characteristics people might have.
The only problems I see with labels are that they may sometimes be false, they may be used as slurs or they may be used to support logical fallacies — specifically in the form of ad hominems. But generally, they are not used these ways. Labels are often simply descriptive.
And it seems to me that simply stating that there is such a thing as a political advocate, there is also such a thing as a scientist, and a person might be both at the same time is neither incorrect, pejorative, nor a slur.
Roger has raised the idea that there might be risk that public will hold scientists in lower esteem if they begin to advocate publically for certain political agendas. I think he is correct. I think the reasons for loss of esteem are represent the flip side for the current high esteem held by scientists.
It happens that the public places great confidence in scientist– particularly when scientists discuss their own area of expertise. This trust is based on public perception that, at least with regard to reporting scientific results in their own field, the scientist fosters the habit of setting aside their political and personal biases.
Generally, members of the public do not go to great lengths to test whether the trust they place in any individual scientist is warranted. Nevertheless, they do notice the way scientists answer questions, and discuss topics. They notice scientists often emphasize evidence based methods of testing truth. And generally, trust in scientists increases when scientist are seen to do these things.
But this trust could be lost if scientists change their habits vis-a-vis the public.
What is the public to think if they find a scientist has begun active political advocacy to promote government spending on research in their own field? (Climate science?) And what if the scientist begins to provide reasons for funding that are not-science based? (Bible recommended creation care?)
And what if scientists who embark on political advocacy publish papers including a large amount of non-scientific material? What if these papers appear in scientific journals — and then the papers fail to use standard scholarly citations practices of referencing ALL sources– not just those in scholarly journals? (e.g. An article containing a large amount of material that was supposed to represent a ‘case study’ of media response to a climate science topic, mentioned specific media responses to that incident, ‘analyzed them’ and failed cite the media sources. See Curry et al BAMS August 2006. Curry”>http://webster.eas.gatech.edu/Papers/Webster2006d.pdf“>Curry et. al [2006]. )
What if a member of the public enquires why peers permitted such a lapse in scholarly referencing standards? Can scientists provide an answer that seems scientific or scholarly to the public?
If things like this occur, why shouldn’t the public lose trust in scientific standards of objectivity? Or begin to suspect the scientists are willing to dispense with practices that limit both scientific and political bias — particularly when the scientific subject touches on areas where the scientist acts as a political advocates?
And to return to the labeling issue, in such a case, is it “labeling” someone who acts both as an activist and a scientist could cause the public to lose confidence? Or is it something else?
January 24th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Richard:
Yes, individual members of society are not all-knowing, tend to defer to others on areas that are perceived to be in the realm of such person’s expertise (which may be unjustifiedly broad), and may tend to cede moral authority to such persons as well. This is part of the nature of human society and has been going on for a long time.
It is true not only for scientists, but priests, politicians, clebrities and all those in positions of authority or higher status – and the wary citizen should be aware of it, as it is subject both to ready deliberate abuse and manipulation by special interests and to mistaken policy judgments.
I don’t see much grounds either for optimism that human nature or society will change to eliminate the problem anytime soon, or for pessimism that science or scientists as a whole will be gravely or fatally discredited. Hope and foolishness both spring eternal.
Of course, I agree with suggestions that it would be advisable – from the view of policy formulation and to reduce perceptions of the politicization of science – if scientists themselves try to make clear when they are describing science (from their expertise) and when they are adding their own value judgments in expressing policy preferences (as opposed to evaluating policy options from a scientific perspective). Perhaps it would also be useful if the National Academies could occasionally speak to this issue generally.
I certainly do not see that much will be gained if scientist as a whole were to disengage from personal engagement in policy matters, retreat to the ivory tower and lead the field of abusing the public trust to all the rest of the charlatans!
January 25th, 2007 at 5:05 am
I am not so much concerned that scientists put their ‘worldview cards’ on the table. The influence on the modus operandi of science by those worldviews (be it Christian or otherwise) can be a problem. However, in order to determine in what way worldviews are a problem, we have to take a closer look at how science in fact operates. If good science should be worldview neutral –that is to say that it is not aligned to, or does not support, a particular ideology, religion or worldview over another– then the activity of science needs to be specified more precisely.
It must be clear to everyone within the scientific community that values cannot be eliminated when it comes to what scientists choose to investigate, or what hypotheses are favoured or to which ends scientific results are applied. In this particular sense science is not worldview–neutral.
Science must be worldview-neutral when it comes to the adequacy of the explanations of certain observed facts (theories), that is the justification-phase of science. For science to operate sustainably and trustworthily, the justification phase of science needs to be driven by inter–scientific standards alone. Worldview influences on the justification-phase of science are fatal for the scrutinised theories in question if indeed these influences generate a bias towards the ‘politically correct’ theory, that is to say that a theory that is politically (or ideologically) helpful for the main group of researchers in question in terms of (research)money, power, authority or otherwise is favoured. Thereby extra–scientific deliberations are taken on board in order to decide discriminatorily between available theories, explanations and empirical data.
I am convinced that few scientists today seem to be conscious of the effects of various worldviews on the scientific questions asked, the generation of empirical data and on the formulation and assessment of theories. Again, values cannot be excluded when pondering which questions to ask, which hypotheses to include or exclude, and how results are applied, despite the fact that that can be quite problematic. Scientists should however be rigorous in eliminating worldviews when deliberating and putting forward their theories.
Sincerely,
Jaap C. Hanekamp
February 20th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Consider these statements:
“… in some instances there is incontrovertible scientific evidence …”
“The reality is that action is determined by many factors other than science, and continued efforts to compel action through science is an important factor in the politicization of science.”
— Roger Pielke, Jr. at April 27, 2005 08:23 AM
“Problem definition is a very political act. It shapes what actions are considered and which are not. Advocating that climate change be viewed as a problem is indeed overt political advocacy.”
— Roger Pielke, Jr. earlier in this thread
This is very sad stuff to read. It seems in the service of the prescientific people whose claims to understand how politics should work to be embarassed.
Yes, politicians do routinely do ignore science. And yes, they will gladly claim they’re hiring you as an “honest broker” to vet what’s brought into the political arena.
But that’s a failing of poorly educated and prescientific people practicing politics, not an ideal about how politics ought to work if actual success in the actual world is our criterion for a culture that’s succeeding.
Look at just one recent example and consider what ignoring the science cost:
The deregulation of the electric grid was done in frank denial of the physics of how electricity flows; the IEEE pointed that out, among others.
There was no one but the physicists who could tell the politicians that deregulation, as passed into law, assumed the impossible. On the ‘other side’ were the stockbrokers telling them it would be profitable. Enron, eh?
http://www.google.com/search?q=IEEE+deregulation+%22electrical+grid%22+physics
What’s wrong with the electric grid? – The Industrial Physicist
“… The solution advocated by deregulation critics would revise the rules to put them back into accord with the grid physics. … The system is not outdated, …”
http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p8.html
Can we claim to be, or to be becoming, a scientific culture? Not everyone wants that.
Remember, almost no culture in human history has been scientific. To bring science into culture means challenging history.