Excess of Objectivity Revisited
October 4th, 2005Posted by: admin
Here’s Dan’s response to the entry below:
Author: Daniel Sarewitz
I thank Dylan Krider for his interesting comments. His point, I take it, is that one side (that is, his side) values science and truth, and the other side (that is, I take it, the current political regime) is simply a bunch of totally duplicitous greedheads who don’t give a crap about anything except feathering their own beds while the rest of the world suffers.
The problem, though, is that even if you accept this view of things, the ultimate political questions still have little to do with science, and everything to do with what kind of world each side wants to live in. Science can help you know if your path to a goal makes sense or not; it cannot determine what the goal ought to be. The question is this: Are the Republicans in power because they distort the science and so nobody realizes that they’re screwing up the world? (Who, one must wonder, is actually being fooled in this manner?) Or are they in power because they speak to a set of values that, for some reason, a majority of voters seems to find preferable to the alternative?
Mr. Krider’s true objection, I take it, is that he doesn’t like the values and goals of the current regime. I’m with him. But he makes this argument in terms of the regime’s use of science. He thus seeks to substitute science for politics.
So this is exactly my point. Now is not the time to argue about who is misusing the science; it’s the time to be clear about one’s values. Until the Democrats figure this out they’re going to remain the minority party.
Put somewhat differently, I’m sure Karl Rove would much prefer to have his regime attacked for misuse of science than for the values and interests that underlie its policy choices.
For more, see: http://www.cspo.org/ourlibrary/articles/EnvironControv.htm
October 4th, 2005 at 11:34 am
Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I’m sure you have better things to do.
You’re right. I do, in fact, take issue with many Republican values. But I also take issue with the Movement Conservative’s abuse of science, an issue you seem to sidestep, and advocate sidestepping.
You seem to suggest that my disagreement is over whether global warming is a problem and should be addressed. That’s a values debate. I take no stand *here* on whether global warming is bad, whether CO2 should be reduced, or even whether CO2 is actually an aerial fertilizer that leads to healthier plants and saves on heating bills.
I do think scientific consensus is that anthropogenic warming is occurring, and that various interests are distorting the consensus so that we never have a values debate. How about addressing this point? How do we have a values debate if the Republican party does not recognize scientific results that contradict their policy? How do we reach the geological view as you advocate in your paper? If we have no way of determining where consensus is on controversial issues, and interested parties refuse to accept science that contradicts their ideology, then why are we researching climate change at all? What’s the point?
You say: “[Science] can alert society to potential challenges and problems that lie ahead.” How? If they don’t accept the science on climate change, then how? You keep saying I say science advocates a position, but your use of the word “problem” goes further than I would. I simply say it is occurring, and groups are distorting that fact, and that we shouldn’t let them fool us. Whether it is a “problem” is a value debate I hope to get to eventually.
Yes, Republicans are in power because they better represent the values of America. If my goal were to forward the Democratic party, I would find a way to better package an agenda that represents those values, but not here.
You say: “Now is not the time to argue about who is misusing the science; it’s the time to be clear about one’s values. Until the Democrats figure this out they’re going to remain the minority party.”
I don’t think this site’s concern should be how to get the Democratic party out of the minority. Nor will I frame my discussion soully for the purpose of upsetting Karl Rove. Selling a Democratic agenda can be discussed better elsewhere. This is a science policy site, which is why I think it is the place and time to discuss the misuse of science, yes, even who is misusing science.
I am probably a Democrat, though my party affiliation has more to do with what I’m not: a Republican. I make no effort to hide that fact, and am fully aware my blind hatred can get the better of me at times. Fine.
But most of my hatred is focused on the Movement Conservative’s cult-like approach to the world, how the current administration seems to prefer to have facts “revealed” to them through some process of osmosis, how they start with their conclusions and work backwards to find the facts that back them up. Every stumble this party has made is because this party is being run by people who turn every belief, from cutting taxes to democratizing the Middle East, into unquestioned theology. Most of all, I am disturbed by how they don’t need science or intelligence or acedamia, or any other means of objectively attempting to assess the world because they already know everything. They don’t need no stinking study to tell them the world was created in seven days, Al Qaeda was days away from handing over WMD to Hussein or that no chemical or product ever did anybody any harm. If science says differently, well, then, it has to be rewritten, committees restacked, scientists and intelligence analysts badgered until they get the answers right.
I am not so conerned with ANWAR, and keeping some animals around other than cows and chickens would be nice, but it’s not really what motivates me. What keeps me awake nights is the unsettling notion that the guys running the country are not empiricists. They’re just not. They arrive at their conclusions through other sources, be it God, ideology or Bush’s “gut” instinct.
That’s what does not represent my values.
October 4th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Wow! Dylan, you and I must have read the same anecdotes and resorted to the same intuitive thinking to get that picture of this sorry administration. It could not have been done scientifically, yet we are both certain.
But everytime I put my scientific hat on, I see uncertainty everywhere. I guess its best to accept this schizophrenia as the result of an excess of objectivity.
Paul Dougherty
October 4th, 2005 at 5:13 pm
Paul,
I recognize uncertainty. I’ve been very comfortable with the fact that nothing is 100% certain since people smoked dope in high school and pondered whether we are all just brains in jars dreaming this whole world up. Could be, but, you know, the fact that I could be resting in a laboratory beaker somewhere doesn’t mean I’m not going to operate with relative certainty that I am in fact a human being, and that everyone else is not just holograms or figments of my imagination.
A helium balloon rising may be a fact that people can point to as evidence that gravity is a figment of our imagination, but I don’t think that means scientists therefore can not say consensus suggests reather strongly that such a force exists. Just because Einstien “disproved” Newton does not mean Newtonian physics gave us no greater understanding of the world than your neighborhood psychic. Just because folks keep trying to focus our attention on a particular tree branch, does not mean we can’t pull back and see the forest.
Yes, there is uncertainty, yes, there’s bias, yes, people believe what they want to believe and find facts to back them up, yes, yes yes. And yet, planes fly. Your TV works. The Earth is not resting on the back of a turtle.
Yes, politicization is a fact of life. But does the fact that there will always be war mean we should not strive for peace? Does the fact that people always murder mean we shouldn’t put killers in jail? Does the fact that people cheat mean we shouldn’t be faithful?
October 5th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Thank you Roger and Dan for this discussion. Roger, perhaps I have been too obtuse in my framing of my wishes, but Dan’s reply was what I’m trying to tease out of you. My apologies for not figuring out a better way of articulating what I wanted.
Science can [and must] advocate for clear and wide dissemination of scientific findings. Scientists can [and should] hound decision-makers to ensure they have the latest knowledge.
But should scientists call something ‘Republican science’ or ‘Democratic science’? That’s what opens up the political floodgates. Scientists aren’t trained in politics. Let the politicians fling mud, but well-informed mud.
What we don’t have is a system in place that gives scientists a voice to say someone is misusing the science. My beef [and what likely frustrates RP] is that while this blog does a great job saying what went wrong, it could do a better job (IMO) in explicating what Dan just wrote about and giving examples of what went right.
Best,
D
October 5th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Dan Sarewitz wrote, concerning the 2000 election, “In other words, the (U.S. Supreme)Court asserted that the final answer to the question “Who got more votes in Florida?” was appropriately determined by legal and political processes.”
No, answering the question, “Who got more votes in Florida?” wasn’t the U.S. Supreme Court’s job.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s job was:
1) Determining whether the Florida Supreme Court followed the Constitution of the United States, and
2) What to do about it, if the Florida Supreme Court did not act in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided,
1) By a 7-2 majority that the Florida Supreme Court had not followed the U.S. Constitution, and
2) By a 5-4 majority that permanently stopping the manual recount was the appropriate remedy.
P.S. Nothing in this comment should be construed as implying that I agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, or that I supported either candidate.
October 7th, 2005 at 12:17 am
Dylan Krider is quite a nice person. Be that as it may, and probably from the same perspective but in a blunter manner, the real issue with the distorting tactics practiced in this Congress and Administration is one cannot get to the policy debate, but must endlessly wrestle with purposeful distortions of the facts and that is what Mooney’s book is about. His point is that these tactics are increasingly SOP for the governing administration and the Congress (for example Plan B).
Independent of politics it is one thing to say that there is a religious understanding of the origin of the Earth, it is quite another to dispute the geological evidence with science fiction in order to support your religious viewpoint. Still worse, often the distortions are pursued for commercial purposes over many decades as was the case with the link between cancer and smoking.
I spent the day arguing with a someone who insisted that a memo did not exist, and when I showed the file in my computer to him, with date stamp, he yammered that there was no signature. He could have said, I don’t remember receiving it, and that would have been fine.
Mark Bahner to the contrary, there is a useful understanding of current climate change. (Actually I agree with Mark’s comment on the 2000 election).