In responding to this entry yesterday, Dylan Otto Krider offered this thoughtful comment responding to Dan Sarewitz’s piece, Excess of Objectivity. We’d like to encourage the discussion by bringing Dylan’s comment and a response from Dan to a larger audience.

Author: Dylan Otto Krider has written on science related issues for the Houston Press, Dissent, and Skeptic.

I have read the Excess of Objectivity paper, and agree with it wholeheartedly – at least, I think I do, until I see it put into practice.

Quote: “[Science] can alert society to potential challenges and problems that lie ahead. In fact, the threat of stratospheric ozone depletion, acid rain, and global climate change were brought to public attention and political prominence in part through the work of scientists. But, once an environmental issue becomes politically contentious, the geological view of nature accepts that science itself can become an obstacle to action.”

Well, no science can’t alert society if we’re still arguing about whether the Earth is going through a “cooling” period, or whether Satellite data shows no warming trend at all.

Does anthropogenic warming necessitate Kyoto? Is reducing CO2 a realistic goal? Is a warmer Earth necessarily “bad”? By arguing the science, as this essay points out, we are avoiding the values debate. I, too, want the debate on values – but we can’t get there if you keep jumping on guys like Krugman every time he points out that think tanks have distorted where the science is on this issue. To move to the geologic view, we must first state unequivocally that anthropogenic warming is occurring, just as we must first state unequivocally that evolution is good science before we have a discussion on whether it should be taught in class.

Quote: “Because consensus already exists, action can be taken along lines that all parties can more or less agree on — the problem of excess objectivity is at least partly allayed. Politics has been allowed to do its job, and science becomes a tool to help determine if implemented policies are working as intended and if progress is being made toward agreed upon political goals.”

Okay, for the sake of argument, lets say we actually do shut down the distortions of scientific consens to the point where we do have the policy debate, and implement some policy to address whatever issue. Again, I agree with what the paper says, but how is science to be a tool to determine that policy is a success if we sink studies that contradict our policies? How can we determine that progress is being made if we have no way of reaching those conclusions objectively, or if reached objectively, have no way of getting them into the public sphere?

What good is a study that shows benzene causes cancer if one party is going to sink or rewrite the report and instead tout their API funded study that their internal documents have already shown will conclude that benzene is perfectly safe? – before the experiments have even been conducted. If we have no means of determining what is “good” and “bad” science, well, then, nothing is safe or unsafe. It is a matter of opinion, my science vs. your science, and everyone has some scientific study in their pocket.

This is the problem you’re avoiding. If one side sees no value in science that finds environmental problems, or says a commodity is not safe, then how can we ever have this policy debate? What role does science play if one party sees science only as a potential liability that will prevent them from achieving their ends? Is it for the other party to become just as postmodern about science, and get as good at faking studies as API?

You are operating on the faith that the people in control value science. They don’t. They value loyalty, yes, and research that can develop technology to be sold, but not science. We will never reach the geologic view because no amount of data will ever convince these guys humans effect the environment for ill, a product is unsafe or that the Earth wasn’t created in seven days. We’ll never be able to determine if a policy works because they’ll never accept any science that contradicts their policy. So what place is there for science in such an environment? None. They’ll embrace science if it backs them up, and will apply whatever pressure to distort or subvert any science that doesn’t.

And you say same old, same old. Everyone does it. Everyone can pull out some particular fact to back them up. If that was what they were doing, I wouldn’t be quite so bothered, but they aren’t just cherry-picking facts, they’re making them up. They’re pulling them out of thin air. Spinning requires some recognition that there are facts to “spin” – what fact is being spun when reports that say regulations on military bases “increase” combat readiness are change to say “decreased”? That’s not spin. It’s out and out invention.

We have a choice: either accept that this is how you “play the game”, and have both sides go tit-for-tat in a postmodern war of press releases, or we can proactively make the case that science matters, that done correctly, we can learn things about the world that will inform us, and say unequivocally that subverting or rewriting scientific studies is a bad idea.

Just because politics is unavoidable does not mean we ought to embrace conflicts of interests, and throw up our hands and bring in whatever pressures interests want to bring to bear on scientists to distort their findings.

Because if we don’t convince people that it’s important to have a functioning scientific community, then it’s let the best press release win. If that’s how it’s going to be, then we might as well be fighting a values debate over whether eating cheese causes thunderstorms.