The Marshall Institute, a conservative think tank, recently released a report on “Funding Flows for Climate Change Research and Related Activities” which asserts that, “In today’s highly charged environment of climate change policy, efforts are often made to impugn the credibility of those engaged in the debate through assertions that their views are a product of financial relationships rather than sincerely held beliefs or objective research. All too frequently evidence of a financial tie is sufficient to condemn, without proof that the tie altered the views, opinions, or conclusions in any way.” After this complaint the Marshall Report joins this game by arguing that corporate funding ties are emphasized but “overlooked are concerns that public funding generates unwelcome pressures on scientists to conform to prevailing beliefs. Public funding is also said to breed alarmism and facilitate distortion in public discourse.” (Disclosure: The Marshall Report ranks my employer the University of Colorado as the top recipient of federal funds on climate change, and I have a few federal grants myself.) What should we make of claims of conflicts of interest? Are they restricted to financial conflicts? And can they be avoided?

Discussed below: Conflicts of interest do matter. They are not restricted only to financial considerations, and they cannot be avoided, only managed.

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In the first part of this discussion I outlined the notion of honest broker as contrasted with issue advocate. The former seeks to expand (or at least clarify) the scope of choice available to decision makers, while the latter seeks to reduce the scope of choice, usually to a single preferred alternative. I also made the case for why situations of conflicting values and political uncertainty make it difficult for “honest broker science” that exists completely independent of political battles over the scope of choice (I also pointed to a large literature that makes this case irrefutably). Now, I’d like to illustrate these concepts with examples, many drawn from the Prometheus archives.

NRC Hubble Report. Last July we commented on a report issued by the National Research Council. The report had the title, “Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope.” From my perspective this title would suggest an analysis more along the lines of The Lonely Planet guide than an advertisement for a single restaurant (read the earlier post if these analogies are unfamiliar). But the NRC report focused on advocating a single action alternative rather than any attempt to assess options. Last July I criticized both the NRC and the media on this, not only because the report took an advocacy stance, but also because it memberships was comprised of people predisposed to save Hubble, “Given that many of the members of the panel have at least the appearance of predispositions to preserve Hubble, it would seem that the NRC would be better served by having its panel present and evaluate the full suite of options open to NASA, rather than taking an advocacy position on a single option. At the very least it is time that the media takes a more critical eye on the composition of NRC panels who, with very little scrutiny, provide guidance that influences policy making.” In this case, the NRC committee presented itself as an honest broker but acted more like an issue advocate.

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An editorial in today’s Detroit Free Press has some interesting information related to the Bush Administration’s position on climate science.

“The Bush administration is taking a new tack on global warming, finally conceding that human activities contribute to it. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if any of its underlying policies are going to take a similar leap forward. Glen Davies, principal deputy assistant secretary for European affairs at the Department of State, told editorial writers last week that “we accept that the science is clear” on human contributions to global warming — although not on how much of the problem human activity causes or how fast climate change is occurring. The administration’s focus clearly remains on alternative technologies, not mandated cutbacks, and Davies specifically cited hydrogen technology.”

This is interesting for several reasons. First, the fact that this information is being conveyed by a “principal deputy assistant secretary for European affairs” suggests that it is a trial balloon. And even though John Marburger has made similar comments in the recent past, as science advisor he is not is a policy position. Second, the Bush Administration is likely to take heat on this position from two camps. One is the hard-core contrarians who would like to persist in debate over climate science. They will likely make claims that the science is not yet settled. And the second are those opposed to Bush who also would like the debate to continue in the form of climate science. They will make claims about what the Bush Administatrion “really” believes on climate science. Both of these camps would be good examples of the “scientizers” that I characterized last week.

The Free Press editorial concludes with the following:

“The July G8 event would be an opportune time for the United States to do more than tweak its talking points on global warming. A bolder commitment — to research, to alternative energy and to the right mix of incentives — is in order.”

Nuclear energy, anyone?

I have written that an honest broker works to expand (or at least clarify) the scope of choice available to decision makers. I have contrasted this with the issue advocate who works to reduce the scope of choice available to decision makers. These ideas have been developed in several papers of mine (e.g., in PDFs here and here) are central to a book manuscript which I hope to deliver this summer. More fundamentally the notion of the expert as honest broker derives from the writings of E. E. Schattschneider on democracy, and the notion of issue advocate comes straight from the view of democracy advanced by James Madison. Both roles are important to democracy, and they suggest that scientists (and other experts) have choices in how they relate to decisions makers. With this post I’d like to try to explain what I mean by honest broker and issue advocate through a simple analogy.

Imagine that a visitor has come to town for the first time, and wants to fine someplace to eat dinner. How might you provide them with information relevant to the decision where to eat? (Note that this analogy makes things simple by presenting a clearly defined problem with a clearly defined solution. We’ll make things more complicated later.) There are several ways that you, the local expert, might provide information.

First, you might try to convince the visitor to eat at a particular restaurant. Maybe you think that the restaurant is really good, or your cousin works there or whatever. Such “issue advocacy” could be very strong if you are focused on advocating a single restaurant, or more relaxed, say if you were directing the visitor to some family of restaurants, say those with Italian food. The defining characteristic of the issue advocate is an effort to reduce the scope of choice for decision making (irrespective of motivation for doing so). More generally, such issue advocacy might be thought of as a kiosk of brochures, each telling you where to eat dinner, making the best case possible for why the restaurant advertised is the one that the visitor should choose. Of course, it is easy to see that this analogy is quite similar to James Madison’s conception of democracy in which politics is about the efforts of competing factions to sway decision making in preferred directions.

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Over the weekend the Toronto Globe and Mail had a lengthy article on politics and science (courtesy Chris Mooney). The end of the article contains some interesting comments from Alan Leshner, CEO of the AAAS, describing how AAAS is organizing scientists to combat the politicization of science.

“Dr. Leshner, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, believes firmly that scientists must expand their public role: “When all of this politics, ideology and moralizing started, everybody in the scientific community’s initial reaction was to lament the situation. But whining doesn’t help. What I believe, and what many of my colleagues believe, is that you need to go out to people where they are, not where we are.” That means talking to reporters “as much as we can,” he said, and writing commentaries in the mass media. “It’s about finding out what [the public's] concerns are and trying to find common ground,” Dr. Leshner said. “We need to change our strategy and engage with the public.” And that means scientists mounting a political campaign of their own. Dr. Leshner said the AAAS now has an elaborate plan to develop “a cadre of ambassadors of science,” to fan out across the country and visit “religious groups, churches, synagogues, mosques, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs . . . to go to where the people are, listen to what they are thinking about . . . let them help shape the research agenda. “The truth is,” he said, “they’re paying for this [research]. They ought to get something out of it.””

While I am all for public participation in the setting of research agendas, somehow the idea of scientists “mounting a political campaign of their own” does not strike me as a productive way to address concerns about the politicization of science. It may instead result in the exact opposite.

One of the great ironies of our recent debate with climate scientists at RealClimate over the possibility of cleanly separating science and politics in efforts to connect science with the public, policy makers and journalists is that there is a vast amount of peer-reviewed literature that says such separation is impossible. The irony of course is that a big part of RealClimate’s activities have been to correct the misguided views of the so-called “climate skeptics” or “climate contrarians” who are at odds with more “mainstream” views on climate science. RealClimate’s commitment to the primacy of mainstream, peer-reviewed knowledge seems to be fairly narrow in scope as they are perfectly comfortable and confident in dismissing the “mainstream” views of the field of science and technology studies (STS). In jest I wonder if we should we call them “STS contrarians”?

Consider the following excerpt from Shelia Jasanoff’s excellent book, “The Fifth Branch: Science Advisors as Policymakers”, (at pp. 230-31). In her 1990 book Jasanoff, a leading voice in the discipline of STS, focuses on science advisory bodies and organizations that bring science to decision makers and the public, and I think in 2005 it is fair to include as advisory bodies weblogs seeking to communicate science to decision makers, even though weblogs didn’t exist as a means of providing scientific advice in 1990:

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The folks at RealClimate have offered a set of thoughtful responses in the comments to an earlier post of mine seeking to classify the various political camps of the climate debate. Let me offer a few responses here in the main part of Prometheus because I think (perhaps wrongly!) that this discussion is worth sharing with the broader community. Let me emphasize that I respect the ambitions of RealClimate and I appreciate Gavin, William, Stefan and Eric’s willingness to engage on these issues.

1. William Connolley offers three points. First he suggests that I am using the term “honest broker” in different ways, he quotes me and then responds: “Firstly, there is “the honest broker who seeks to expand (or at least clarify) the scope of choice”. RC does this, of course, by analysing the science. But later on, your defintion of HB has shifted: now suddenly “an honest broker for decision makers and the public on the climate issue, then it should openly discuss policy options”. Why? Within the science arena, one can discuss the science.”

I don’t see any distinction here because I equate “scope of choice” with “openly discuss policy options.” I cannot see how it is that RealClimate can claim to clarify or expand the scope of choice (i.e., policy options) on climate change without explicitly discussing such options. And I just disagree that science either implicitly implies or points to certain options. So my point is that if you indeed want to clarify policy options then the obvious course of action is to actually discuss policy.

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I’ll be giving two talks in Seattle later this week, organized by the Forum on Science, Ethics and Policy (for info see the FOSEP website) at the University of Washington. Here are the abstracts:

Politicization of Science: A Perspective
Thursday, April 7, 2005
5:30 – 6:30 pm
UW Physics and Astronomy Auditorium, A102

It seems like science is in public view more so today than in the past, and not always for the best reasons. For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), have in recent years highlight the “misuse” of science by the Administration of George W. Bush, prompting a vigorous rebuttal. In addition, issues such as scientific advisory panels, prescription drugs, global climate change, stem cell research, and terrorism are forcing science into the public eye. Dr. Pielke’s talk will take a critical perspective on the current state of science, policy, and politics in the United States with a particular emphasis on the role of experts in science in policy and politics.

Dealing with Scientific Uncertainty in Policymaking
Friday, April 8, 2005
10:30 – 11:30 am
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Pelton Auditorium

Uncertainty is ever present in decision making. But even as scientists typically have sophisticated understandings of uncertainty itself, such understandings are infrequently accompanied by a corresponding sophistication in decision making in the face of uncertainty. This talk will discuss a range of experiences in dealing with scientific uncertainty in policymaking to suggest how the scientific community might more effectively contribute useful guidance on important policy issues characterized by fundamental uncertainties. Dr. Pielke’s talk will emphasize both the use of science in decision making, but also decisions that are made about science, typically under an expectation that the results of resulting research will inform decision making. Consequently, issues of values, ethics and politics are inescapable when one confronts scientific uncertainty in policy making.

The May/June issue of American Scientist has an article by David Schneider on the IPCC/Landsea flap that offers some new comments from the principals involved in that controversy. And I again bring up this issue because hurricane season is right around the corner, when this debate might threaten to come out of its springtime dormancy. The good news is that this controversy need not continue, and the new comments suggest a rapprochement.

Many Prometheus readers will recall that last January NOAA’s Chris Landsea resigned as a contributor to the IPCC after receiving an unsatisfactory response from the IPCC related to his to his concerns that the author (Kevin Trenberth) of the forthcoming IPCC chapter that summarized the science of hurricanes had made statements at a press conference unsupportable in the scientific literature (you can find a number of posts on this issue in the Prometheus archives, and here is one post that might be a good intro).

Schneider reports in American Scientist,

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A webcast is now available online of John Marburger’s talk and interview as part of our Science Advisors Series.

John Gibbons, one of President Clinton’s science advisors, is up next later this month.