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Science in politics and politics in science: a New Year’s thought

In recent years, "science" has increasingly been asked to provide guidance on issues such as climate change. However, there are limits both to what science can do and to its influence. For example, although there has been much talk of relying on "evidence-based research" as a guide to action, in reality, decisions are often made on the basis of other information, or views, or influences. In some cases science is just used to justify decisions already taken. Scientists are very much "on tap, not on top".

Science is not, however, entirely impotent. Climate change has been an example of where science has created a new agenda. But that involves some responsibilities. Given the cultural and ideological relativism that seems to be the norm these days, it is perhaps not surprising that some have latched on to the climate change issue as a new fundamentalism. Here at last was a really powerful determinism, providing a clear "scientifically backed" case, with added moral an ethical imperatives for the sort of technical, social and political prescriptions preferred by, among others, radical "greens". It has, for some, gone beyond science and on to a belief. Hence the bitterness at any hint of climate-change denial, or any scepticism about humans being responsible for it.

Trying to sustain this degree of absolute certainly, and denying rival views, is bad for science, which needs open, pluralistic, debate and challenges to keep it as objective as possible. That is not to say that all views have equal weight. There are processes for weighing the strength of arguments and analysis, for testing conjectures, checking data. The "scientific method" may not be perfect – it’s a human system after all – but it is arguably the best that we have come up so far for trying to make sense of the material world.

As far as climate issues are concerned, what it has suggested is that, with about 90% certainty, climate change is underway and is mostly due to human actions. That still leaves room for other views – and other explanations. Less palatably, it also leaves room for bitter disagreements and invective. Some climate sceptics attribute base and deceitful motives to some climate scientists – and vice versa. "They" are, variously, in the pay of evil oil companies/or devious eco-fascists/leftists, and so on.

The recent (Nov 2009) affair involving e-mail leak at the UEA played well to the sceptics – and even to the full-on climate-change deniers. It even worried fundamentalist climate-change believers – some of the scientific priesthood looked like it might be corrupt! The reality seems to be that some poorly worded descriptions of quite normal data-processing activities were made public: with many data sets, it is necessary to subtract spurious trends to see what is actually the main process at work. That can of course sometimes be controversial: but we rely on scientists to make it clear what they are doing and why, to their peers, so that their analysis can be tested and, if necessary, challenged. This is not best done by leaked e-mail extracts and invective from climate sceptics. After all they are often, to put it mildly, prone to deceitful use of data. Pots calling Kettles black, springs to mind. Even so, this episode does remind us of the need for proper scientific rigor – on all sides.

Other leaks concerned the peer-review and publishing process, which is how analyses and conclusions are meant to be tested and checked. A degree of collusion seems to be implied – in part, evidently, to keep deviant views out. This is much less palatable. The risk is that we end up with a self-serving, self-selected elite, who review each others papers and funding bids. I am sure most climate scientists are not like this; what motivates them is finding the truth. But in the face of ever increasing, often very illiberal and incoherent attacks by climate deniers and sceptics, it is understandable that some scientists may resort to defensive measures – by "keeping nutters out". That is tragic if it corrupts the debate, which should be as open as possible. But both sides have to play by reasonable standards, to have a proper debate. Some climate deniers and sceptics do not. So it is understandable that some climate scientists feel that they have to fight back, and for example publicly disparage views they see as dubious. But, although there is a need for more "public understanding of science", it is demeaning for scientists to get too involved in brawls with lobby groups, some of whose mission seems to be an ideological one. It might be better to leave that to green pressure groups and the wider political process, and focus instead on cleaning up your own act, so that there are no reasons for adverse publicity.

All that said, in an imperfect world, maybe we have to accept the need for virulent sceptical oversight of all things, including science. So the climate sceptics may have done us all a favour by putting the scientists’ work under tighter scrutiny. But if cynicism sets in across the board, then we are not much further forward, and we may even be losing ground to those who say all that matters is ”belief". Faith may be a wonderful thing, and vision too – science is not the whole story. As the UEA’s Mike Hume noted in a recent Guardian article, science can’t help you decide about values or ideology. But science, properly done, can help when you are trying to decide politically about practical changes in material reality.

Hume: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/04/laboratories-limits-leaked-emails-climate.

Posted by Dave Elliott on January 9, 2010 12:14 PM | Permalink