26 Comments

1. Actually, John, it’s in considerable part due to my polisci background that RP Jr. drives me nuts. Let me give you the short list (in no particular order of importance and from memory, so I may be forgetting one or two):

   1) The “honest broker” meme as applied to climate scientists.

   2) The focus on clinate change adaptation steps while ignoring the efficiency/conservation low-hanging fruit.

   3) The wacky carbon capture scheme (see #2 for context).

   4) The ludicrous claim of objectivity in the “great hurricane debate.”

   5) The attacks on Jim Hansen.

   6) The odd (and wholly unsupported by the data) claim that polling data shows that doing additional science won’t be useful in persuading the public that action on climate change is necessary.

   7) The “scientization” concept as applied at the policy level (and justified by #6) rather than just as something to be avoided in debates.

   The list is sufficiently long that I believe it supports a conclusion that RP Jr.’s participation in the climate policy debate is less than constructive. I could write a long essay detailing all of this, but that *would* be obsessing.

   For the record, I have never done a Wikipedia edit.

2. Thanks. Substance is fine. At least you didn’t mention that the Republicans invited him to their Christmas party.

3. Somewhere in the deep dales of yesteryear (at least 2005 at the earliest), when this all began, the Rabett pointed out that Roger Jr. was one of the few people who had figured out how to make the INTERTUBES work for him, and that he was following a trod path to fame and fortune by different but still traditional means. It also carries a certain risk. If you want a political blogger equivalent for Roger, try Steve Clemons and TheWashingtonNote.com.

   Eli is part of another tradition, the anonymous pamphleteer, where the goal is to move the debate, not own it. There are rules, often not followed, but at Rabett Run, the IRC pays strict attention to ethical standards. While not adverse to letting the air out of various stuffed shirts, style and surprise is needed.

   Now it would not take the brightest bunny on the farm to realize that people following path A often get quite cross with people following path B. Toujour gai

4. Roger’s writing drives me frantic sometimes too, but only when I try to read it as science rather than as politics. When I read it as political writing, it makes perfect sense, of its kind.

   In his own words, any scientist who sees a problem and tries to warn society becomes a politician — and politicians have no claim to any better facts than any one else with an agenda they’re pushing.

   Or something. I can’t paraphrase the man, but I don’t need to:
   ———————————-
   “… 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

   “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. at January 24, 2007
   —————————-

   Attempts to have a conversation on his pages disappear as topics roll over whenever they threaten to pin the facts down with cites, seems to me.

   Yes, politicians do routinely 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.

5. What Hank said.

   Best,

   D

6. I spent years trying to fit my science journalism into the ideal that Hank describes, thinking if I could only explain the science I would contribute to positive outcomes.

   My attraction to the work of Sarewitz, Pielke Jr., Nisbet and other folks in the public understanding of science/political science interface community is that they are offering an empirical description of a reality that resonates with my personal experience.

   I now understand that I was naive thinking it is or could be the ideal that Hank describes, and the discussion becomes far more useful when I began paying attention to the realities that Pielke et al. describe.

   My hunch is that Pielke’s popularity with journalists rests in the fact that his insights resonate with their experience in the real world of politicized scientific debates. I know that is the case with me.

7. What most journalists seem to lack is his desire to be at the center of the debate. Of course journalists have their blind spots just like the rest of us. I would submit that part of RP Jr.’s popularity may be his having come up with a rationale to blame the scientists themselves for the consequences of the Republican Party’s anti-science ideology. This was a very convenient alternative to having to discuss that ideology.

8. > “… spent years trying to fit my science journalism into the ideal that Hank describes, thinking if I could only explain the science I would contribute to positive outcomes.”

   Whoah there — that’s Pielke’s ideal you’re describing with those words, not mine!

   It’s Peilke saying scientists should only explain the science — leave policy to the politicians or, if they want to say they see a problem, admit that by doing so they give up any claim to special knowledge about, um, whether it is a problem.

   “Problem” is not solely the province of political process.

   > a reality that resonates with my personal experience…

   That’s prescientific thinking you’re describing there. I hope you can hear this as said with a wry grin, because none of us are above that. I’ve watched lab pigeons develop superstitious behavior, for that matter.

   Science is about knowledge that does not depend on our personal experience, and that often belies our personal experience — and changes, changes, changes.

   I don’t think journalism can be done by scientists.

   But I think journalists (and political scientists, for that matter) owe it to themselves and the public to hold to a level of clear thinking and honest if-and-but uncertainty. Even when attacking each other on blogs.

   Otherwise they’d be politicians, eh?

   And the world has seen for tens of millenia at least what politicians accomplish — and for the past century, seen what happens when scientists let the politicians decide what’s important about the new knowledge the scientists provide and decide what to ignore.

   Time for something new.

9. “I spent years trying to fit my science journalism into the ideal that Hank describes, thinking if I could only explain the science I would contribute to positive outcomes.”

   So what is your goal now if not to simply “explain the science”?

10. Hank –

    Perhaps you need to be more explicit here, then, in describing what you mean by a “scientific culture”.

11. Oh, and, what?

    Personally, my favorites are the libertarian (whatever that means) scientists, who seem to me better able than the liberal (whatever) or conservative (ditto) scientists to realize that sometimes, the science comes in and does challenge their assumptions about what _can_ be considered an acceptable option.

    Keats’s “negative capability”* — the ability to learn something that’s utterly contradictory in some way to some knowledge we cherish — isn’t, I expect, part of the journalism curriculum. I’d have expected it to be part of political science, but then, I’m naive yet (grin). Working on becoming cynical; not cynical enough yet.
    _____
    * http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/pta_jan_04_jt.php

12. LJ –

    That’s a great question. The answer is not particularly clear. I haven’t stopped trying to “explain the science,” but I’ve stopped expecting it to play the role I had naively expected – creating an informed public.

13. Hank –

    Thanks, but that’s not helpful. Could you provide a concrete example of how such a scientific culture might, for example, respond to anthropogenic climate change? (You can pick another example if you’d like.)

    To say that it “resonates with my personal experience” is just a glib way of saying that the political scientists I described have offered an empirically based analysis that comports well with and explains that which I have personally experienced.

14. “I’ve stopped expecting it to play the role I had naively expected – creating an informed public.”

    I agree that a “scientifically informed public” is a goal that science journalism will probably not be able to accomplish by itself. In fact, I think it is going to take much more, starting with much better science education in our schools.

    Many Americans are simply not equipped to read and understand the most basic scientific argument (would not even know a scientific argument if they saw one), so when they read a piece on global warming (no matter how well written), they are undoubtedly completely and utterly lost.

    Given that “creating a scientifically informed public” may be overly ambitious (to say the least), what role might we legitimately expect science journalism to play?

15. LJ –

    Part of the answer involves a recognition that there is nothing particularly special about science journalism, and that the issue of an “informed public” – scientifically or otherwise – clashes with a significant amount of the sort of public survey data Matthew Nisbet marshals in support of his “cognitive miser” argument. Folks also don’t understand the zoning fight over the local Wal-Mart or the nature of the drunk driving problem etc.

    Part of the answer involves the multiple audiences – decision-makers read the newspaper too, and are apparently more likely to be informed by what we say in it. But that again runs into the reality Pielke et al. describe, about the various ways values, interests and information interact in that decision-making process.

    I don’t know diddly about the physics of power deregulation example that Hank offers. But as he presents it, it sounds like a clear example of how science ran head on into the sort of reality the Pielkes of the world describe about how decisions are really made.

16. >science ran head on

    Nope. Science wasn’t even in the running, as far as I can tell (I’m an amateur at digging this stuff out).

    It wasn’t simple enough for someone like me to pick out of the physics journals, had I been reading them in my spare time; I haven’t found any journalist who looked into it — all the coverage was about the stockbrokers’ arguments for it. Remember it passed unanimously in California. One writer I recall did predict that “gaming the system” was going to be the result — nobody picked up the story.

    What worries me is that Dr. Pielke’s position — that once a scientist steps into the public view and says “this is going to cause a problem, and you should understand the science” — she’s now advocating a political position, and people who advocate political positions have no special claim to knowing anything more than any other advocate.

    Or something like that. The words he uses vary, but he comes down hard on anyone who says ‘I’m a scientist, I know this field, and this is a problem’ — not because they work for a company or an advocay group, but because they can see trouble coming from where they stand and feel some obligation to say — look at that headlight, hear that whistle, and what are these wooden things we’re standing on between these two long steel rails, do you think we ought to move?

    Scientists — as I understand science — know that politics is a tar pit and destroyer of lives and careers, I think.

    You all who _are_ science journalists, I submit, ought to find a story there in how the AIP is still trying to inform the public (not the politicians, but the people who read their journals) that electric deregulation as it was and is now, is still in violation of physical law and that the proposed “fix” — totally rebuilding the electric grid, at a huge profit, the contracts likely to be given to those proclaiming it’s broken — is a boondoggle.

17. John- Interesting thread! Thanks.

    Hank- I welcome the critique, but you badly mischaracterize my views. For instance, you write “people who advocate political positions have no special claim to knowing anything more than any other advocate” — no I’ve never said that. And “Peilke saying scientists should only explain the science — leave policy to the politicians or, if they want to say they see a problem, admit that by doing so they give up any claim to special knowledge about, um, whether it is a problem.” No, this is in fact quite opposite of my views. I’ve often written that we need scientists more not less engaged in policy and politics. I have a new book coming out which hopefully will put these views all in one digestible place.

    Steve B.- Following up in order:

    1. The book isn’t out yet and you’ve already pre-judged it?
    http://www.amazon.com/Honest-Broker-Making-Science-Politics/dp/0521694817

    2. Misrepresentation. See my 2006 congressional testimony which emphasized mitigation low-hanging fruit, almost in those exact terms.

    3. Did you also criticize Real Climate, Al Gore, and Richard Branson for discussing air capture in the past week? Academics are full of wacky ideas, so what?

    4. Complete misrepresentation. Never have claimed objectivity. How about the fact that the IPCC’s views are consonant with those we published in 2005?

    5. Misrepresentation. Sure I have critiqued some of Dr. Hansen’s work, but in academia that is what we do to people who are leaders in their field. Critique means that one’s ideas are worth engaging. Seems like a lot of critique goes on the blogosphere as well, present company included, so what?

    6. This is an area of research that has been broadly studied, Wynne, Jasanoff, Bocking, Sarewitz, etc. etc. with plenty of empirical data (recent book by Bocking sums up a lot, see also Rayner/Malone’s Human Choice and Climate Change). It is absolutely fine to disagree, but at least educate yourself on why many people in STS have come to this conclusion. Just because you don’t like the results of certain research doesn’t make it “odd” — that sort of reaction would be “denialism”, no?

    7. The term “scientization” was coined by Peter Weingart of Bielefeld University (Germany) who is a leading scholar in this area (STS). Sarewitz has written eloquently on the subject here in the US. Again, you might not like the results of research, and if so, maybe saying why would be useful. But at least get informed. Ad homs speak for themselves.

    Thanks!

18. Hey, Roger, as I said,
    “I can’t paraphrase the man, but I don’t need to”

    Whatever you meant by what you wrote, it’s the sort of thing that drives me batty reading your stuff. It seems to keep shifting.

    Maybe you’re saying the same thing John does above, and if so I agree, it’s dadratted hard to get science to actually inform this culture.

    John, I think David Brin is doing about the best job currently of writing readably about how we ought to proceed, if we want this culture to include science and thereby continue to be different — and better. He’s really good at looking at us as having a chance to keep a scientific culture. Read his stuff (not just my one clip below) for the best I can point to.

    Brin is writing at maybe a 7th grade level (the US national reading average level, last I heard). He’s understandable about using science in culture.

    http://www.davidbrin.com/

    “A DARK SCENARIO: Swinging from optimism to pessimism, I started by posting a few thoughts about how the incoming U.S. Congress might change the nation’s way of doing business. (Many of these unconventional proposals may sound good to both conservatives and liberals.) Only now it’s time for something much darker, more cynical, and maybe even a little paranoid! Come take a look at a chillingly plausible way that powerful forces may try to affect our politics by using the age-old trick of blackmail.”

    Roger — come up with a way that scientists can point out problems without becoming political advocates!

    Seems to me you don’t believe it’s possible — or that it’s not your role to tell the politicians that they need to do something different.

    Right now, yes, people act as though someone publishing new science and pointing out problems revealed is doing something political.

    But a scientist in that role is trying to be a teacher.

    Routinely, the scientists as well as the science get attacked when they point out problems. I don’t think raising a concern is political advocacy.

    It’s the ‘externalized costs’ that science often seems to reveal. And yes, that does mean any new science that may threaten short term profits gets attacked, with machinelike regularity.

    Pesticides and birds. Antibiotic resistance spreading around the world from use in orchards and feedlots. Light pollution. Lead water pipes. Junk in orbit. Lead in paint. Lead in gasoline. Flammable plastic in home electronics. Blue light and body clocks. Counterfeit hardware and fake medicines. Anything from the public health journals.

    These sorts of thing get pointed out by scientists -not- because they want to become political advocates themselves, but because they see politics going on in ignorance of distinctions that make differences. They want to educate people who will come read what they are publishing, basically.

    It’s not that science should be dragged back into the prescientific way of doing politics.
    It’s not that science should be dragging politicians out of their prescientific ways.

    Finding a way to deal with the new sorts of information science makes available would, I think, be a question political scientist would want to address. How can what you study make people smarter? The basic question for anyone who learns– how then to teach.

    ———————————-
    “… 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

    “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. at January 24, 2007
    —————————-

19. Here, Brin’s bottom line:

    “We are a civilization that is at war for its very survival. Moreover, “terrorists” are among the most pallid and laughable of our enemies. There are worse threats to the continuation of a Great Experiment in open civilization, in science and democracy, in social mobility, in truly free markets and a joyfully open mix of competition and cooperation.

    “None of those great things can work well in darkness, manipulated by cheaters.

    “Stand up. Know what the enemy can do. And deny them the power.”

20. Hank –

    Thanks for the Brin references. But you still haven’t answered my question. What do you mean by a “scientific culture”? You suggest I misinterpreted you above, but you continue to leave me to guess what it is you *did* mean.

21. “Part of the answer involves a recognition that there is nothing particularly special about science journalism”

    You mean, other than that there actually is a right answer when it comes to science, right?

22. “I don’t think raising a concern is political advocacy.”

    I agree that it need not be in all cases, but even in those cases in which it is, so what?

    Scientists are often in the best position to pass judgment on scientific/engineering issues (about engineering feasibility, for example) so why shouldn’t their judgment be given more weight than that of the average (or even above-average) scientifically uninformed person?

    Who is in a better position to judge the merits of a missile defense system, for example: a physicist who understands the potential problems with such a system (including the means by which it might be undermined by the enemy) — Or a politician who has no understanding of the physics and engineering?

    I too would like to see scientists more involved in the political process because in general, they are a very smart, very well-informed group. This is not true just on scientific issues, but on the latter, their views are certainly worth more than those of the average person. Some might call that elitism. I call it reality.

    For those who feel slighted and think that their views are not getting the same respect and air time as scientists on scientific issues, there is an obvious solution: invest the time and effort to get a science degree.

    If a scientist does research that shows that smoking causes cancer, merely telling people about it is not political advocacy.

23. JF: >What do you mean by a “scientific culture”

    What Brin calls the Enlightenment will do as a first approximation.

    I don’t know that a culture can incorporate science.
    I suspect strongly it’s difficult enough to explain the Fermi Paradox.

    Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?
    Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

24. Oh, and this may also speak to how a culture can include scientific information.
    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/su-swd021407.php

    AAAS symposium, “The Science and Ethics of a Culture of Sustainability,” at 9:15 a.m. Monday, Feb. 19.

25. And this:
    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-mooney4feb04,0,7924177.story?coll=la-opinion%20rightrail

    As described and expanded on here:
    http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2007/02/war-on-science-and-counter-attack.html

    “… these two authors are bona fide heroes of the fight to restore American modernism. At the near-term, pragmatic level, they share with me a strong desire to see restored the independent Congressional scientific advisory boards that the New GOP so cynically and hypocritically dismantled….

    “… Mooney and Sokal know – as would any reasonable person by now – that the silly postmodernists of the campus left are not one-thousandth as threatening to Western Civilization as their cousins, the neocon subjectivists who have been attacking western civilization from the barbarian right.

    “In this piece, it is easy to note the clear prose of Sokal, who has a rare gift…. Take the following short paragraph:

    “‘In truth, there was nothing wrong with inventing science studies; the error was to leap from the valid observation that science arises in a social context to the extreme conclusion that it is nothing more than politics in disguise.'”

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