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Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 15, 2007 05:40 PM
from the what-isn't-nowadays dept.
from the what-isn't-nowadays dept.
chance_encounter writes "President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus has published an article in the Financial Times in which he seems to equate the current global warming debate with totalitarian thought control: 'The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced ... The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.' At the end of the article he proposes several suggestions to improve the global climate debate, including this point: 'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.'"
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Threat to democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Threat to scientifically illiterate politicians? Maybe.
Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps he is scientifically illiterate. But he's not illiterate in the language used by totalitarians. It seems that no one here is actually commenting on who Vaclav Klaus [wikipedia.org] is.
Klaus was chairman of Civic Forum, the Czech anti-totalitarian movement that was one of two leading groups during the 1989 Velvet Revolution against the Soviet Union's dominance over Czechoslovakia. He's a free market politician (predictably after decades of ruinous Soviet economic predominance) and quite naturally suspicious of totalitarian influence.
If Klaus sees a parallel between the way global warming alarmists and the Soviet totalitarians use language to browbeat their opponents, he at least merits a hearing-out rather than an out-of-hand dismissal.
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Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the standard pseudo-intellectual put-down. Ridiculing someone who disagrees is always easier than actually supporting a position with a rational argument. These days it's tossed at anyone who doesn't agree 100% with Al Gore. In earlier decades, it was tossed at people who disagreed with the presumed moral superiority of communism.
-jcr
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Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason anyone ever goes to the scientific consensus argument is because either (a) the person making the argument doesn't understand the science, or (b) the person being argued to doesn't understand the science. In the case of (a), that person typically is assuming that the scientific question is solved, and it's now time to address the complicated political questions. In the case of (b), how else do you try to convince someone incapable of (or unwilling to) understanding the science behind global warming? The strongest scientific critics you will find against global warming (Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen) argue that they're not sure if humans are the primary cause of global warming, but that they acknowledge that humans are a factor in global warming - and even these critics are a small minority of climate scientists.
There are lots of places that address the basic science behind global warming, but if you're unwilling to try to understand that basic science, then it makes more sense to accept the wisdom of the majority than the wisdom of the minority under the theory that sometimes the minority is right. (Sometimes they are, but that's the exception and not the rule.)
Heck, there's already been a shift in certain circles towards the next "stage" in avoiding responsibility for global warming. First, they denied the warming. Then, they denied that humans were responsible. Now, they've moved on to the coup de grâce: who's to say warmer won't be better?
(Oh, and this argument against scientific consensus could just as easily be made against evolution, general relativity, or even quantum mechanics. No, it's not a threat to democracy.)
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Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:There is more than one way to destroy Tuvalu (Score:5, Informative)
In any case,
a) living on a delta is a great way to see the sea rising relative to the land, but the sea-level has hardly changed while those deltas continue to sink. Ask the Mayor of New Orleans. If the deltas are not replenished then you get severe coastal erosion and deltaic islands sink into the water.
b) Tuvalu's problems are entirely caused not by rising sea-levels (because there isn't any) but by overpopulation and overextraction of water making the wells become brackish.
Here's what the scientists say [flinders.edu.au]:
"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year." and
"The historical record (from Tuvalu) shows no visual evidence of any acceleration in sea level trends."
So the sea-level rise is just barely measureable and shows no acceleration due to global warming, man-made or otherwise.
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Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait... you're kidding, right?
(Step Two: Make a point)
You seriously somehow got the illusion that the 'billions' poured into computer simulations even begins to approach the scale of money involved modern industrial production?
(Step Three: Condescension, with implication of lack of real-world knowledge)
I'm afraid you simply have a lot to learn about how money works in the real world.
(Step Four: ???)
Irish line dancing is the single largest cause of global climate change, after everything else.
(Step Five: Profit!)
You, sir, are just plain dead wrong. There is no "real" money in science research... if they were doing it for Profit!, they wouldn't be spending their days being ridiculed by the likes of you - they'd be out shorting stock for flood insurance companies.
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Two hands (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
On the other hand, you have scientists paid to do research (sometimes out of their field) by fossil-fuel companies who are not allowed to publish their data without first passing it through those doing the funding. Interestingly enough, these scientists don't find evidence that global warming is non-anthropogenic. No, they only seem to be able to show that it's not necessarily primarily anthropogenic. Two key terms there: "not necessarily" and "primarily". That is, they know that humans contribute to global warming, there's no way to interpret the science otherwise, even when being funded by fossil fuel companies. They also know that it's possible that humans are the primary contributors to global warming. However, if they do their research just right they find that there's not enough evidence to say that humans are definitely primary responsible. Of course, it's not to hard to find a lack of evidence.
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Re:Two hands (Score:5, Interesting)
You obviously don't work in academia. Academia works off of grants. Grants are given to study specific things. Two huge sources of grants are AIDS and global warming. So, for instance, if you wanted to research herpes (not that well funded), the easiest way to get that money would be to go after an AIDS grant and research how herpes spread has been affected by AIDS. Similarly, if you want to study elephants in Africa, you would try to get a grant from a climate change group to study how global warming has affected the migration patterns of elephants in Africa. Those organizations that actually give the grants get THEIR funding based on the research that comes back. So if a research paper comes back and says "global warming is not much of a problem", the organization that gave the grant might not have as large a budget next year. It's essentially chopping off the branch you're standing on. Now, if you come back and say "global warming is a huge problem", you'll get more press, the organization that funded you gets more money, you get even more grants to do your research.
Now about your point that oil companies fund the anti-global warming research. The number I've heard on the money oil companies have contributed is in the tens of millions (this from an environmentalist group, I forget which). The actual global warming research being performed from grants in gov't agencies and whatnot? Billions. Now is it a surprise that the scientists on each side of the issue is proportionate to the amount of funding on each side? Let's just say I'm a little skeptical.
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Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Is there strict control in science? Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a democratic society you are free to state that the world is flat. The people are free to elect someone who says the world is flat. In science you've actually got to prove that the world is flat. Does that mean you're "not free" in science to assert whatever you want as reality. Sure. Personally I like those restrictions. Without them we'd be back in the middle ages.
We don't elect reality. We discover it. Discovery requires that one thing is paramount: observation, and the unbiased interpretation of that observation. So, in essence you are restricted by reality because you want you perception (your model of reality) to conform with reality as much as possible. So you lose the freedom to say that reality is anything you damn well please.
I for one welcome our reality overlords.
I believed AGW until I heard totallitarian tone (Score:4, Insightful)
I was very worried about AGW, but statements like, "neuremberg style trials for denialists" made me think something's not right. Add in character assasination, the way any "contrarian evidence" is assumed to be funded by oil companies, and debating tactics that throw the principle of falsifiability out of the window, made me distrust the whole damnded thing.
The science needs to be free to operate carefully and efficiently, regardless of whether it's finding evidence for or against AGW. The business of science is to discover the truth of the matter, regardless of whether that truth happens to agree with our beliefs and values.
I suspect that the notion of what "good science" is has changed subtly. Good science is science that finds the truth. But scientists who want to be good people, may come to believe that being a good person means creating science that "does good things", such as save the planet. If you want to save the planet because saving the planet is a good thing to do, then there may be a bias towards only studying subjects that offer an opportunity to become an important scientist who makes discoveries about dangers and remedies for the planet.
Good science is purely about the truth. What you do with that knowledge is a different affair altogether. Good science is simply being dispassionately interested in facts. It's not the scientist's job to be a good person. Just give us the facts. We, the people, will worry about the rest.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Insightful)
I despise how global warming discussions focus so much on whether or not someone "believes", and heralding or ridiculing people for being in the right or wrong camp, rather than simply being discussions about straightforward facts.
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Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. A quick look at climate history [scotese.com] will show that the climate has been changing since the Earth had a climate to begin with, well before the SUV was invented and Bush was elected. It will also show that we are actually in a cool period and global warming will get us back to where we need to be!
Only in countries where there is a strong vested interest in maintaining the status quo has the issue been politicized.
Right, and the countries that are interested in changing the status quo are NOT politicizing the issue? I get it, since they are on YOUR side, it's not political, but those with different views are politicizing the issue.
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Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Interesting)
A physicist explains science to third graders [physicstoday.org]:
We take a vote. I ask how we decide who is right, and then I do the experiment... I emphasize that science is not a democracy, it is not the majority but the experiment that decides what is correct.
Sums it up pretty nicely.
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Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:does that mean.... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, we have to allow scientists to determine whether global warming is a problem, without political interference.
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Re:does that mean.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:does that mean.... (Score:5, Informative)
Really.
All of them.
Seriously, for real.
Yes.
All of them.
No, really.
It's true.
Did the message get through, yet? Look, here's a scientific study of the fact that all climate scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/306
Believe it yet?
It's true.
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Re:Translation for those who don't speak Czech (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people - including the vast majority on slashdot, who tend to be much better educated and intelligent than "the great unwashed" (myself included), don't have the specific knowledge or background to be able to properly weigh the data presented in the debate.
Knowing people's biases will make it easier for them - US - to properly weigh what they've said.
When an Oil company exec says something about global warming, you're going to take that into account when you look at any data he presents. Likewise, when the president of "People for the Full Eradication of Technology and Man" gives HIS views on the subject, you should also take THAT into account when looking at data he presents.
It's got exactly ZERO to do with ad hominem arguments, and everything to do with wanting full disclosure so that biases can be weeded out - on BOTH sides.
Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Bottom line: Global warming is *intensely* political. And before we can make any rational decisions about what to do about it, we need to separate the politics from the science. Disclosing biases - on BOTH sides - will at least give us a CHANCE to do so.
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Re:Translation for those who don't speak Czech (Score:4, Insightful)
If people are competent to understand the data, they can review the data and determine what is speaking. The objectivity of empirical facts and the repeatably of systematic testing of empirical hypotheses is rather the point of science.
Asking that scientists disclose their biases and a litany of how they affected their results isn't going to acheive that, for several reasons. First, people aren't going to claim they are biased, either because they don't believe they are biased, or if they are biased and working deliberately from that bias, because they won't want to reveal it. Second, any publication of scientific results is a claim that the scientific method was applied, i.e., that agenda did not influence the results. So that's exactly what anyone currently publishing would claim if they followed the prescription offered.
Of course, the politician making the recommendation knows this isn't going anywhere, he is just trying to sell the idea that the scientific consensus is both not real and entirely the product of bias by acting as if that is an established conclusion from the outset and railing for a correction.
I've never seen an Oil company exec present data about global warming. I've seen oil company execs make bald, conclusory statements without presenting the supporting data. There is an important difference between the two things.
Sure, if someone is presenting their views. Data != views.
Yes, arguing that someone's arguments should be evaluated based on personal affiliation is ad hominem argument, except where the argument is supported only by personal authority of the source and the challenge is to bias or credibility of that source. Where the argument is presented based on verifiable evidence, challenges of bias of the source remain ad hominem.
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