I have watched the debate between climate scientists and the global warming deniers with a great deal of frustration, but until recently I could not articulate clearly why I found it so exasperating. It seems that the denier camp has managed successfully to play the scientific community, leading them around and around, playing for time while the crisis worsens. Even with the new paper released by James Hansen that should for all intents and purposes end the debate that climate change is happening, and the sudden “conversion” of long-time “skeptic” Richard Muller, we are as a society much further behind on this issue than we should be. The climate scientists’ response to Muller’s epiphany could be summarized as, “Well, you’re twenty years behind the curve, but welcome aboard…”
But why has this debate proven so difficult?
For the last several years I’ve been involved in building a university that offers degree programs for the intelligence and counter-terrorism communities. This gave me a chance to get to know some of these people and to get some idea of how they think. In fact, I’ve found myself delving into the unclassified manuals and instructional material for intelligence analysts; there is some wonderful stuff out there with lots of great intellectual tools whatever your scholarly bent.
This association and the resulting insights has convinced me that if the scientific community had included a few good intelligence analysts when the climate deniers began their unholy crusade (or, for that matter, the tobacco/cancer deniers before them), the whole anti-scientific campaign would have been stopped dead in its tracks.
The problem is that while scientists are trained to ask lots of questions, in this particular case they did not ask the right ones. Worse, I am now convinced that the scientific community has been the target of a highly sophisticated and well-crafted D&D (that’s spook speak for “Denial and Deception”) operation that plays directly to some very salient weaknesses among scientific thinkers. Allow me to illustrate:
If you hand a scientific finding, whether it’s a data set, a paper, report, or whatever to a trained scientist, they will ask where the data came from, how much error is in it, the procedures used to collect the data or conduct the experiment, and come to some kind of determination about the conclusions. That will pretty much cover it.
But if you hand that material to an intelligence analyst, one of the first questions they must ask is, “Can this source be trusted?” They must be prepared to consider that they are the target of a disinformation campaign. They will ask about the source’s motives, if there is an agenda and, if so, what is it? Who is running the source? Do they really have access to the information they claim to have? And, after all that, they will ask the same questions the scientist does.
To put it another way, scientists are not really allowed to formally questions motives or agendas. It’s either not part of the job, or it’s considered unprofessional. The result is institutional gullibility. I cannot help but recall the famously naive words of Secretary of State Henry Stimson who justified closing down the American “Black Chamber” cryptologic service by saying, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.” By contrast, an intelligence analyst must question such things. If they must read someone else’s mail to answer their questions, so be it.
This calls to mind the epic pearl-clutching in the scientific community when climate scientist Peter Gleick spoofed the Heartland Institute into handing over a significant part of their playbook for their climate denial operations. To my frank astonishment, Gleick was excoriated by his colleagues and issued an apology. I will agree with his accusers on one point; what he did was not good science.
However, it was excellent intelligence gathering.
Gleick provided proof for what many independent observers outside the scientific community already knew, namely that Heartland was as serious about global warming as the Tobacco Institute has been about lung cancer (sometimes involving some of the very same players).
The problem, as I see it, is that systemic intellectual blind spots combined with misplaced ethics and professional courtesy causes climate scientists to continue to treat deniers as if they were serious scientists. It may be that they even perform science that is technically correct. But, at the end of the day, their agenda is to push science away from certain conclusions, and that is not science by any definition.
One of the fastest ways for a scientist destroy his or her career is to fabricate data or results. At one level it is a credit to the scientific community that this only happens when a scientific case falls apart so completely that falsification becomes obvious. At that point, the guilty party may as well open up a bowling alley or go into real estate, because they will never do professional science again.
Deniers who seek to sidetrack or forestall the debate through disingenuous work, however, continue wreaking their intellectual havoc, perhaps because they don’t actually falsify data in the traditional sense. They are playing a very cagey game. But it is imperative that the scientific community find the political will to call out deniers for their true agenda and motives. Once that case is made, the scientific community should exclude them from the debate, while stating clearly and explicitly why in every appropriate venue. If they need help in constructing their case, I know quite a few good intel analysts who could help.
In the intelligence world, this is common practice. If you are shown to be a serial liar or fabricator, your career as an intelligence source will not last long–unless someone can use you in some other way you probably won’t like. If we can adopt such practices for dealing with problems as dangerous and intractable as terrorism, illegal arms trading, nuclear proliferation, and so on, why shouldn’t the lessons of the intelligence community inform the conduct of the global warming debate?
“Once that case is made, the scientific community should exclude them from the debate, while stating clearly and explicitly why in every appropriate venue.”
The thing is, I don’t think that would work with the general populace. Here’s why:
1) It’s nigh-impossible to convince someone of something they believe is untrue (or vice versa), kind of no matter what you do.
2) The climate change naysayers, if deliberately excluded from the debate, will jump on that exclusion and make much of it in the public eye. “Those Scientists! They’re so high and mighty, up in their ivory tower, they won’t listen to what Real People have to say!” or “The Scientists know that they don’t have a leg to stand on, because they refuse to let Real People with the Truth in!” It helps perpetuate the stereotypes that Scientists are a breed apart/think they’re special/know better than the common man.
I heard a fascinating interview on NPR the other day about a guy who’s made a documentary that’s sort of about climate change but is more about energy usage and policy that bears thinking about: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/24/159998666/carbon-nation-tackles-climate-change-by-ignoring-it
“But it is imperative that the scientific community find the political will to call out deniers for their true agenda and motives. Once that case is made, the scientific community should exclude them from the debate, while stating clearly and explicitly why in every appropriate venue.”
I don’t think this approach will work, and here’s why:
1) If someone is strongly convinced that something is true or untrue, it’s nigh impossible to convince them otherwise. Logic does not work on them and probably never will, because it’s not a logical level that their belief sits in but an emotional one. Deep down, they know they’re right.
2) Deliberately excluding anyone from the so-called debate of climate science will only backfire. The Nonbelievers will gleefully point out one of a couple of things: (a) “Scientists _must_ know there’s something wrong with their arguments, because they’re not letting anyone present an opposing viewpoint, squelch dissent, etc!” (b) “Scientists in their Ivory Tower are too snooty to listen to the viewpoints of Normal People!” Either way, it will allow a greater wedge to be driven between Nonbelievers and Scientists in the public eye than is already present.
I heard an interesting interview on Science Friday about climate science and energy policy and stuff that is well worth a read, as the person being interviewed starts off by acknowledging that arguing with someone about climate science is DOA, but he then goes some really interesting places after that.
Science for money.
Having lived among the naysayers of the masses and stayed away from academia, my view point is different. What I’ve found is that the population believes that while the philosophy of Science has a high degree of ethics, the past shows that everything has a price. Asbestos original studies show that asbestos was a hazardous material. Same for tobacco. Same for new drugs.
In Science as the Sales tool, again and again the public is fooled – for the profits of the few.
New technologies and new products fly out of the labs and into our bodies with little to no concern as to the effects.
It is about betrayal. Ignorance is one thing education addresses. And, life is about education. The population has been forced to learn about “science” as it has negatively affected them. Their lives are shortened and untold misery is visited upon them for generations – by Science for Profit.
What would the public want or expect out of Science if they were asked? I believe one of the answers would be that Science make it a better world where the water isn’t poisoned, the land isn’t poisoned or climate change isn’t happening – for the profits of the few.
In other words, Science is a captive of greed. And, greed kills. Science has done the dirty work and participated in the profits but takes no responsibilities for their actions. They have been as bad as the bankers and the oil companies by their silence over the decades.
Now the people are supposed to listen to the Prophets?
For the most part, I’ve found people just want to be left alone to thrive but especially in this country? They have just become beasts of burden for an over-class. They are forced to just grind out their living in anyway they can. And, in this whole system which has been brought to bear upon them, Science has been an active player. They don’t just feel they have been betrayed for a few dollars more, they live it each day. The Professions which are supposedly based upon Science, turn out to just be fronts for business. This becomes more evident as the Internet brings them information which the Scientific community seems to be complicit in hiding.
In many people’s minds, scientists are just another business person like a banker or oil executive ready to sell one whatever they can convince you of to get your money.
Academia and the Professional class long ago sold out the masses. They never out one of their own unless it impacts their business model. And, while it may be easy to say things like, one can’t argue with feelings, or one can’t argue with “stupid”, this only says something about the one who recognizes their own shortcomings. One can speak to the underlying feelings by being honest and seeking commonality with mutual respect. In other words, feelings to feelings and then backing it up with actions for the furtherance of the common good of all and the planet.
Did the persecution go on in Asia, too? Let’s not igonre them.”Scientists are happy to admit when they don’t know something, and they view it as a challenge to learn more, while religionists like to “revel in the mystery” and just sit there.”Except maybe when it comes to junk DNA. The majority of biologists thought that junk was indeed junk, so didn’t think research in the area was important. The “religionists”, even if they weren’t doing the experiments themselves, were rooting for the minority of biologists who sought for functionality in the “junk” DNA.