The difficulty during last year's Copenhagen Climate Summit in reaching agreement on how to address global warming reflects the contentious political environment on even scientific issues. While worrisome to many, there is an even more troubling lack of agreement right here in America on the core scientific question: is global warming real? While 72% of Americans still think global warming is taking place (Washington Post-ABC News Poll, November 2009), that's down from 80% a year earlier. Among Republicans, only 54% believe global warming is happening, down from 76% in 2008. Last year's revelation that some British scientists "massaged" their data for a published paper on the topic has been used by some (who have labeled it "Climategate") to cast doubt on the entire record of scientific research on global climate change.
Can we no longer trust science and scientists? In a December ABC News -Washington Post poll, 40% of respondents said that they could "trust the things that scientists say about the environment" only "a little or not at all." Sixty-two percent said that there is "a lot of disagreement" among scientists "about whether or not global warming is happening," a figure far in excess of the disagreement that actually exists.
Since Sir Francis Bacon launched the scientific revolution at the turn of the seventeenth century, the reach and impact of science has grown, first in the natural sciences and now increasingly in the social sciences. Indeed, respect for science and the desire to base public policy on science have been foundations of modern society.
For a long time, science seemed able to deliver. Experts enabled the growth of agriculture, industry, medicine, communication technology, aviation, spaceflight, extending human life, reducing poverty, and spreading material wealth and mass culture over much of the planet. No one living today with any sense would choose to go back to the pre-scientific past.
Things began to change - or at least get more complicated - in the last third of the twentieth century. To the benefits of expertise, we had to acknowledge some "downstream effects." Asbestos, the great fire prevention invention, was found to get in our lungs and lead to cancer. Nuclear power, the carbonless fuel, led to nuclear waste that no one wants (and to Three Mile Island). Modern products and lifestyles, brought to us in many cases through scientific achievements, were found to lead to increased rates of many cancers as well as increasing obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Economics and the financial system could not prevent - and "experts" may even have helped foster - a tech bubble, a housing bubble, and the Great Recession of 2008. Social legislation, crafted with the help of experts in the social sciences, worked in part but also seemed to produce dependency and skyrocketing budget deficits.
As the world became more complex, and as problems became more global, we were willing to defer to expertise. We knew that we could not know enough. But what if we can't trust that expertise? That's the question that seems to loom over us now like an icicle perched over the front door.
We may rightfully lay some of our distrust at the feet of the experts themselves. Whether through ignorance or hubris, they have sometimes promised more than they could deliver and sometimes delivered things they never promised. Some of our loss of confidence in expertise may be due to our own overly optimistic expectations, and some may come from the general decline in trust that has hit nearly every American institution since the twin failures of Vietnam and Watergate.
There are no doubt other contributors. Our politics now seems to look to expertise more to buttress arguments than to answer questions. The result is that we use science to support value preferences, blurring the important distinction between science and morality. Our media, in giving attention to attacks on scientific work, may inadvertently (and in the partisan media, intentionally) elevate them in the public consciousness and foster the impression that all science is suspect. Our educational system, by failing in its job to teach us how to understand and properly evaluate the work of scientists, makes us inaccurate judges of the claims of expertise at best and cynics of those claims at worst. What we cannot understand, we become willing to question - or ignore.
Experts have fallen from the lofty perch on which we placed them. This was to a degree inevitable, especially in our culture where the democratic ethos flattens every hierarchy over time. To some extent, this is healthy. Had we developed an effective way to question expertise a century ago, we might have avoided some of the problems it helped create.
Yet the democratization of scientific expertise carries danger with it. If experts cannot be trusted in a world whose problems are complex, who do we trust? To many, it seems, the answer may just have to be themselves (or their social or political interest group). While it may have been unwise to give as much unguarded confidence as we have in the past to the experts on any issue, it is crazy to assume that our untested, "common sense," and sometimes skewed judgments on complex questions are an appropriate substitute.
If we become our own experts on important matters where science can lead to more informed judgments, we will too often substitute ignorance for insight. Science will become irrelevant and we'll be left with only our own value preferences.
A society that argues solely on the basis of values will soon find itself in conversations in which the majority will see little reason to listen to anyone else. Science is one of the few tools we have to confront majority opinion. The framers of our Constitution worried about the tyranny of the majority. We need to be equally worried. A majority that feels it can safely ignore science can create far more havoc than science itself, and it will then be woefully ill-equipped for the twenty-first century.
The key question isn't about scientific truth, but political power, and people are rightly suspicious of anyone who clams their political agenda must be followed without proof. People know that the new policies proposed to counter global warming will make some people wealthier and more powerful. And people have learned from past experience to ask in such cases, "How can we be sure we aren't being lied to to separate us from our money?" This is healthy skepticism, and we should expect it in proportion to the sacrifice people are asked to make.
The problem with global warming is that people don't understand science well enough, and the information is not clear enough and incontestable enough, to convince them to make drastic changes in their lifestyles.
It doesn't help that politicians have increasingly politicized science in support of dubious agendas, or that the mass media try to cover science as sensationally as possible. Both estates taint science every time they touch it. And because science is increasingly used as a political argument in favor of one cause or another, more scientific institutions appear to have a conflict of interest. "Does the science really prove there is a crisis, or do the scientists just say that so the government will renew their grants?"
For example consider the Deepwater Horizon. Engineering, environmental and accounting experts have the skills to assess the design, effectiveness, and cost of protection equipment for that platform. However when that assessment reaches the top level someone in a comfortable office decides that the profits are more important. Meanwhile the politicians are too busy counting their campaign contributions to do anything. The problem lies not with the science or the experts but those who believe in America's true religion (money).
Fanned
Faved
Very interesting, but anyone can easily doubt such obviously biased utterances as:
“Sixty-two percent said that there is "a lot of disagreement" among scientists "about whether or not global warming is happening," a figure far in excess of the disagreement that actually exists.”
And THAT is the biggest problem we face today. Did you just pull this idea out of your but, or do you have some kind of reference or rigorous data that back such a claim up? We need a way to back such claims up, so that people with differing values cannot doubt them. In short, we need to measure for scientific consensus.
There is a new system that can measure for scientific consensus. See the consciousness survey project: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/105.
We can definitely trust scientists and experts. It’s just that you’ve got to make some way so that when people start making claims, like you are attempting to make about scientific consensus, we’ve got to be able to back that up so that nobody can doubt it.
As for me, I'm in this camp:
http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/66/4
It would sure be great to know both what the experts think (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/53/11) and also the general population.) so we can get back to trusting the experts and helping the general population to change faster, when they need to.
Brent Allsop
The citation for the 62% was in the post (December ABC News -Washington Post poll). That does not mean that a single poll represents anything like "truth," of course. One of the problems with the way we use science today is that we don't realize how the way questions are framed in polls can affect the responses we get. Thanks for your post - and the suggestions in it.
Thanks for the response.
Yes, there is real data about this 62% of the general population, but you also claimed that what this 62% thinks – that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists – is “in excess of the disagreement that actually exists”. And this is what I was pointing out could be an unjustified claim with no real survey of all real scientists data. This is what is desperately needed and what has been impossible to know till tools like canonizer.com started appearing.
Brent Allsop
I don't know the warming science, but I'd be pretty damned surprised if changing the mix of gases in our atmosphere just had no consequences. My guess is that it's a bad idea to do what we are doing. Oil is messy, polluting and aides are worst enemies -- seems sensible to put a huge budget, on par of the size of our military to free ourselves from the chains of our enemies if not from the chains of carbon.
Climate change is not new to science. It has been accepted among climatologists and geologists for well over a century. It is only among those unfamiliar with this area of science that it seems unusual.
Climate change has become a political issue and not a scientific one; which is unfortunate for both.
it appears i've the honor of being your first fan!
I am quite interested and involved in the preservation and wise use of our natural resources and human communities--I even lead an organization committed to doing so--and I cheer every time there is a step to reduce pollution, waste, etc. and preserve a healthy ecosystem. I am also a skeptic of climate change being human-driven.
My sister is a biochemist/biophysics PhD student who has pursued her degree in a number of countries, so she has some decent insight into the nature of the scientific community. I know I'm not an expert, and neither is she in climate sciences, but she has told me that there is good reason to be skeptical about seeming scientific consensus regardless of discipline. She says the scientists working in fields related to the issue are about 50-50 split. I think there is still a lot of reason to believe there is more than one valid interpretation of the data, and it's not necessarily a willful ignorance of an "inconvenient truth" to question the "truthiness".
what has your commentary got to do with Global warming?
Try reading the Constitution and the Bible instead of parroting what the media tell you it says. ex. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . " -- yet Sarah Palin states the opposite! I'm sick of this--the media are turning the populace into slaves and idiots for the love of money. The information providers in our society are at fault--period.
One thing Newell leaves out is the role of money in funding 'counter-science' - stuff meant to look like science but fundamentally political. See the work of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland, Heritage, Cato, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, etc for examples of 'studies', 'reports', 'experts' and other BS that is meant to take the place of actual science.
Global warming could be solved by seeding the upper atmosphere with sulfur dioxide to mimic the cooling effects of Mt Pinatubo.
Yet when you think about it, the real problem facing us is the ever growing population and using up natural resources, such as oil, copper, etc. Growth is exponential and has no limit, until something really bad happens, like running out of energy, food, or something else.
Geo-engineering is worth looking into, but requires ongoing effort, and may have other side effects (didn't atmospheric sulfur cause acid rain?).
As for government funding. It is not going to people who ask 'global warming, yes or no'. It is going to people with more specific questions. It is the sum of those questions and answers that contribute to 'consensus'.
The sad thing is, the anti-global warming public marketing compaign is being run and funded by the public relations people of very powerful and rich corperations. These corperations are run by people who most likely won't be around when the full effects of global warming hits. So what do they care? Huggs Becky
If you want to look at this from a negative side (elminating posibilities)...Our climate change right now is not a normal development. The changes may seem slow but in geologic time, they are like a run away train and has never happened this drastic and this fast.
It is not energy from the sun. Were actually in a slightly cool period (not for long alas)
CO2 has a history of having a direct coralation to global temperatures
We are dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere then ever before.
So if man isn't responsible and if it isn't going to get worse, I'd love to see a serious explanation why.
Huggs Becky
When the majority population (non- scientists) question the minority AGW scientists it is tyranny-
But when the "majority" AGW scientists dismiss skeptical scientist's questions it is not?
* Remember this simple rule. Pick your curve, then find the data that fits.
More importantly, every single one of your points applies to the "pro global wrming" industry. I saw Will Steeger speak at the U of MN a few weeks ago. He's an arctic explorer who gives a presentation called "Eyewitness to Global Warming". He spent time at the beginning of his presentation and at when answering questions to attack skeptic scientists as indutry pawns who don't do good science and are out to make money. But every one of that hypocrites slides said "Will Steeger Foundation" in the bottom corner. He even plugged his org. several times, and talked about the scholarhips he gives to little hippies. Scholarship/operational money I guess would be just as widely available to him even if no one worried about global warming.
This is the definition of a pot calling a kettle black. Look in the god damn mirror for once and be a rational thinker.
Science styles itself as the potential replacement for religion. Since questioning that belief system reveals a plethora of theological inconstancies. Yet question their belief system, and they swoon like a mortified maiden aunt.
“For a long time, science seemed able to deliver.”
We have a problem (Huston). As scientists, we can’t attribute any contradictions to supernatural effects (influences outside nature as we understand it to be). Therefore we will invent dark (black magic?) matter And dark (paranormal power?) force.
“No one living today with any sense would choose to go back to the pre-scientific past.”
Before the scientific offshoot of global warming do you mean?
“foster the impression that all science is suspect.”
All human activity is suspect. We cannot select the ability to influence, exclusive of a responsibility for introspection.
“What we cannot understand, we become willing to question”
If you believe these two mutually inclusive Terry, I think I perceive the problem. If we were but to question what we believe we understand, how many erroneous beliefs would succumb?
“the democratization of scientific expertise carries danger with it.”
Exchange the word “religious” for “scientific” in this sentence Terry. Notice anything? We existed long before either of these two concepts. If we vanished tomorrow, where would it leave them?
“Science is one of the few tools we have to confront majority opinion.”
Do people use tools or do tools use people?
Just that sentence alone shows you really don't understand science. The rest of your post is equally as ill-informed and naive. Do some research. Learn a little.
Your lack of understanding about things like dark matter doesn't mean it doesn't exist - it just means you don't understand it. I don't blame you - I can't understand why people eat at Red Lobster. Only my lack of understanding doesn't make me look silly on a science blog.
1. People use tools.
2. Making the substitution: "The democratization of religious expertise carries danger with it" - This sounds like the Catholic Church complaining about the Reformation.
3. Huh? You mean we should all be somewhat skeptical? If so, I agree.
4. "All human activity is suspect." Yes, but this is why science is the best tool we have to sort out the truth from fiction. If not, name something else?
5. Frankly, I disagree with the author's premise. It is clear that a LOT of people are lingering in a pre-scientific past.
6. Where is this "Huston"? Science, by definition, doesn't deal with the 'supernatural.' Science deals only with the 'natural'.
7. Whether or not you trust scientists, science is the best tool we have to explore reality. Science emphatically does NOT style itself as a 'replacement for religion.' Science doesn't address religion. It has no means to do so. If the scientific method can ba applied, then, by definition, the phenomenon is a 'natural' phenomenon, i.e., occurring in nature.
The result? All kinds of strange beliefs and dangerous credulity. The spread of fundamentalist religion hasn't helped either with its complete reliance on authority and scriptural literalism. Now we founder amid a populace so easily deluded with no capacity to judge statements about reality in a rational way.
What this means is that Birthers, Deathers, Climate Deniers, IDers and assorted spiritualists, snake oil salesmen and corporatists have free reign in the public sphere without fear that someone will point out that the emperor has no clothes.
For decades I wondered how on earth, "The meek shall inherit the earth," could be true. Now, I don't. The 'meek' will be the only ones left.
With the destructive toys we now have, we simply cannot survive, behaving like belligerent bullies.
Unfortunately, I don't think there is any convincing the belligerent bullies, so they will ultimately have it out, and, of course, the rest of us innocent souls will be stuck in the middle. The ugly, dog-eat-dog existence promoted by right wing authoritarians everywhere simply cannot work in a world where we can totally destroy ourselves. Someone will use those tools.
Don't say we weren't warned!
This was fundamental to education - now it is non-exsistant. One single semester of teaching the concepts of scientific methods and logical fallicies (and how to watch commercials rationally) would vastly improve the judgmental abilities of the populace