Friday, March 1, 2013

Climate scientists on a learning curve

Greenwire's E&E has a very informative blog on the role of scientists as public communicators of science... and policy options. As some scientists are crossing the line from pure science to advocacy, several problems emerge. One is the expertise, another is the credibility. Both are linked. John Krosnick argues that the audience, especially poorer people, tend to discount the credibility of scientists if they include policy statements in their communications:
Using a national survey, Krosnick has found that, among low-income and low-education respondents, climate scientists suffered damage to their trustworthiness and credibility when they veered from describing science into calling viewers to ask the government to halt global warming. And not only did trust in the messenger fall -- even the viewers' belief in the reality of human-caused warming dropped steeply.
It is a warning that, even as the frustration of inaction mounts and the politicization of climate science deepens, researchers must be careful in getting off the political sidelines.
"The advice that comes out of this work is that all of us, when we claim to have expertise and offer opinions on matters [in the world], need to be guarded about how far we're willing to go," Krosnick said. Speculation, he added, "could compromise everything."
Some outspoken climate scientists seem to realize where they have gone wrong.
For decades, most members of the natural sciences held a simple belief that the public stood lost, holding out empty mental buckets for researchers to fill with knowledge, if they could only get through to them. But, it turns out, not only are those buckets already full with a mix of ideology and cultural belief, but it is incredibly fraught, and perhaps ineffective, for scientists to suggest where those contents should be tossed.
It's been a difficult lesson for researchers.
"Many of us have been saddened that the world has done so little about it," said Richard Somerville, a meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and former author of the United Nations' authoritative report on climate change.
"A lot of physical climate scientists, myself included, have in the past not been knowledgeable about what the social sciences have been saying," he added. "People who know a lot about the science of communication ... [are] on board now. But we just don't see that reflected in the policy process."
Somerville has been a leader in bringing scientists together to call for greenhouse gas reductions. He helped organize the 2007 Bali declaration, a pointed letter from more than 200 scientists urging negotiators to limit global CO2 levels well below 450 parts per million.
Such declarations, in the end, have done little, Somerville said.
"If you look at the effect this has had on the policy process, it is very, very small," he said.
This failed influence has spurred scientists like Somerville to partner closely with social scientists, seeking to understand why their message has failed. 
These are themes we have often pondered here on Klimazwiebel. It is good to see that others are start talking in similar terms. But we should be clear about the aim of such re-evaluations. The problem with advocacy science is not advocacy as such. It is the counterproductive outcome of specific forms of advocacy which is worrisome and which does damage to the political cause of the scientists, but to scientific practice in general. Much of this misguided advocacy is based on a complete misunderstanding of the policy process and the nature of mass media communication, as expressed in the deficit model of science communication, the "natural ideology" of scientists.

It's a discussion that's been long overdue. When it comes to how the public learns about expert opinions, assumptions mostly rule in the sciences, said Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale Law School.
"Scientists are filled with conjectures that are plausible about how people make sense about information," Kahan said, "only some fraction of which [are] correct."
The deficit model has remained an enduring frame for scientists, many of whom are just becoming aware of social science work on the problem. Kahan compares it to the stages of grief. The first stage was that the truth just needs to be broadcast to change minds. The second, and one still influential in the scientific world, is that if the message is just simplified, the right images used, than the deficit will be filled.
So why do climate scientists, more than most fields, cross the line into advocacy?
Most of all, it's because their scientific work tells them the problem is so pressing, and time dependent, given the centuries-long life span of CO2 emissions, Somerville said.
"You get to the point where the emissions are large enough that you've run out of options," he said. "You can no longer limit [it]. ... We may be at that point already."
There may also be less friction for scientists to suggest communal solutions to warming because, as Nisbet's work has found, scientists tend to skew more liberal than the general population with more than 50 percent of one U.S. science society self-identifying as "liberal." Given this outlook, they are more likely to accept efforts like cap and trade, a bill that, in implying a "cap" on activity, rubbed conservatives wrong.
"Not a lot of scientists would question if this is an effective policy," Nisbet said.
It is not that scientists are unaware that they are moving into policy prescription, either. Most would intuitively know the line between their work and its political implications.
"I think many are aware when they're crossing that line," said Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, "but they're not aware of the consequences [of] doing so."
This willingness to cross into advocacy could also stem from the fact that it is the next logical skirmish. The battle for public opinion on the reality of human-driven climate change is already over, Pielke said, "and it's been won ... by the people calling for action."
While there are slight fluctuations in public belief, in general a large majority of Americans side with what scientists say about the existence and causes of climate change. It's not unanimous, he said, but it's larger than the numbers who supported actions like the Montreal Protocol, the bank bailout or the Iraq War.
What has shifted has been its politicization: As more Republicans have begun to disbelieve global warming, Democrats have rallied to reinforce the science. And none of it is about the actual science, of course. It's a fact Scripps' Somerville now understands. It's a code, speaking for fear of the policies that could happen if the science is accepted.
Doubters of warming don't just hear the science. A policy is attached to it in their minds.
"Here's a fact," Pielke said. "And you have to change your entire lifestyle."
It is about time that these basic lessons are discussed more broadly.

22 comments:

Werner Krauss said...

Interesting post, Reiner!

In the beginning, you write: "As some scientists are crossing the line from pure science to advocacy, several problems emerge." There is no such line between pure science and advocacy, I guess.

Later on you name the problem in a more adequate manner:
"The problem with advocacy science is not advocacy as such." Instead, the problem is "misguided advocacy". With this, I fully agree, and your arguments are simply convincing. Except that it is also not insights from social sciences in general, but specific insights from specific studies in social sciences - as social science in general is not immune to "misguided advocacy" as assigned here to the the natural sciences.

Furthermore, a certain form of advocacy - this is, alarmism - is fully integrated into mainstream science. Just have a look how the university of Bremen seeks to attract students with advocacy light:

http://www.weltretter.uni-bremen.de/

It's amazing, isn't it?

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Werner,
I am not sure I agree with your "There is no such line between pure science and advocacy"

Scientists have a choice if they want to go public, and if they want to advocate specific solutions to problems they see (which may or may not be related to their core expertise). There is more and more pressure on scientists to become advocates, to prove that their knowledge is relevant and useful. The Bremen example shows in a bizarre way where this can take us - if the next generation of students is inculcated with this ethos science as we know it will be a thing of the past. But this is not a foregone conclusion, although I have to admit this is closer to reality than I want to admit.

A similar ethos of 'saving the world' prevailed in the 1970s at German universities, not in the sciences, but in the social sciences. The difference was that then university administrations did not advertise 'come to use to study radical social change', or 'learn how to make the world a better place'. Now this talk is on the verge to become mainstream in the sciences and I guess anyone who expresses their wish to stay away from such slogans and do proper studies could be seen as outsider.

So the line is still there...

Werner Krauss said...

Reiner,

sure, I fully agree that there is a high pressure for scientists to go public. I had a different thing in mind: the juxtaposition of "pure science" and "advocacy" also implies that there is such a thing as "pure science". And this is a political stance itself in times when (climate) scientists insist on representing "pure science" while everybody else is said to have an "agenda". In this case, the term "pure science" represents a form of "misguided advocacy" or "stealth advocacy" - it intends to hide the fact that science is always political concerning its possibilities, its funding, its laboratories, the direction of research etc...In short, the very ideological foundation of a phrase like "the science is settled", for example.

It's only in this sense that the juxtaposition is misleading. I only accept the difference between well conducted science and flawed science, but not the one between pure and "impure" science. Hope you get my idea...

Anonymous said...

So if one sticks with pure science in Reiner's sense and avoids advocacy (let's just imagine that is possible), then one becomes a stealth advocate?
And another question. Those critiquing the phrase settled science, what do they strive for in the end, unsettled science? Don't they too want to reach a stage at some point that can be called settled (for the moment) science? What's a scientist to do?

Werner Krauss said...

anonymous #4

I have no simple answers to your questions concerning advocacy, but I like them. One should ask oneself these questions from time to time.

But yes, I think sometimes science is settled (for a moment). Some questions remain settled, others become "unsettled" again, for good or bad reasons. In general, science likes both, to settle and to unsettle. In the climate debate, the statement "the science is settled", is interesting to think with, to say the least.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

I think the confusion comes from two different issues which tend to get mixed up:

- science as a hybrid activity (and therefore not 'pure') which includes cultural bias, funding opportunities, tradition, paradigms, to name a few.

- advocacy as taking positions in a political debate. There are different forms of advocacy, open and hidden, performed by individuals, and performed by groups/organizations.

One can have the first (('impure science') without the second (advocacy).

Does this make sense?

@ReinerGrundmann said...

I should have added: advocacy can be performed by non-scientists and scientists alike.

Hans von Storch said...

"The science is settled" is in most cases not a meaningful statement - because in most cases the body of knowledge meant is not defined. Some issues are settled, almost always many more are not.
The term is often used to declare also contested issues - such as the rate of expected sea level rise - as "true", uncontested. "The science is settled" means that the scientist in the room is capable of deciding all open questions (which may be located somehow in the realm of "science") in the room. It is a claim of power, a method of projecting power.

Werner Krauss said...

Here is a nice example of the representation of the purest of pure sciences:

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/mathematik-kongress-in-paris-die-krux-wolkenloser-klimamodelle-a-887041.html

It takes an enormous metaphoric and symbolic effort to present mathematics as pure science and simultaneously as relevant in respect to the problem of coping with climate change. In doing so, every doubt or dispute or anything about the social life of climate models is suspended; the citizen is made believe that mathematics (in interdisciplinary union with other sciences) will solve the problem (Planet Earth!). Seen this way, isn't this representation of mathematics as pure science a political statement?

Anonymous said...

Again the question remains: What's a scientist to do? Imagine you are a scientist who, according to all the available evidence, has come to the conclusion that x will make y bad, worse. or that x bad thing will happen (within certain parameters of uncertainty, probability etc etc.). The scientist presents these findings to policy makers (as is their duty). The policy makers make up their minds to ignore the findings. The scientist goes back to work and does nothing and something bad happens. The policy makers might say: why didn't you make things clearer? Why didn't you speak up? It's your civic duty! Next time round, same situation, now the scientist speaks up; but now social scientists come along and say no no you can't do that, you are a scientist, stay in your box! The scientist goes back in the box and leaves people to it. The bad thing happens. Who wins?
As for models, what alternative do you propose? Divining rods?
Raffa

Werner Krauss said...

Raffa,

which case do you have in mind? My recommendation or model, if you want,for any case: act like a grown-up citizen and as a responsible scientist. If someone tells you to go back into your box and you do so even if you don't want to: work on your authority problem.

(Your example with the social scientist clearly shows me that it is made up. I have never seen a scientist doing what a social scientist wants!)

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Raffa

scientists do not have the duty to speak out. And many don't speak out. Those who do speak out know they are running a risk.

Anonymous said...

See
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802638/

http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/do-scientists-have-a-special-responsibility-to-engage-in-political-advocacy

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/11/1/61

http://sss.sagepub.com/content/32/2/297.full.pdf

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Impure-Science-Activism-Politics-Knowledge/dp/0520214455


....

Raffa

Werner Krauss said...

Raffa,

no doubt, the problem and the question of advocacy exist and are debated in many disciplines. I consider it very difficult to establish a model or a general rule. I like to think in case studies; science is always about something. And the responsibility of a researcher on HIV is different from the one who studies climate. Maybe it is a characteristic of the climate issue that the boundaries concerning advocacy are so unclear - maybe they ARE unclear.

Anonymous said...

So this should be a great empirical project for social scientists, to understand why things are indeed unclear (or not) when it comes to climate science advocacy as opposed to other types of science advocacy. They should avoid sounding as if they know already what's what. That's the type of dogmatism and claim to certainty and authority they usual like to decry in natural scientists' discourses.
Raffa

Werner Krauss said...

Raffa,

who's dogmatic?

hvw said...

Raffa,

replace

That's the type of dogmatism and claim to certainty and authority they usual like to decry in natural scientists' discourses.

with

That's the type of opinion dissemination, shrouded in the appearance of academic authority, that they often like to decry in natural scientists' discourses, particularly in trendy topics where audience is cheap, such as climate science related stuff.

And then it is certainly not "social scientists" as such, rather just some lesser subgroups. Historians of science for example tend to come up with text that is at least as densely packed with knowledge as your average climate science paper. And they dress better and do talks without slides. Ne touche pas mon social scientist!



@ReinerGrundmann said...

raffa
the examples you linked to were about advocates trying to entice others to become advocates, too.

hvw
We should avoid cheap polemics and get back on topic.

With regard to the social sciences and advocacy, Irving Horowitz in his book The Decomposition of Sociology (1993)criticized a common confusion of 'social advocacy' with social analysis:

'The identification of social science with social advocacy has reached such pandemic proportions … that it is time, indeed the time is long overdue, to step back from the principle of partisanship if the worth of serious analysis it itself to be preserved. Instead of being a possible consequence of decent social research, advocacy has become the very cause of social research. We have taken the chief weakness in the structure of knowledge about society (namely, the propensity to ideological thinking) and turned it into a first principle of the research process.'

He then goes on point out that social scientists study dilemmas and paradoxes: 'The closer we examine the nature of paradox, the nearer we are to a sense of the social world as a place in which rival "rights" are involved. It is not biblical struggle of right versus wrong, but the pragmatic conflict of groups involved in struggles for scarce resources that impress.'

Anonymous said...

hvw Sorry, I overgeneralised for polemical purposes!
Reiner, sorry, you have lost me, I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say.
Raffa

@ReinerGrundmann said...

raffa

Sorry if this was too cryptic. Perhaps we need to go back to your comment #13 where you listed several links to material published about advocacy. Maybe you can tell us why you thought these were relevant to our debate? What point did you want to make? After this has become clear I will try to reformulate my reaction.
Thanks!

Werner Krauss said...

Reiner,

the Horowitz quote is interesting; it took me a while to figure out what he actually means. He says advocacy should be a result of decent research, and not of ideology. Well, yes, if it's possible to separate the both: the Foucauldian part in me says, there is no such thing like a non-ideology. But anyway, I get the idea, and it is an important one.

Where I disagree is here:
" it is not right versus wrong, but the pragmatic conflict of groups involved in struggles for scarce resources" - this is too much based on the Darwinisitc / economist ideology. Are skeptics or alarmists fighting over scarce resources? No, this is something else, more complex.

It is easier to deal with someone who doesn't hide his agenda or ideology; he argues politically and this often makes a good debate. But if someone pretends to have no ideology, he argues in the name of Nature or Truth - and this makes things rhetorically tricky. And this is where we should focus on: rhetorics (and not battles for scarce resources).

(both can be brilliant scientists, by the way - it is not about good or bad science).

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Werner,

the resources argument comes from Horowitz's focus on 'traditional' social policy issues. But it could be applied to climate change as well - we disagree about resource allocation (if yo do not want this economists' term, use 'priorities' or some such).

The more intriguing point is your point about ideology and rhetoric. Let us assume there is no unbiased knowledge. However, is it a good strategy to advertise one's own position as biased? Or lacking in objectivity? In this case your opponent will easily say that what you present is not science (because you have already stated as much).

If you now were to attack someone who claims to deliver objective knowledge as being ideological, you would be seen as acting in bad faith.

In both cases you see where our dominant Western rational culture puts the positive value. This is the important cultural parameter in the debate we are having. The rules of the scientific language game are quite clear: you participate under the premise that we all advance knowledge claims that fulfil certain criteria. If we started to search biases in each others' work we could end up in mutual destruction. Some climate blog exchanges (also here) exemplify this.

Horowitz wrote his piece 20 years ago when he saw US Sociology in danger of becoming a special interest science (for disadvantaged groups in society, advancing 'just' or 'good' causes). A similar concern has been expressed about climate science where the good and bad causes have also been identified. Once a whole disciplinary field is perceived to be an advocacy group it loses its credibility as a scientific endeavour.
We had a debate about similar issues only a few weeks back: http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/advocacy-and-social-science.html

Seems to be a sticky item.