George Monbiot has written his morning:
It's as clear and chilling a statement of intent as you're likely to read. Scientists should be "the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena". Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong-un? No, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the UK's Department for Environment.
Boyd's doctrine is a neat distillation of government policy in Britain, Canada and Australia. These governments have suppressed or misrepresented inconvenient findings on climate change, pollution, pesticides, fisheries and wildlife. They have shut down programmes that produce unwelcome findings and sought to muzzle scientists. This is a modern version of Soviet Lysenkoism: crushing academic dissent on behalf of bad science and corporate power.
Writing in an online journal, Boyd argued that if scientists speak freely, they create conflict between themselves and policymakers, leading to a "chronically deep-seated mistrust of scientists that can undermine the delicate foundation upon which science builds relevance". This, in turn, "could set back the cause of science in government". So they should avoid "suggesting that policies are either right or wrong". If they must speak out, they should do so through "embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena".
This reminds me of a quote I have used here before, from George Bernard Shaw:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Shaw's suggestion is, of course, that progress is dependent on the exact opposite of what the government seeks.
Opposition in economics has been almost totally silenced by the hegemony of neoliberal thought that has lead to the crushing of so many in our society for the benefit of the corporate elite. The government would now wish to do the same for science.
Let us quietly hope for the survival of the unreasonable person - because Shaw's language does reflect an era and sexism now long gone, but not maybe for the government.
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In “My Fair Lady” Professor Higgins has a song about how he is a reasonable man. It is very funny. Eliza is very reasonable, but I have a hankering for the philosophy of Alfred P. Doolittle. I was there for the London first night, standing at the back of the stalls having been given a ticket in the Shaw Library. Perhaps it is time for the DVD again.
We may as well simply refer to cowardly science, Richard, which fits nicely into the cowardly state. Unfortunately it’s not simply in government that courageous science (or the so called unreasonable man) finds little favour these days. Vast swathes of academia is much the same.
I know
Economics almost entirely
And accountancy never had any courage at all
Having read the article in question it perhaps isn’t quite as dastardly as it’s been portrayed, however I do strongly disagree with it and I do despair that someone like Boyd could represent the voice of science in this country, co-opted as he clearly is by one side of the relationship that he is supposed to mediate.
Some of what he said is valid. E.g. in his conclusion he writes:
“Policy-making is a messy, sometimes chaotic, process because it needs to include social, electoral, ethical, cultural, practical, legal and economic considerations in addition to scientific evidence.”
Undoubtedly he is right. And *if* there are any scientists who don’t accept this democratic (as opposed to technocratic) political reality then they are in the wrong. However, in the next and final paragraph Boyd goes on to say:
“The scientific community needs to build a strong sense about how it fits in to this complex mixture to ensure that its contribution to future decisions can be maximised. This means sticking to the evidence and describing clearly what it does and does not say; expressing the balance of risk associated with one or other policy option and avoiding suggesting that policies are either right or wrong; and being willing to make the voice of science heard by engaging with the mechanisms already available through science advisory committees, by working with embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”
In other words: The system works, don’t you dare go outside of it. Know your place. Scientists should speak only when spoken to.
Just because technocracy cannot be substituted for democracy doesn’t mean that scientists should just sit in their proscribed little boxes and do as they’re told (what a technocratic, undemocratic, apolitical notion that is in its own way!). They have every right to shout as loud as they wish. Indeed, that is their duty. It is the politician’s burden to have to occasionally ignore them and to take the flak when they do – just as they do with every other part of the demos. It is the scientist’s role to argue their point with as much force and power as they can muster and the politician’s role to adjudicate between that constituency and others.
Asking the scientist to pipe down because the politician has a headache isn’t good enough. If you can’t stand the heat…
Politics is agonistic – it inevitably involves conflict and disagreement. No conflict, no politics. Scientists can’t get their way all the time, nor should they. However, this doesn’t mean that they should shut up and get back in their labs. You can’t please all the people all the time but that mustn’t stop the people (including scientists) having their say. It doesn’t make them any less scientists, any less objective, any less competent. If some say argue the contrary then that is their fault, not that of the scientists.
There’s much else wrong with Boyd’s article too. His reading of the TB/badger issue is mealy mouthed and misleading. He fixates on ‘uncertainty,’ suggesting that if the science is uncertain (as it almost always is) then scientists cannot legitimately make factual claims. He suggests that scientists must simply provide politicians with ‘the facts’ and then shut up – as if it were that simple.
Worst of all, he takes the breakdown of that idealised, impossible relationship to be the fault of the scientists alone, placing *all* of the blame and the burden for reform on the scientists.
Boyd seems to yearn for science/politics to be a nice, polite, agreeable conversation – perhaps over a cup of tea – where scientists are courteous and dutiful and say ‘thank you, sir’ when they’ve been told ‘no.’
In thrall to power.
When I was responsible for a number of staff I found the awkward squad the most rewarding for a fresh or different slant on things and some creative solutions. Any one who neglects ‘the opposition’ looses a sense of perspective and ends up sith only ‘yes men’.
How much more evidence do we need, nearly thirty years after “1984”, of suppression under the “jack boot” of plutocracy/corporate fascism?
The mistake hee is to confuse scientific opinion with scientific consensus.
On climate change there is a consensus – politicians need advisors who will prompt them to act. In other areas scientific opinions may be in flux. Who should the politicians trust? The scientist who has a good turn of phrase or the reticent careful one who has a better understanding?
For areas in flux, we should allow all scientists to contribute, but should allow government science advisors to marshall a dispassionate ‘best summary’ of the consensus. Policy should be designed to be flexible to react to changes in the consensus.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
Richard P. Feynman
The media also has to take some blame. In their steadfast refusal to allow any sort of nuanced argument they instead insist that everyone fit into either a “pro” or “anti” camp on every issue.
On global warming, for example, I think it is perfectly rational to be sceptical of the science, as I am, for the simple reason that the environment is almost unfathomably complex and it is hubristic to believe that scientists can predict what will happen to it with any certainty. Even those who go on about consensus conveniently forget that the scientific consensus is always wrong until it is right: the consensus was to bleed the sick to cure disease in the 19th century, that cigarettes helped fight bugs in the early 20th century and that an ice age was imminent in the 1970s.
The environment is more complex than the financial system, and 6 years ago you had serious politicians claiming that boom and bust were over. It pays to be sceptical of all such statements in respect of complex systems.
But does this mean that we have a carte blanche to destroy the environment? Absolutely not. In fact, the opposite: we should respect the evironment and seek to lead sustainable lives precisely because we do not understand the complexity of the system. Or to look at it alternatively, even if it was safe to trash the environment, it would still be wrong to do it.
But the media and politicians won’t engage in any debate beyond a binary good/bad argument and we are all the poorer for that.
Sorry but that kind of scepticism *is* ‘anti’ science. It’s reasonable to doubt the degrees of certainty, the margins of error, the details. It’s not reasonable to simply doubt science because ‘it’s complicated.’ Of course it’s complicated, so what?
Comparing 21st century climate science with 19th medical science is simply a non-argument. It’s silly.
The climate may be too complex to predict with absolute certainty but science is competent enough to get the broad strokes right – and that is all they claim to do.
Sure, be sceptical – scientists themselves are, that’s the larger part of their job. But simply doubting science because the phenomena they deal with are complex isn’t scepticism, it’s cynicism.
“simply doubting science because the phenomena they deal with are complex isn’t scepticism, it’s cynicism”
No, it is scepticism. I am willing to believe that scientists can explain the most complex phenomena that are capable of being reproduced in labs and tested, but I believe any attempts to explain natural, complex systems are inherently suspect to margins of error, and I will not accept them until the facts match up to the predictions. In particular, I am ultra-sceptical of predictions which can be summed up as “things will continue as they are, increasing a little bit on average every year” because that is what everyone said about the stock market for years and years until, well, until the consensus changed and it turned out the few contrary voices were the right ones after all.
I grow or catch most of my own food, make my own bread and beer and live an almost entirely organic life that minimises my carbon footprint. I do this because anybody that has a close relationship with nature understands and respects the majesty of nature and wants to preserve the balance of the natural world.
The problem with climate change science is that it starts from the perspective that man is capable of understanding the climate and that man is therefore free to do whatever he wants as long as, according to the current beliefs of scientists, it does not change the climate. Well, as I said in my initial post, the consensus is always the consensus until the consensus changes.
We should live sustainable and responsible lives because it is the right thing to do. We should not be dependant upon the consensus of scientists in order to decide how to live.
Or to use an analogy, the reason I don’t drink drive or beat my wife is not because the chances of getting caught have recently gone up, but because it is wrong in the first place.
In the real world: the climate models, upon which all global warming is based, are all wrong. None of them forecast the current standstill in warming, and none of then can back forecast either.
So current “planning” is based upon incorrect information.
And how much has the world warmed-up by in 150 years ?
10 degrees C ?
5 ?
Well, about 1 degree C actually.
And another 1c in next 30 years likely…
I think it is perfectly rational to be sceptical of the science, as I am, for the simple reason that the environment is almost unfathomably complex.
This is a perfect example of one of the great misunderstandings about global warming.
Sure, it’s complex close up, but zoom back your frame of reference and it’s very simple indeed. One sun sending energy to one planet with one atmosphere. Radiation in = re-radiation out at a particular average temperature.
Change the composition of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases and the planet will warm up to a new, higher, average temperature. Really that simple. The additional absorbed energy must be going somewhere – pretty obvious that if it’s not all observable in the air temperature then it’s warming up the oceans.
And you ignore global dimming?
On the subject of Shaw I am reminded of another quote that seems particularly apt, at the moment
‘ A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can be sure of the support of Paul ‘
How does a government ‘rob’?
And please do not say by tax
By definition that is legal