Why Politicized Science is Dangerous

http://www.crichton-official.com/essay-stateoffear-whypoliticizedscienceisdangerous.html

by bdfh42 • 18 years ago

21 26 18 years ago

Tichy8• 18 years ago

No idea if global warming is real or not. I don't like that article though - it is purely rhetoric. The historical examples are interesting, but suggesting the analogy is not a honest style of discussion in my opinion - not facts, only emotions. You could probably drop random subjects into that article and make the same point.

gibsonf12• 18 years ago

The article points out the situation with Global Warming science: "...Under the circumstances, any scientist who has doubts understands clearly that they will be wise to mute their expression.

One proof of this suppression is the fact that so many of the outspoken critics of global warming are retired professors. These individuals are not longer seeking grants, and no longer have to face colleagues whose grant applications and career advancement may be jeopardized by their criticisms."

I would be very interested to see a comprehensive paper on Climate Research funding and decision making for that funding, but I do remember seeing articles in the past on Scientists being threatened or fired for questioning man-made Global Warming. One of many examples: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21207 . However, I haven't heard about any scientists being threatened/fired for advocating Global Warming.

Tichy8• 18 years ago

Granted, the one about the retired professors was the one single argument it gives. Other than that, just because a theory is not popular, doesn't prove that it is right. I am pretty sure that if you want funding for research into the Spaghetti Monster, you might as well also be fired. That is why I did not like the article - it suggests public outrage is a proof that there is something to the theory, but it is not a proof (nor does it prove the opposite).

Not saying that I like the academic system - I think there is always a lot of politics involved. I am amazed by the kinds of things that get funding. For example there are whole conferences on "consciousness", something that I personally believe to be a complete chimera (or take religion - in Europe you can take up religion as a subject at university, not sure about the US). So people meet on those conferences and talk about what? They can not even give a definition of the subject...

Retric2• 18 years ago

Many old scientists don't accept new theories. Thirty years ago there was a lot less evidence of global worming and computer models where a lot worse. My concern with the "Non Global worming" crowd is they have no single consistent theory. Some say it’s getting hotter but people are not involved others say it’s not and some even say it’s getting colder. If there was a consistent set of facts that disproved global worming there would be consist response that x, y or z is why global worming is wrong but for a significant length of time it's just pick a new pet theory and plaster it around and drop it as soon as it's disprove by evidence.

Find me some 10 year model with 10 year old evidence that is validated and consistently disproves global worming and I would look into it until then your just ranting.

dhs• 18 years ago

Where to begin? Here, Michael Crichton links "global warming" with "eugenics", and the fate of critics of the former with the fate of critics of the latter. Yes, he's talking about "critics of global warming", not about "critics of the theory that global warming is caused by humans".

To me, the dispute seems not to be to be about whether the globe is warming up, but about whether we have caused this warming-up, about whether we can prevent and/or reverse it, and also about whether the activities of us puny humans can have a significant impact on the system at all. Ok, his might be excused as some "shorthand formulation". but he's making judgments of science and of scientists here, so I'd think that some precision would be in order.

Anyway... eugenics. Crichton describes eugenics as a form of politicized science, which caused people to be discriminated against, sterilized, and even killed in large numbers. It was bad.

About two thirds through his text, he cites another example of politicized science: Lysenkoism. Trofim Lysenko was a Russian biologist who speculated that aquired characteristics of plants (and presumably other organisms) could be inherited, and that soaking wheat grains in water and burying the wet seed in snow over the winter would improve crop yields. During the time from 1948 to 1964, criticism of Lysenko's theories was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union; academic critics were thrown in jail. As a consequence of such foolish behavior, many people died through famine. It was bad.

In the final quarter, then, he brings on global warming:

"Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with."

Oh, really? What happens to them? Are they jailed, or killed? Crichton doesn't say. Instead, he says:

"Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions."

What kind of extreme actions are taken? Are those actions comparable with those he cites, like letting peasants starve, sterilizing "feeble-minded" Californians, or killing Jews in concentration camps? He doesn't say. But:

"Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences."

Ah, some people are hurt. So it must be bad. But how are they hurt? Are they starved, jailed, killed? Does he refer to the critics again, or to some other people? Not a word about it...

I don't know whether or not human activities cause/prevent global warming. I believe that the jury's still out on that. But if, as Crichton writes, he really wishes that "knowledge is disinterested and honest", I think he should refrain from drawing the kind of comparisons he draws here. This text reads like scientizied politics. In fact, as a source of knowledge, it's indistinguishable from politicized science to me.

gibsonf12• 18 years ago

The bad he may be referring to, with respect to Global Warming, would be world governments adopting policies to significantly cut Co2 which would force great reductions in economic output and be bad for a great number of people.

william-newman7• 18 years ago

I agree that Crichton's analogy to eugenics is really inflammatory and offensive, and even that that's likely part of his reason for choosing it. But in his defense, it might not be the main reason. Consider: How many examples of bogus expert consensus are still remembered today? It seems to me that in order to be remembered, such examples need to be pretty horrific in one way or another. For example, we still remember that doctors bled patients for centuries. If Crichton had tried to draw an analogy between global warming and the long history of bleeding medical patients, wouldn't that've been offensive too?

So what about choosing less-well-known examples, then? E.g., in principle he could have talked about the 1960-era political and academic bogus consensus that the long-run Philips curve allowed governments to reduce unemployment in a usefully stable and predictable way by printing more money. (short form of the last chapter of that story: 1970s stagflation) That analogy would probably've been less offensive than eugenics or bleeding, but it also would've required teaching most people the whole story from scratch. That's a pretty high practical price to pay for being able to use a less offensive example. He might increase his audience by not giving his audience the "he's just being offensive" excuse to ignore him, certainly. But people who disagree with him are unlikely to want to trust him, which makes it hard to tell the story convincingly. With the eugenics story he can keep appealing to things that people already know independently, and so can convey his points about the story even to people who're looking for excuses to ignore him.

Tichy8• 18 years ago

Why choose any examples at all? The only point of the comparisons is to make an emotional argument, which has no foundations in logic whatsoever.

A = "eugenics is wrong"

B = "opponents of eugenics where persecuted"

There simply is no logically correct way to deduce A from B, and drawing an analogy to

C = "global warning is wrong"

D = "opponents of global warning are being persecuted"

doesn't make it any better (you can't infer C from D, that you can't deduce A from B doesn't make D => C any more legitimate).

pragmatic• 18 years ago

State of Fear is an interesting read. Chrichton lists the many ways those "in power" have sought to keep the commoners in place. Usually fear is the most effective tactic.

I'm agnostic when it comes to global warming.

lolb• 18 years ago

I'm agnostic when it comes to the moon landings.

martythemaniak• 18 years ago

The irony is overpowering here - the horrible politicization by GW opponents is perhaps the second-best example of politicized science being overshadowed only by the disbelief in evolution by creationists.

I really don't have the ego to claim I magically know better than thousands of scientists and decades of research, so when I read something like the IPCC report (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm...), or the fact that CO2 Levels are higher today than anytime in the last 800000 years (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm) or the fact of the 40% increase since the 1800s (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Di...), my conclusion is pretty obvious.

The politicization of GW comes solely from idealogical-opposition - people don't like what the facts imply (ie, we need a smart energy policy) so they simply ignore the facts using a variety of techniques. For example Inhofe and his ilk are the usual anti-intellectuals - no way they'll let some egg-head ivory-tower geek with his crazy computer models tell them what to do, no siree bob. Meanwhile, Crichton is playing the ever-popular Nazi card - "gee, look at how vaguely similar this situation is things that happened under Nazism and Communism. You're not a Nazi or a Commie, are you?"

sdfasdfasdf• 18 years ago

Science is not more dangerous then a stick. It can be used to get a banana or to kill a man.

Correctness of a theory != good-natured usage of that theory.

Example: It does not matter whether one man could or could not be genetically inferior than another one. It is wrong to kill a man in both cases regardless.

jsterce• 18 years ago

State of Fear is a very interesting read.

Certainly, Crichton is not always fair in his use of statistics or analogies, but an argument for or against global warming is not the point.

He does make some incredibly important points in the process.

anamax• 18 years ago

It's "interesting" that many of the folks pushing AGW "solutions" were pushing those solutions before they heard of AGW.

Why Politicized Science is Dangerous

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