Ben Wyatt

In which we find third-hand evidence to justify the conclusion that Mike Hulme was absent the day they taught Science in science class (name that movie). At least he has tenure.

The Guardian often makes the New York Times look like ultra-right by comparison, but yesterday it also made the Times look ultra-sober in what I pray was an op-ed. The punchline: everything you know about the scientific method is wrong. That's right, the process of hypothesis, setup, data collection, analysis, conclusion is incomplete unless filtered through the lens of social interaction. The article flows like a ton of avalanching bricks, but we'll make some sense of it. To set the stage:

Two scientists - one a climate physicist, the other a biologist - have written a book arguing that the warming currently observed around the world is a function of a 1,500-year "unstoppable" cycle in solar energy. The central thesis is linked to evidence that most people would recognise as being generated by science. But is this book really about science? It is written as a scientific text, with citations to peer-reviewed articles, deference to numbers, and adoption of technical terms. A precis of the argument put forward in the book by Fred Singer, an outspoken critic of the idea that humans are warming the planet, and Dennis Avery is that a well-established, 1,500-year cycle in the Earth's climate can explain most of the global warming observed in the last 100 years (0.7C), that this cycle is in some way linked to fluctuations in solar energy, and because there is nothing humans can do to affect the sun we should simply figure out how to live with this cycle. We are currently on the upswing, they say, warming out of the Little Ice Age, but in a few hundred years will be back on the downswing. Efforts to slow down the current warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases are at best irrelevant, or at worst damaging for our future development and welfare.

This, of course, is not what the fourth assessment report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a few weeks ago. The report from its climate science working group concluded that it is likely that most of the warming of the last 50 years has been caused by rising greenhouse gas concentrations and that, depending on our actions now to slow the growth of emissions, warming by 2100 will probably be between about 1.5C and 6C.

The upper end of this range is almost an order of magnitude larger than the warming that Singer and Avery suggest is caused by the 1,500-year cycle. So is this a fight between scientific truth and error? This seems to be how Singer and Avery would like to present it - "science is the process of developing theories and testing them against observations until they are proven true or false".

So far, we're actually learning. Here's where it gets freaky:

The danger of a "normal" reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow. Singer has this view of science, as do some of his more outspoken campaigning critics such as Mark Lynas. That is why their exchanges often reduce to ones about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences. If the battle of science is won, then the war of values will be won.

If only climate change were such a phenomenon and if only science held such an ascendancy over our personal, social and political life and decisions. In fact, in order to make progress about how we manage climate change we have to take science off centre stage.

[scratch head] But wait, that's interesting given an earlier section:

In this reading, Singer and Avery are using apparently scientific arguments - about 1,500 year cycles, about the loss of species, about sea-level rise - to further their deeper (yet unexpressed) values and beliefs. Too often with climate change, genuine and necessary debates about these wider social values - do we have confidence in technology; do we believe in collective action over private enterprise; do we believe we carry obligations to people invisible to us in geography and time? - masquerade as disputes about scientific truth and error.
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This is not a comfortable thing to say - either to those scientists who still hold an uncritical view of their privileged enterprise and who relish the status society affords them, or to politicians whose instinct is so often to hide behind the experts when confronted by difficult and genuine policy alternatives.

So either Singer and Avery are fiendishly "masquerading" their values discussion by claiming scientific arguments, or they are using scientific arguments because they're hammers and every problem looks like a nail. I think Hulme really wants Singer and other global warming skeptics to either admit that they hate all the children of the world and want them to die from massive tsunamis and Des Moines summers in Winnipeg, or admit in spontaneous weeping that they're really sorry their 'facts' got in the way of their love for all the children of the world, all just so he can feel less insecure about his position. However you cut it, truth has no meaning because WE HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING. The cinchers:

Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists - and politicians - must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity.
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What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered. All of us alive today have a stake in the future, and so we should all play a role in generating sufficient, inclusive and imposing knowledge about the future. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones.

Kind of dogmatic when you get down to the nitty-gritty. So here's where I agree (I think) with Mr. Hulme:

(1) AFTER (and I think Mr. Hulme misses this little point so it bears repeating) AFTER a reasoned, scientific evaluation of the social and economic impacts of global arming (if any, including positives) is made, then one should instantly detach policy from science. Tony Blair was on a fool's errand asking scientists for a culturally acceptable limit to global warming, because that's not their job. Believe it or not, that's why that country has MPs.
(2) The provisional nature of science makes #1 somewhat difficult. Boo-Hoo. Quit whining and try the objectivity; it's delish with a side of humble pie.
(3) Speaking of humble pie, everybody needs to get off the high horses that brought them and be willing to admit that their side may not have done the math (or whatever) correctly. Scientific findings change, and it's not because of vast right wing conspiracies, or vaster left wing ones either. Typically, someone forgot to 'carry the one,' and that someone is rarely Karl Rove.
(4) To that end, everybody NEEDS to come out and state their policy preferences right now. After that is done, everybody NEEDS to be mindful of those policy preferences in the peer review process, but NEVER speak of them again. Want to shoot down an argument? Tough cookies, you're going to have to use facts, because I honestly don't care how much money my local climatologist gave to MoveOn or Halliburton if he can make a case re global warming.

It would be really cool to clear this mess up so we could talk about the really fun things...