[Vision2020] NASA Scientist Gavin Schmidt: "Science, narrative and heresy"

[Ted Moffett]

Way too good analysis of the issues of skepticism, criticism and consensus
in science, focused on climate science:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/11/science-narrative-and-heresy/#more-5308
*http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/gschmidt/* Science, narrative and heresy
Filed under:

   - Climate Science<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/>

— gavin @ 3 November 2010

Recent blog discussions have starkly highlighted the different values and
priorities for scientists, bloggers and (some parts) of the mainstream
media.

For working scientists, the priority in any discussion about science should
be accuracy. Methods, results, and interpretations must be clear, logically
connected and replicable by others. For people who haven’t experienced a
joint editing effort on a scientific paper, it might surprise them to see
the strength with which seemingly minor word choices are argued over. This
process is particularly stark in short format papers written for Science and
Nature, (and increasingly for press releases), where every word is at a
premium. For many scientists then, the first thing they look for in a
colleagues more ‘popular’ offerings is whether the science is described
clearly and correctly. Of course, this is often not the
same<http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0801/full/climate.2007.77.html>as
judging whether it succeeds in improving popular understanding.

Indeed, the quality of the science is almost always how a popular piece is
judged by scientists, regardless of the final conclusion the author comes
to. For instance, my
review<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/my-review-of-books/>of
Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers was very critical, because his
conception of how the science worked was poor, regardless of the fact that
his conclusions are aligned to my own in many respects. The
furor<http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/deja_vu_all_over_again/>over
the Soon and Balinuas paper in 2003, was much less about their
conclusions, than about the nonsensical manner in which they had arrived at
them (combined with disgust at the way it was publicised and promoted). Our
multiple<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/>
criticisms<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/still-not-convincing/>of
Henrik Svensmark have focused far more on the spin and illogic of his
claims concerning the impact of cosmic rays on climate than it is on the
viability of the basic mechanism (which remains to tested).

The underlying principle is that proposed by Daniel Moynihan, that people
might be entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

The media on the other hand is mostly fascinated by the strength of the
narrative. The enduring ‘heretic’ meme – the plucky iconoclastic individual
whose ideas are being repressed by the establishment – is never very far
below the surface in almost all high-impact scientific profiles, for
instance, Freeman Dyson’s NY Times magazine piece last year. To be sure this
is a powerful archetype even in how scientists see themselves (shades of
Galilean hero-worship), and so it is no surprise that scientists play up to
this image <http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf> on a
regular basis. Craig Venter is someone who very successfully does this,
possibly with some justification (though YMMV). However, this image is
portrayed far more widely than it is valid. Svensmark, for instance, has
gone out of his way to mention that he works in a basement on a shoestring
budget, having to work weekends and holidays (the horror!) to pursue his
ideas. For such people any criticism is seen as the establishment reaction
to the (supposedly revolutionary) consequences of their ideas. This of
course would be the case for true revolutionaries, but it is a very common
attitude among the merely mistaken.

It is not difficult to see the attraction in being seen as the iconoclast
outside the mainstream in a scientific field that has been so polticized.
There is a ready audience of misfits and partisans happy to cheer any
supposed defection from the ‘consensus’, and there are journalists and
editors who, in their desire to have ‘balance’, relish voices that they can
juxtapose against the mainstream without dealing with crackpots. Witness the
short-lived excitement a couple of years ago of the so-called ‘non-skeptic
heretics <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/science/01climate.html>‘, such
as Roger Pielke Jr., championed in the New York Times. In truth, there is
very little that is ‘heretical’ in any of these voices. Only someone with no
experience with the way science is actually done — try going to an AGU
meeting for example — would think that scientists being upfront about
uncertainty and following the data where it leads is any kind of radical
notion. The self-declared heretics do get criticised a lot, but not
generally because of the revolutionary nature of their ideas, but rather
because they often indulge in sloppy thinking or are far too quick to allege
misconduct against scientists (or the IPCC) without justification, perhaps
in order to bolster their outsider status. That does not go down well, but
to conflate ‘mainstream’ expressions of distaste with this sort of behavior
with the belief that the actual ideas of ‘heretics’ (about policy or
uncertainty) are in some way special or threatening, is to confuse the box
with the cereal.

There are a couple of tell-tale signs of this
‘Potemkin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village>heresy’ that
mark it out as not quite kosher. First, for the heretic who has
a coherent alternative to the orthodoxy, it is very unlikely that this
alternative will be in line with the thoughts of all the other outsiders.
True heresy is actually very lonely. If alternatively, the ‘heresy’ consists
of thinking that every idea that pops up is worthy of serious consideration,
they are simply throwing away the concept of science as a filter that can
actually take us closer to reality. If every idea must now and forever, be
considered anew whenever someone brings it up, no progress is possible at
all. Science works because it can use observations from the real world to
move on from unsupported or disproven ideas. All ideas are in principle
challengeable, but in practice, unless there is new information, old issues
get resolved and put aside. The seriousness of a new ‘heresy’ then, can be
measured in how much shrift is given to the crackpots. As Sagan said, one
should always keep an open mind, but not one that is so open that your
brains drop out.

The second sign that all is not well is in how well the supposed heretic
understands why they are being criticised. Usually this is stated up-front
by the critics – for instance, I have criticised Judy Curry for not knowing
enough<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/comment-page-4/#comment-181895>about
what she has chosen to talk about, for not
thinking clearly<http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/08/03/the-curry-agonistes/#comment-13609>about
the claims she has made with respect to the IPCC, and for flinging
serious accusations at other scientists without just cause. Similarly, we
have criticised Roger Pielke Jr. for frequently misrepresenting scientists
(including me) and falsely accusing them of plagiarism, theft and
totalitarianism. That both interpret these critiques as a disguised attack
on their values, policies or scientific ideas would be funny if they were
not so earnest. (For reference, we are just not that subtle).

Unfortunately, the narrative of the heretic is self-reinforcing. Once a
scientist starts to perceive criticism as an attack on their values/ideas
rather than embracing it in order to improve (or abandon) an approach, it is
far more likely that they will in fact escalate the personalisation of the
debate, leading to still further criticism of their conduct, which will be
interpreted as a further attack on their values etc. This generally leads to
increasing frustration and marginalisation, combined quite often with
increasing media attention, at least temporarily. It very rarely leads to
any improvement in public understanding.

The fact remains that science is hugely open to new thinking and new
approaches. Indeed, it thrives on novelty. New data from new platforms, new
calculations enabled by the increases in computing power and new analyses of
the ever-increasing amount of observed data, each have the continual
potential to challenge previously held ideas – if that can be demonstrated
logically and with evidence to back it up. A recent example of a potentially
dramatic new finding was the Haigh et al paper on solar
forcing<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/10/solar-spectral-stumper/>.
*If* true, it would turn almost all work on solar effects on climate on its
head, and they had no obvious problem publishing in Nature. This idea of
knowledge sitting on a knife edge ready to flip whenever some new
observation or insight arrives, is the reason why science is so exciting and
fascinating. That is the reason why science deserves to be the story, and
why journalists should be continuously searching for the ‘front page’
thought that will allow this story to be told to a wide audience. But all
too often the real story is neglected in favour of a familiar well-worn, but
inappropriate, trope.

It is clear that scientists’ obsession with clear thinking over narrative
handicaps our attempts to communicate the seriousness of the climate change
challenge. But since the media will continue to favor compelling narratives
over substance, that is the method by which this debate will be fought.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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