Harming the Credibility of Research

Advancing political ideologies is a plague of our time, notes James Freeman in the WSJ. Hope, however, lies that scientific journals will now chart a new path. Published in Nature magazine is a comment by Ulf Büntgen of the University of Cambridge. Büntgen writes on the importance of distinguishing scientific discovery from political advocacy:

… I am foremost concerned by an increasing number of climate scientists becoming climate activists, because scholars should not have a priori interests in the outcome of their studies. Like in any academic case, the quest for objectivity must also account for all aspects of global climate change research. While I have no problem with scholars taking public positions on climate issues, I see potential conflicts when scholars use information selectively or over-attribute problems to anthropogenic warming, and thus politicise climate and environmental change.

Without self-critique and a diversity of viewpoints, scientists will ultimately harm the credibility of their research and possibly cause a wider public, political, and economic backlash.

Activists Pretending To Be Scientists

Büntgen also is worried about activists who pretend to be scientists. He is concerned that they can be a misleading form of instrumentalization.

In fact, there is just a thin line between the use and misuse of scientific certainty and uncertainty, and there is evidence for strategic and selective communication of scientific information for climate action. (Non-)specialist activists often adopt scientific arguments as a source of moral legitimation for their movements, which can be radical and destructive rather than rational and constructive. Unrestricted faith in scientific knowledge is, however, problematic because science is neither entitled to absolute truth nor ethical authority.

The notion of science to be explanatory rather than exploratory is a naïve overestimation that can fuel the complex field of global climate change to become a dogmatic ersatz religion for the wider public. It is also utterly irrational if activists ask to “follow the science” if there is no single direction. Again, even a clear-cut case like anthropogenically-induced global climate change does not justify the deviation from long-lasting scientific standards, which have distinguished the academic world from socio-economic and political spheres.

Even if you believe, continues Mr. Freeman, “pessimistic scenarios on the course of world temperatures, it does not immediately follow that the most costly responses currently recommended by activists will be the most sensible and effective.”