I wrote the following for the newsletter that is published daily for the EGU conference in Vienna. I thought I put it on my blog so that anyone could comment on it if they wished…
Sir John Beddington (Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government) stirred up some controversy during his recent address to a Government Science & Engineering conference:
“We are not […] grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method.”
He then urged his audience to “go out and be much more intolerant.”
I’ve been thinking about how this applies to my area of interest – climate change – where the lines between scientist, sceptic, contrarian and denier have become blurred. In this arena, engaging with true scepticism can reinforce research findings but debating with deniers is often pointless. Maybe Beddington is proposing that certain arguments can be brushed aside with a simple put down: Pseudoscience! If so, how do we determine which arguments?
And, of course, there are two sides to this story – how energetically should we also challenge those who extrapolate the scientific evidence to an alarming level in an effort to accelerate political action?
In short, how can intolerance of pseudoscience be employed whilst maintaining a professional appearance and the principles of the scientific method?
My text had to be very short to fit on the newsletter so here are a few more deeply considered opinions on Beddington’s comments:
Follow up by Beddington in New Scientist
Longer transcript of Beddington address and editorial from ResearchResearch
Tags: Climate change, EGU 2011, public engagement, Science communication
April 4, 2011 at 1:18 pm |
Finally…something I could have written myself word-for-word (almost…I do not have a high opinion of any UK Government “Chief Adviser”, so anything coming from that direction goes into the “mild entertainment” bucket)
If I can just add another point…one trouble with all this “beddingtonenergy against pseudoscience” is that it keeps the focus of the debate with the extremists, brushing all in-between nuanced positions aside. One shouldn’t always claim victory by identifying the nuttiest opinions and then proceeding to successfully argue against them.
It’s like holding onto a World Heavyweight crown by carefully accepting the challenge of only the minnowest of opponents…or, it’s like getting one’s hands dirty in a political campaign, one “party” against the “other party” and busying oneself with listing all the shortcomings of the “other party”.
Hardly the stuff for a serious scientific (and policy debate).
People that are serious about climate change simply shouldn’t waste their time chasing up the latest statement by Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin (or Lord Monckton); shouldn’t spend their energies labelling each and every doubt as a sign of “denial”; shouldn’t keep blogging about the demise of modern society brought about by evil oil corporations; and so on and so forth.
If they do, well, it must mean they are not that serious about climate change, no?
April 20, 2011 at 9:56 pm |
does any real thinking happen in this area these days?
As an ousider, I think that climate is very complex. So, concepts that all adverse influences are due to human-focrced CO2 strike me as meaningless….unless you can explain why all the other fctors that might influence the result do not obtain. And then the question becomes, do we even know what those factors are? We know some of them….
August 18, 2011 at 8:10 pm |
it helped me in understaning about air quality, Thanks.