Role of science

These are from a post by Roger Pielke Jr. on his blog here, I thought they also might be relevant to our sorts of science.

What are the lessons here for experts who testify before Congress?

I can think of several:

1. Decide what your role is. Regardless of which party invites you, decide whether you are there to defend that political party’s views (on science or policy) or if you are there to share what you know about questions for which you have expertise. These are not always the same thing.

2. Appreciate that statements that you make in the media that cherrypick, emphasize extremes (on any side of an issue) or otherwise go out on a limb could set your scientific colleagues up for difficulties in the future when they are asked to defend those statements in a political setting. At that point, the scientist being asked to defend the dodgy statements may face a trade-off between scientific accuracy and political solidarity.

3. Speak for yourself and let others speak for themselves. This is of course can be very difficult when participating in a shared campaign, either for action or a perspective. Even if you are not actively participating in that campaign you may be forced to render a judgement on it, e.g., “Ms. Scientist the IPCC consensus says X, what do you think?”

4. Recognize that when incorrect statements are made in a public setting, the consequences for you as an expert will be much higher than for politicians. That is just the way that it is. The consequences for folksy, grandfatherly Ralph Hall of being wrong will never be as significant as for a scientist testifying before him. So always be able to defend claims that you make.

5. Stick to your area of expertise when testifying as an expert. This seems obvious but is routinely violated.

6. Finally, it should be obvious that a decision to accept an invitation to testify is a political act. No, it does not mean that you shared the political agenda or scientific views of those who invite you. But it does mean that your participation in the process will be more thoughtful and more effective if you have considered your role in the political process, and especially your stance on advocacy versus arbitration. The risk of not thinking these issues through is of course a greater likelihood that you’ll simply be a stage prop in a political theater.

On sea level rise, the statements made by Holdren in 2006 to the BBC as AAAS President and environmental activist were far less measured and responsible than his statements made in 2009 and 2011 on the same subject as science advisor to the president before Congress. The difference — which I attribute as much to setting as to any changes in the science of sea level — helps to illustrate the difference between an expert who seeks to use science selectively as a basis for political advocacy and one who wishes to faithfully arbitrate scientific questions for policy makers. While these roles are not necessarily mutually exclusive, typically a choice must be made.

This quote is relevant to recent discussion between David Beebe and me here. It’s always a great discovery when others agree with you and they are also 20 x more articulate (plus have social legitimacy)! The entire post is well worth reading for its discussion of the science biz.

[T]he basic aspirational principles of science offer the best means to challenge the ubiquitously human distorting pressures of self-serving privilege, hubris, prejudice and power. Among these principles are exactly the scepticism and tolerance against which Beddington is railing (ironically) so emotionally! Of course, scientific practices like peer review, open publication and acknowledgement of uncertainty all help reinforce the positive impacts of these underlying qualities. But, in the real world, any rational observer has to note that these practices are themselves imperfect. Although rarely achieved, it is inspirational ideals of universal, communitarian scepticism—guided by progressive principles of reasoned argument, integrity, pluralism, openness and, of course, empirical experiment—that best embody the great civilising potential of science itself. As the motto of none other than the Royal Society loosely enjoins (also sometimes somewhat ironically) “take nothing on authority”. In this colourful instance of straight talking then, John Beddington is himself coming uncomfortably close to a particularly unsettling form of unscientific—even (in a deep sense) anti-scientific—’double speak’.

Anyone who really values the progressive civilising potential of science should argue (in a qualified way as here) against Beddington’s intemperate call for “complete intolerance” of scepticism. It is the social and human realities shared by politicians, non-government organisations, journalists and scientists themselves, that make tolerance of scepticism so important. The priorities pursued in scientific research and the directions taken by technology are all as fundamentally political as other areas of policy. No matter how uncomfortable and messy the resulting debates may sometimes become, we should never be cowed by any special interest—including that of scientific institutions—away from debating these issues in open, rational, democratic ways. To allow this to happen would be to undermine science itself in the most profound sense. It is the upholding of an often imperfect pursuit of scepticism and tolerance that offer the best way to respect and promote science. Such a position is, indeed, much more in keeping with the otherwise-exemplary work of John Beddington himself.

If you haven’t been following this issue, OSTP (the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President) (for whom I once worked on agbiotech regulation- great perks, BTW, highly recommended as a DC experience!) released some guidelines, based on a President’s Memo, here.

Some people are aware of the situations which apparently triggered the perceived need for these guidelines. However, it is not really clear at this point what those were, nor how the memo or the guidelines would help resolve similar problems. As regular readers know, I am a fairly concrete thinker. It could just be that the concepts are too abstract for me. Nevertheless, in some old jobs I’ve had, I would be one of the folks in the agencies charged with implementing the guidelines. I can’t help but think we have better uses for the time of a small army of GS-14s and 15s than writing more policy on something that doesn’t seem very clear. Or even necessary, if we can’t clearly articulate what we are trying to keep others from doing. Even in our humble daily world of administrative appeals, we try to link facts found and conclusions drawn.

Also of concern is that Roger argues that in some cases the problem was not caused by the agencies (who are required to “fix it”) but by the EOP, when the agencies “did it right.” See his comments here.

By the way, if this is a policy on the use of science in policy development, then its development should follow its own rationale- it should use science and technology policy scholars (e.g., Jasanoff, Pielke, Sarewitz) to give scientific advice in its development.

Anyway, in this guest post for Roger Pielke, Jr.’s blog, I attempt to make sense of the President’s memo. Also, the comments and thought of David Bruggeman are of interest. My post is part of a series on Roger’s blog.

A colleague sent this link to me.. for sheer curiousity, it’s hard to beat.

The decline effect is troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that’s often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe