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When Subpoenas Threaten Climate Science

39 points by pbhowmic 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Note that this is the same Lamar Smith (R-TX) who introduced to Congress the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
Science is about what is, not what we should do. Politics is about what we should do. The minute you cross that line, the minute you start advocating for an outcome, you are an activist, not a scientist. You are now playing in the political arena. Messaging becomes important. Fundraising. Making sure the right people get elected. Preventing the wrong people from getting elected. As a layman who likes watching smart people argue, I'd said for some time that the climate debate is the worst public debate today, mainly because it's dragging the name "science" through the muck of politics. Now I'm hearing from both sides that politicians (gasp!) want to get involved. Well, what the hell did you expect? Do you really think it's reasonable one day to be yucking it up with politicians from party X and then expect folks from party Y to just leave you alone because science? Real scientists can't be advocates. It's a conflict of interests. This, along with open science being a requirement for public funding, has become abundantly clear over the last few years. Science itself it awesome. It's mankind's only future. The actual practice of science over the last decade or so has been full of fail. If you'd like to hear the other side, here's a great Reason article. http://reason.com/archives/2016/07/15/the-lefts-insidious-war-on-the-free-spee http://reason.com/archives/2016/07/15/the-lefts-insidious-wa... The bottom line is that if we want to make good public policy, we need scientists to honestly evaluate the science, not engage in political muck-raking, venture into economics of the year 2100, posit that big companies are misleading the common rubes through purposely-slanted studies, or anything else. Just science.
- timwaagh 10y ago
  So, if you find as a bomb scientist find out a bomb is going to go off you cannot advocate for it to be defused? Because conflict of interest? A scientist is still a human being and that means such a 'separation of concerns' is not possible. nor is it good. scientists should try to apply their knowledge even if that is 'political'.
  - DanielBMarkham 10y ago
    I don't say that lightly. You can imagine a lot of scenarios -- asteroid approaching Earth, for instance. At the end of the day, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion and feel passionately about something. Just don't do it as a scientist. Do it anonymously. The military has very similar concerns. If you're an expert on an enemy, and you think they're going to attack, shouldn't you warn folks? Well yes, you should warn your commanding officers. And you can feel free to participate in political causes around doing things. But never in uniform. And never as a member of the armed services. I think the most difficult part of all of this is that government is not about doing the right thing, it's about consent of the governed. So if an asteroid were approaching Earth, everybody might vote to ignore it. People have a right to voluntarily choose to self-destruct if they wish. You don't get to overrule the consent of the governed because you have special knowledge. You can certainly advocate, but not as some representative of a more elite caste of people. Politics -- and science too, for that matter -- is full of people who absolutely "know" what's right. Unfortunately, 1) they rarely unanimously agree with one another, 2) we don't have a priestly class to make wise decisions, we have elected representatives, and 3) if the only requirement for telling others what to do was an unshakable knowledge that you know better, we'd be out in the street beating each other with clubs. We got over that kind of government. At least I hope so.
    - Xylakant 10y ago
      You are confounding two separate issues: Advocating and making decisions. The decisions are made by the elected government and legislative body. That doesn't mean that knowledgeable people should not give their input. You comparison to armed services is misleading: Members of the armed services are sworn as representatives of the state. Being neutral on policy debates is part of their job. Scientists very much are not representatives of the state. They may get funding from the public, but they're not duty bound to be policy neutral. So they can quite well advocate that we totally should find a way to deflect the asteroid - it's just not up to them to decide. You're also misleading about the consent of the governed. The governed don't have to agree with every policy that the government institutes. Elected representatives are often only bound to their conscience and not to the direct will of the electorate. This may be hard to swallow in some instances, but the in your example the people that choose to ignore the asteroid have no right to also initiate the destruction of all those that don't agree. Btw: The arguments in the reason.com article you posted upstream about lies as part of lobbying campaigns have been refuted in the nytimes article quite well. Knowingly engaging in a dangerous activity and lying about the outcome does not deserve 1st amendment protection.
- tombone12 10y ago
  Man look at you go telling other people how to live their life! Who are you that get to dictate what a "real" scientist can do? And there ain't even such a thing as a "scientist", they be all sort of different folk, but no one of them be just "a scientist". You don't think of those people trying to tell you that Exxon done bad as scientist, and you don't have to! But if you try to insist that just 'cause you don't think them be scientist anymore that they don't know anything about how to combat climate change: you are wrong.
- nl 10y ago
  "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -- Robert Oppenheimer While I agree with a lot of what you say, and your point is well made, I do think it is also important to note that science isn't morally or politically neutral. I recognize the dangers of politicising science, but it isn't clear to me what the appropriate response is when politicians refuse to acknowledge facts.
  - wtbob 10y ago
    > I do think it is also important to note that science isn't morally or politically neutral. Yes, it is: all it can say is what it thinks is true about the physical world. To take the nuclear-weapons issue: science can say that if you assemble these elements in this way and initiate that action in that way then there will be a release of some amount of energy; it can't say whether releasing that much energy is good or bad, or politically wise or unwise. Now, science can certainly inform moral and political judgements. Science can tell folks of one race that folks of another race are identically human; it can tell folks of one age that folks of another age are identically human. But it cannot come up with principles like 'treat all human beings equally.'
  - sverige 10y ago
    Here's my problem with the climate debate: statements like "politicians refuse to acknowledge facts" implies that the facts are not in question, but then there are other scientists who say the data are skewed or insufficient or otherwise unreliable. There are also scientists (perhaps some of them the same people, perhaps not - I haven't paid close enough attention) whose theory is that climate change is driven much more by the solar cycle rather than human activity. From there, it typically descends into the sort of courtroom contest where "my expert is better than your expert" because of all the politics involved. One side says we must radically change the foundations of society and the economy or the world will end, the other side says it's not a big problem and it's been happening since forever. Any discussion by a layperson of these things results in the worst sort of internet crap, particularly if it seems to dispute the "facts" that seem to be undisputed to one side but not to the other. So it's not just politicians who "refuse to acknowledge facts," it's also a lot of ordinary people who are skeptical when those facts are not undisputed, nor the theory that frames them, and then those who say it is so demand policy changes that disrupt their entire lives. Ask anyone from coal country if you don't believe me.
- andyjohnson0 10y ago
  > Science is about what is, not what we should do. Politics is about what we should do. > The minute you cross that line, the minute you start advocating for an outcome, you are an activist, not a scientist. I'm not a scientist, but that seems like a rather simplistic view based on an artificial dichotomy. Firstly, and while I agree that the primary concern of science is the examination of reality, politics can direct science. Experimenting on humans and sentient animals is strongly regulated, for example, as is scientific work that can cause environmental damage (radioactivity, chemicals). The motivations for these are political/legal, not purely scientific. A major concern in politics is choosing between alternatives, but science can and does influence this. Consider the safety of fracking or whether geoengineering is an alternative to atmospheric carbon reduction. Political considerations may indicate one set of views, but the scientific evidence may (with some level probability) indicate others. I think that scientists have a right, and sometimes an obligation, to advocate outcomes based on their scientific knowledge. Especially when the consequences can be grave. > Real scientists can't be advocates. It's a conflict of interests. This comes worryingly close to asserting that scientists who advocate are not real scientists, which is a powerful tool for silencing people. Scientists have a lot of practice with dealing with conflicts of interest (pharma, nuclear weapons, medicine, etc.) and while that is not in itself part of science, it is part of how science is done when it is embedded in complex human societies.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - DanielBMarkham 10y ago
    Dichotomy implies a forced choice. I think you're reading far more into this than was intended. Professions have ethics. These ethical standards evolve over time based on how these professions interact with the larger society. Lawyers can't testify on their clients, for instance, because to do so would destroy the adversarial system of justice. Doctors don't prescribe medicines for themselves. Elected officials can't receive personal gifts from foreign countries over a certain amount. And so forth. There are conflicts of interests here between the professional responsibilities these people have and how their profession can interact in a free society. A good set of ethics requires that we identify those conflicts of interest and prevent even the appearance of impropriety. This is just ethics 101. Doesn't matter what your profession is. We can quibble about what ethics should be for publicly funded scientists. We should not be quibbling about whether those ethical standards should exist or not. At least I hope not. Nobody is asserting that scientists that advocate are not real scientists, and more than doctors who self-prescribe are real doctors. The question on the table here is in a democracy which funds lots of science, what is the appropriate ethical standard for recipients of public funding? How about for scientists in general? I can define the word "science" for you, and it's not about persuading people in a democracy. People who do this thing can also do many other things. There is no dichotomy. I've pointed out the conflict of interest. We can either continue exploring that conflict with an eye to finding solutions -- or run off into the deep grass with the misunderstandings and whatnot. With the reproducibility crisis alone, science has a lot of problems. It doesn't need to be adding any more. We all have the same goals here -- at least where it concerns the advancement of human knowledge.
- geekamongus 10y ago
  Some would say that scientists should be the politicians, and that a government based on science will be more beneficial than anything we've ever had. Star Trek did it. Why can't we?
  - dalke 10y ago
    Star Trek is mostly in a post-scarcity economy, and much of what we see takes place in the hierarchical command structure of a starship or starbase. Star Trek did not say that politicians had to be scientists. Archer was UFP president from 2184–2192, and was not a scientist. Star Trek is also, of course, fiction. As is Plato's "Republic", ruled by a philosopher king and thus (supposedly) based on wisdom and reason.
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    I suppose you're referring to Neil deGrasse Tyson's recent pontification. If you want discussion, there are long threads here, on Slashdot, etc. As far as Star Trek goes: that's fiction. In short: scientists are human (i.e. fallible), and science is an amoral process. A "government based on science" might well conclude that taking care of the poor, the elderly, the ill, those born with genetic disorders, etc, is inefficient, a poor use of resources, and that such problems should be "optimized away." Why let a mother give birth to a defective fetus? Why spend resources to sustain a human who uses more than it contributes? What good is an elderly person who is confined to a wheelchair and can't work anymore? Of course, you and I are humane, and we value human life, and we have moral values--but a "rational" government "based only on science" would not be. The 20th century alone is full of examples of where utilitarianism leads: horrific suffering and death on an unimaginable scale. Millions upon millions of people suffered and died due to it. Yet there are always those who think we'll get it right This Time, that they know better. You mentioned science-fiction--there is plenty out there that imagines such dystopias. ST is mostly utopia, punctuated by DS9 and the trend toward "gritty." Both are fiction, but at least balance your sci-fi perspective. ;)
    - mseebach 10y ago
      > A "government based on science" might well conclude that taking care of the poor, the elderly, the ill, those born with genetic disorders, etc, is inefficient, a poor use of resources, and that such problems should be "optimized away." It worth mentioning that past governments did exactly that, "based on science". The crimes of the nazis makes it easy to forget that eugenics enjoyed broad popular and scientific support across western Europe and the US (one might even say that the science was considered to be settled) in the first decades of the 20th century.
- jackmott 10y ago
  >posit that big companies are misleading the common rubes through purposely-slanted studies That is a laugh, you are going to just assert that scientists may not posit that things are happening that are actually happening? Why does hacker news attract so many industry shills?
- alphapapa 10y ago
  Of course you're completely right. In fact, the biggest threat to humanity is other humans--and not through indirect effects such as pollution, but through direct action such as war and terrorism. This is why the biggest problems facing humanity today are not scientific problems, but political. You cannot "fix" with science people who want to kill and destroy and conquer (unless you go the eugenics route, which is immoral--but, then, many people are). Humanity has already "solved" most of the scientific problems that threaten us. Vaccines, agriculture, HVAC, electric power, etc. We are not threatened by unavoidable disease, starvation or freezing, wild animals, etc. (Rare genetic disorders will probably always be with us; they are in their own category, not threatening all of humanity. And age-related diseases are also inevitable, at least to a degree.) Of course, in many parts of the world, people do suffer from these problems--but these are not caused by a lack of science or technology! They are caused by political problems, corruption, war, etc--in other words, people problems. And this gives the lie to the whole thing. A few moments of googling reveals the not-so-well-publicized statements by UN officials, IPCC members, NGO activists, etc, who admit--to their peers, in their private conferences--that the AGW/climate-change narrative is a "vehicle" to effect global policy change. International treaties and the UN are the means to their end, which is largely wealth redistribution (they say this explicitly). And this is why you find scientists who openly advocate misleading the public, because only by exaggerating risks and telling scary disaster stories will the media write about it, people read about it, and convince their government to do things. To them, the ends (their desired policies) justify the means (lying to the public). This is why we see stories saying that the storm of the week is caused by fossil fuels--nevermind that the actual data shows that, e.g. hurricanes are at a low. These people have such faith in their narrative that they think that they should lie to scare people into doing what they think people should do. In principle it's no different than any other authoritarian government scheme in history: a bunch of people who think they know best, and that the ends justify the means. Only, in this case, rather than actually forming an authoritarian government by force, they try to transform the system gradually from within by convincing the public that, if they don't make the government do what they say, disaster will strike us all. Of course, according to them, they're really being compassionate, wanting to end poverty and hunger--except in the process, they would cement themselves as a new class of global elites. They dream of UN councils run by trained philosopher-scientists who issue edicts (I'm not making this up--as much as it sounds preposterous, there are people who want this to happen; I'm not saying that it will). And this necessarily corrupts the process, as power corrupts people. And by centralizing the decision-making processes, it makes everyone vulnerable. This is why it's good to have individual nation-states, subdivided further into provinces, cities, etc: it compartmentalizes this "ship" we're all riding on, so that if one part is flooded by collision with an iceberg of bad ideas, the whole ship doesn't sink. But the hubris of those who would be elite is to think that they will get it right This Time ("right" defined by them, of course). Nevermind that the progress we have made in technology and stable political rule has been by decentralizing, not centralizing. And so the real battle is the battle for truth, and then understanding, and then wisdom. The truth is already out there--the data, the numbers, the history, etc. But there are so many who would hide and distort it, because they think they know best, and only by deceiving the masses can they steer the ship as they wish. In places like North Korea, they do this by owning the media, preventing outside influence, etc. In freer places, they do this by drowning out the truth, feeding the media falsehoods--and the media, motivated by ratings and views, will publish whatever gets eyeballs. And only a few people will go to the trouble to look behind the curtain. It's quite telling that your entirely reasonable comment is already gray. Not big surprise. At least writing is a good exercise. Keep fighting the good fight.
geodel 10y ago
Whenever I hear word science attached to other words like Data-science, climate-science, economic-science, social-science, it smells like pushing up some kind of agenda that has very little to do with science. They sound very non-neutral words to me as compared to statistics, economics, atmosphere, social studies etc.
- SeanLuke 10y ago
  Social studies is not a field; it is the name of a class in elementary school. I dunno about your other terms, but "social science" is a pretty old term, dating from the 1820s. It (or the "social sciences") has come to be the standard term for the superset of economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and related scientific fields involving the study of Man. This seems like a pretty reasonable term, just as "physical sciences" or "biological sciences" refer to their respective supersets.
- jackmott 10y ago
  Very scientific critique there, guy.
- dekhn 10y ago
  I am not certain why you associate "climate science" with agenda. It's the study of the climate using scientific principles. Everything about it is neutral.
  - dozzie 10y ago
    > It's the study of the climate using scientific principles. Like falsifiability. Oh, wait, you can't falsify most of the climate-related speculations because of complexity of the system.
    - omginternets 10y ago
      For instance?
      - deleted 10y ago
RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
I think this is one of those situations where if you play with fire you are going to get burned. See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-... where the attorney general of New York subpoenaed records from Exxon. Given how Exxon's stock has performed, I think you would find it hard to make a case that investors were hurt by anything Exxon did. The Exxon subpoena was basically a blatant attempt to chill free speech by people that are skeptical of climate change. Even though, I think the skeptics are wrong, attempting to chill speech is not a good look for science. Now people who supported the Exxon subpoena are getting upset when they get subpoenaed. The whole fossil fuel and climate change debate is more about policy than individual choices. As it is about public policy, everybody should be free to advocate freely for whatever position they support, and donate money to people who advocate for such. Any other way leads to loss of free speech in the long term.

39 points by pbhowmic 10y ago

Note that this is the same Lamar Smith (R-TX) who introduced to Congress the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

Science is about what is, not what we should do. Politics is about what we should do. The minute you cross that line, the minute you start advocating for an outcome, you are an activist, not a scientist. You are now playing in the political arena. Messaging becomes important. Fundraising. Making sure the right people get elected. Preventing the wrong people from getting elected. As a layman who likes watching smart people argue, I'd said for some time that the climate debate is the worst public debate today, mainly because it's dragging the name "science" through the muck of politics. Now I'm hearing from both sides that politicians (gasp!) want to get involved. Well, what the hell did you expect? Do you really think it's reasonable one day to be yucking it up with politicians from party X and then expect folks from party Y to just leave you alone because science? Real scientists can't be advocates. It's a conflict of interests. This, along with open science being a requirement for public funding, has become abundantly clear over the last few years. Science itself it awesome. It's mankind's only future. The actual practice of science over the last decade or so has been full of fail. If you'd like to hear the other side, here's a great Reason article. http://reason.com/archives/2016/07/15/the-lefts-insidious-war-on-the-free-spee http://reason.com/archives/2016/07/15/the-lefts-insidious-wa... The bottom line is that if we want to make good public policy, we need scientists to honestly evaluate the science, not engage in political muck-raking, venture into economics of the year 2100, posit that big companies are misleading the common rubes through purposely-slanted studies, or anything else. Just science.

timwaagh 10y ago
So, if you find as a bomb scientist find out a bomb is going to go off you cannot advocate for it to be defused? Because conflict of interest? A scientist is still a human being and that means such a 'separation of concerns' is not possible. nor is it good. scientists should try to apply their knowledge even if that is 'political'.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  I don't say that lightly. You can imagine a lot of scenarios -- asteroid approaching Earth, for instance. At the end of the day, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion and feel passionately about something. Just don't do it as a scientist. Do it anonymously. The military has very similar concerns. If you're an expert on an enemy, and you think they're going to attack, shouldn't you warn folks? Well yes, you should warn your commanding officers. And you can feel free to participate in political causes around doing things. But never in uniform. And never as a member of the armed services. I think the most difficult part of all of this is that government is not about doing the right thing, it's about consent of the governed. So if an asteroid were approaching Earth, everybody might vote to ignore it. People have a right to voluntarily choose to self-destruct if they wish. You don't get to overrule the consent of the governed because you have special knowledge. You can certainly advocate, but not as some representative of a more elite caste of people. Politics -- and science too, for that matter -- is full of people who absolutely "know" what's right. Unfortunately, 1) they rarely unanimously agree with one another, 2) we don't have a priestly class to make wise decisions, we have elected representatives, and 3) if the only requirement for telling others what to do was an unshakable knowledge that you know better, we'd be out in the street beating each other with clubs. We got over that kind of government. At least I hope so.
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    You are confounding two separate issues: Advocating and making decisions. The decisions are made by the elected government and legislative body. That doesn't mean that knowledgeable people should not give their input. You comparison to armed services is misleading: Members of the armed services are sworn as representatives of the state. Being neutral on policy debates is part of their job. Scientists very much are not representatives of the state. They may get funding from the public, but they're not duty bound to be policy neutral. So they can quite well advocate that we totally should find a way to deflect the asteroid - it's just not up to them to decide. You're also misleading about the consent of the governed. The governed don't have to agree with every policy that the government institutes. Elected representatives are often only bound to their conscience and not to the direct will of the electorate. This may be hard to swallow in some instances, but the in your example the people that choose to ignore the asteroid have no right to also initiate the destruction of all those that don't agree. Btw: The arguments in the reason.com article you posted upstream about lies as part of lobbying campaigns have been refuted in the nytimes article quite well. Knowingly engaging in a dangerous activity and lying about the outcome does not deserve 1st amendment protection.
tombone12 10y ago
Man look at you go telling other people how to live their life! Who are you that get to dictate what a "real" scientist can do? And there ain't even such a thing as a "scientist", they be all sort of different folk, but no one of them be just "a scientist". You don't think of those people trying to tell you that Exxon done bad as scientist, and you don't have to! But if you try to insist that just 'cause you don't think them be scientist anymore that they don't know anything about how to combat climate change: you are wrong.
nl 10y ago
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -- Robert Oppenheimer While I agree with a lot of what you say, and your point is well made, I do think it is also important to note that science isn't morally or politically neutral. I recognize the dangers of politicising science, but it isn't clear to me what the appropriate response is when politicians refuse to acknowledge facts.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > I do think it is also important to note that science isn't morally or politically neutral. Yes, it is: all it can say is what it thinks is true about the physical world. To take the nuclear-weapons issue: science can say that if you assemble these elements in this way and initiate that action in that way then there will be a release of some amount of energy; it can't say whether releasing that much energy is good or bad, or politically wise or unwise. Now, science can certainly inform moral and political judgements. Science can tell folks of one race that folks of another race are identically human; it can tell folks of one age that folks of another age are identically human. But it cannot come up with principles like 'treat all human beings equally.'
- sverige 10y ago
  Here's my problem with the climate debate: statements like "politicians refuse to acknowledge facts" implies that the facts are not in question, but then there are other scientists who say the data are skewed or insufficient or otherwise unreliable. There are also scientists (perhaps some of them the same people, perhaps not - I haven't paid close enough attention) whose theory is that climate change is driven much more by the solar cycle rather than human activity. From there, it typically descends into the sort of courtroom contest where "my expert is better than your expert" because of all the politics involved. One side says we must radically change the foundations of society and the economy or the world will end, the other side says it's not a big problem and it's been happening since forever. Any discussion by a layperson of these things results in the worst sort of internet crap, particularly if it seems to dispute the "facts" that seem to be undisputed to one side but not to the other. So it's not just politicians who "refuse to acknowledge facts," it's also a lot of ordinary people who are skeptical when those facts are not undisputed, nor the theory that frames them, and then those who say it is so demand policy changes that disrupt their entire lives. Ask anyone from coal country if you don't believe me.
andyjohnson0 10y ago
> Science is about what is, not what we should do. Politics is about what we should do. > The minute you cross that line, the minute you start advocating for an outcome, you are an activist, not a scientist. I'm not a scientist, but that seems like a rather simplistic view based on an artificial dichotomy. Firstly, and while I agree that the primary concern of science is the examination of reality, politics can direct science. Experimenting on humans and sentient animals is strongly regulated, for example, as is scientific work that can cause environmental damage (radioactivity, chemicals). The motivations for these are political/legal, not purely scientific. A major concern in politics is choosing between alternatives, but science can and does influence this. Consider the safety of fracking or whether geoengineering is an alternative to atmospheric carbon reduction. Political considerations may indicate one set of views, but the scientific evidence may (with some level probability) indicate others. I think that scientists have a right, and sometimes an obligation, to advocate outcomes based on their scientific knowledge. Especially when the consequences can be grave. > Real scientists can't be advocates. It's a conflict of interests. This comes worryingly close to asserting that scientists who advocate are not real scientists, which is a powerful tool for silencing people. Scientists have a lot of practice with dealing with conflicts of interest (pharma, nuclear weapons, medicine, etc.) and while that is not in itself part of science, it is part of how science is done when it is embedded in complex human societies.
- deleted 10y ago
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- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  Dichotomy implies a forced choice. I think you're reading far more into this than was intended. Professions have ethics. These ethical standards evolve over time based on how these professions interact with the larger society. Lawyers can't testify on their clients, for instance, because to do so would destroy the adversarial system of justice. Doctors don't prescribe medicines for themselves. Elected officials can't receive personal gifts from foreign countries over a certain amount. And so forth. There are conflicts of interests here between the professional responsibilities these people have and how their profession can interact in a free society. A good set of ethics requires that we identify those conflicts of interest and prevent even the appearance of impropriety. This is just ethics 101. Doesn't matter what your profession is. We can quibble about what ethics should be for publicly funded scientists. We should not be quibbling about whether those ethical standards should exist or not. At least I hope not. Nobody is asserting that scientists that advocate are not real scientists, and more than doctors who self-prescribe are real doctors. The question on the table here is in a democracy which funds lots of science, what is the appropriate ethical standard for recipients of public funding? How about for scientists in general? I can define the word "science" for you, and it's not about persuading people in a democracy. People who do this thing can also do many other things. There is no dichotomy. I've pointed out the conflict of interest. We can either continue exploring that conflict with an eye to finding solutions -- or run off into the deep grass with the misunderstandings and whatnot. With the reproducibility crisis alone, science has a lot of problems. It doesn't need to be adding any more. We all have the same goals here -- at least where it concerns the advancement of human knowledge.
geekamongus 10y ago
Some would say that scientists should be the politicians, and that a government based on science will be more beneficial than anything we've ever had. Star Trek did it. Why can't we?
- dalke 10y ago
  Star Trek is mostly in a post-scarcity economy, and much of what we see takes place in the hierarchical command structure of a starship or starbase. Star Trek did not say that politicians had to be scientists. Archer was UFP president from 2184–2192, and was not a scientist. Star Trek is also, of course, fiction. As is Plato's "Republic", ruled by a philosopher king and thus (supposedly) based on wisdom and reason.
- alphapapa 10y ago
  I suppose you're referring to Neil deGrasse Tyson's recent pontification. If you want discussion, there are long threads here, on Slashdot, etc. As far as Star Trek goes: that's fiction. In short: scientists are human (i.e. fallible), and science is an amoral process. A "government based on science" might well conclude that taking care of the poor, the elderly, the ill, those born with genetic disorders, etc, is inefficient, a poor use of resources, and that such problems should be "optimized away." Why let a mother give birth to a defective fetus? Why spend resources to sustain a human who uses more than it contributes? What good is an elderly person who is confined to a wheelchair and can't work anymore? Of course, you and I are humane, and we value human life, and we have moral values--but a "rational" government "based only on science" would not be. The 20th century alone is full of examples of where utilitarianism leads: horrific suffering and death on an unimaginable scale. Millions upon millions of people suffered and died due to it. Yet there are always those who think we'll get it right This Time, that they know better. You mentioned science-fiction--there is plenty out there that imagines such dystopias. ST is mostly utopia, punctuated by DS9 and the trend toward "gritty." Both are fiction, but at least balance your sci-fi perspective. ;)
  - mseebach 10y ago
    > A "government based on science" might well conclude that taking care of the poor, the elderly, the ill, those born with genetic disorders, etc, is inefficient, a poor use of resources, and that such problems should be "optimized away." It worth mentioning that past governments did exactly that, "based on science". The crimes of the nazis makes it easy to forget that eugenics enjoyed broad popular and scientific support across western Europe and the US (one might even say that the science was considered to be settled) in the first decades of the 20th century.
jackmott 10y ago
>posit that big companies are misleading the common rubes through purposely-slanted studies That is a laugh, you are going to just assert that scientists may not posit that things are happening that are actually happening? Why does hacker news attract so many industry shills?
alphapapa 10y ago
Of course you're completely right. In fact, the biggest threat to humanity is other humans--and not through indirect effects such as pollution, but through direct action such as war and terrorism. This is why the biggest problems facing humanity today are not scientific problems, but political. You cannot "fix" with science people who want to kill and destroy and conquer (unless you go the eugenics route, which is immoral--but, then, many people are). Humanity has already "solved" most of the scientific problems that threaten us. Vaccines, agriculture, HVAC, electric power, etc. We are not threatened by unavoidable disease, starvation or freezing, wild animals, etc. (Rare genetic disorders will probably always be with us; they are in their own category, not threatening all of humanity. And age-related diseases are also inevitable, at least to a degree.) Of course, in many parts of the world, people do suffer from these problems--but these are not caused by a lack of science or technology! They are caused by political problems, corruption, war, etc--in other words, people problems. And this gives the lie to the whole thing. A few moments of googling reveals the not-so-well-publicized statements by UN officials, IPCC members, NGO activists, etc, who admit--to their peers, in their private conferences--that the AGW/climate-change narrative is a "vehicle" to effect global policy change. International treaties and the UN are the means to their end, which is largely wealth redistribution (they say this explicitly). And this is why you find scientists who openly advocate misleading the public, because only by exaggerating risks and telling scary disaster stories will the media write about it, people read about it, and convince their government to do things. To them, the ends (their desired policies) justify the means (lying to the public). This is why we see stories saying that the storm of the week is caused by fossil fuels--nevermind that the actual data shows that, e.g. hurricanes are at a low. These people have such faith in their narrative that they think that they should lie to scare people into doing what they think people should do. In principle it's no different than any other authoritarian government scheme in history: a bunch of people who think they know best, and that the ends justify the means. Only, in this case, rather than actually forming an authoritarian government by force, they try to transform the system gradually from within by convincing the public that, if they don't make the government do what they say, disaster will strike us all. Of course, according to them, they're really being compassionate, wanting to end poverty and hunger--except in the process, they would cement themselves as a new class of global elites. They dream of UN councils run by trained philosopher-scientists who issue edicts (I'm not making this up--as much as it sounds preposterous, there are people who want this to happen; I'm not saying that it will). And this necessarily corrupts the process, as power corrupts people. And by centralizing the decision-making processes, it makes everyone vulnerable. This is why it's good to have individual nation-states, subdivided further into provinces, cities, etc: it compartmentalizes this "ship" we're all riding on, so that if one part is flooded by collision with an iceberg of bad ideas, the whole ship doesn't sink. But the hubris of those who would be elite is to think that they will get it right This Time ("right" defined by them, of course). Nevermind that the progress we have made in technology and stable political rule has been by decentralizing, not centralizing. And so the real battle is the battle for truth, and then understanding, and then wisdom. The truth is already out there--the data, the numbers, the history, etc. But there are so many who would hide and distort it, because they think they know best, and only by deceiving the masses can they steer the ship as they wish. In places like North Korea, they do this by owning the media, preventing outside influence, etc. In freer places, they do this by drowning out the truth, feeding the media falsehoods--and the media, motivated by ratings and views, will publish whatever gets eyeballs. And only a few people will go to the trouble to look behind the curtain. It's quite telling that your entirely reasonable comment is already gray. Not big surprise. At least writing is a good exercise. Keep fighting the good fight.

geodel 10y ago

Whenever I hear word science attached to other words like Data-science, climate-science, economic-science, social-science, it smells like pushing up some kind of agenda that has very little to do with science. They sound very non-neutral words to me as compared to statistics, economics, atmosphere, social studies etc.

SeanLuke 10y ago
Social studies is not a field; it is the name of a class in elementary school. I dunno about your other terms, but "social science" is a pretty old term, dating from the 1820s. It (or the "social sciences") has come to be the standard term for the superset of economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and related scientific fields involving the study of Man. This seems like a pretty reasonable term, just as "physical sciences" or "biological sciences" refer to their respective supersets.
jackmott 10y ago
Very scientific critique there, guy.
dekhn 10y ago
I am not certain why you associate "climate science" with agenda. It's the study of the climate using scientific principles. Everything about it is neutral.
- dozzie 10y ago
  > It's the study of the climate using scientific principles. Like falsifiability. Oh, wait, you can't falsify most of the climate-related speculations because of complexity of the system.
  - omginternets 10y ago
    For instance?
    - deleted 10y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago

I think this is one of those situations where if you play with fire you are going to get burned. See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-... where the attorney general of New York subpoenaed records from Exxon. Given how Exxon's stock has performed, I think you would find it hard to make a case that investors were hurt by anything Exxon did. The Exxon subpoena was basically a blatant attempt to chill free speech by people that are skeptical of climate change. Even though, I think the skeptics are wrong, attempting to chill speech is not a good look for science. Now people who supported the Exxon subpoena are getting upset when they get subpoenaed. The whole fossil fuel and climate change debate is more about policy than individual choices. As it is about public policy, everybody should be free to advocate freely for whatever position they support, and donate money to people who advocate for such. Any other way leads to loss of free speech in the long term.