Guest post by E. Calvin Beisner
![Alan I. Leshner [Photograph by Colellaphoto.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aaas.org/ScienceTalk/images/leshner-highrez.jpg?quality=83 "Alan I. Leshner [Photograph by Colellaphoto.com]")
Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Executive Publisher of its flagship publication, Science, wrote in a recent editorial, “There is no shortage of topics where policy-makers or other members of the public seem to persistently misunderstand, misrepresent, or disregard the underlying science: climate change, genetically modified foods, vaccines, or evolution, among others.”
Well, I guess two out of four isn’t too bad. I imagine his and my understandings of GMO and vaccines are reasonably alike. But on climate change and (naturalistic macro-) evolution (not to oversimplify and distort), I suspect his conclusions and mine differ dramatically—and I have a feeling that, in question-begging style, he assumes that my conclusions are wrong and his are right, and what’s needed is for him and other scientists to help me understand the science better.
Trouble is (focusing here just on climate change), the better I’ve understood the science on climate change (having read over 40 books on the science and over 30 on the economics, and scores of major papers and thousands and thousands of articles on each), the more convinced I’ve become that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is false.
In fact, a careful scientific survey found that the more people know about the science, the less likely they are to believe in CAGW.
It seems likely, therefore, that Leshner will be disappointed in the results if scientists do become any better at communicating the science of climate change.
But a careful reading of his editorial suggests that that’s not what he’s really after anyway. After decrying scientists’ ineffectiveness at enlightening the public about the science of climate change, he writes,
Valuable studies have been carried out to discover what determines public attitudes toward science and technology, and some … point to an individual’s ideological views or cultural identity as having greater influence … than an understanding of the facts. Often, simply increasing public knowledge about an issue will not move the debate …. Instead, the way an issue is framed can have a larger effect on people’s views. As a case in point, many people will give more credit to the scientific claims about climate change when the issue is cast as a technological challenge than as a regulatory problem.
(I.e., with regard to that last sentence, if we beg the question of the reality of CAGW and just present people with the technological challenge of how to deal with it, we can avoid the problem of convincing them of its reality in the first place.)
It appears that what Leshner is really after is not better public understanding of science but particular public opinions about climate change and that he would be content to see scientists turn from facts to ideology, cultural identity, and framing to move public opinion on global warming—a dangerous but not uncommon view in our postmodern times, even in the science community, as I discussed in “Wanted for Premeditated Murder: How Post-Normal Science Stabbed Real Science in the Back on the Way to the Illusion of “Scientific Consensus” on Global Warming.”
That this would indeed satisfy Leshner his very next sentences confirm:
Science is complicated and often jargon-laden, so scientists may need help from a ‘translator’ to help tell a story simply and cogently. In doing so, the gist of the message is what matters. Here there is a lesson to be learned from antiscience [sic—note the question begging] forces, who regularly oversimplify science in very effective ways, even when distorting it.
Noting that “people care primarily about things that affect them personally or locally,” he adds, “thus, a useful approach is to determine what matters to a specific audience and seek a way to make the message relevant to them.”
Yes. Like telling kids who like furry polar bears that global warming is driving them extinct; or people on low-lying islands and seacoasts that global warming is driving sea levels upward faster than ever; or biodiversity champions that global warming threatens to drive half the world’s species extinct; or allergy-prone people that global warming’s cause, rising CO2, will cause the pollen that irritates them to multiply (to mention just four such tactics)—when the first three are false and the last is offset by the fact that pretty much all plants will grow better, meaning food will be cheaper.
The fact is, in my constant reading and conversations, I’ve found it far more common for CAGW true believers than critics to oversimplify and even distort the science. It’s the true believers who so readily resort to the claim, “Look, it’s basic physics. Greenhouse gases warm the planet, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so more CO2 means more warmth.” They’re the ones who don’t like to get into the weeds of quantifying “climate sensitivity,” CO2’s logarithmic warming curve, the sign and magnitude of climate feedbacks, the multiple natural drivers of climate, whether and how much local land use change (especially urbanization) distorts “global” temperature readings, or any number of pesky details that falsify their intuitively sensible but false conclusion. They’ll discuss them, reluctantly, if pressed, but only then.
“Public understanding and support of science and technology have never been more important, but also never more tenuous,” Leshner says. Perhaps he’s right about the support, but I have a hunch public support for “science” (in this context, code for global warming alarmism) is tenuous precisely because public understanding of science is growing—thanks to “climate skeptics.”
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is Founder and National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, author of three books on environmental science, economics, ethics, and policy, and a member of the AAAS.
polistra says:
Why does he get credit given that he says that he agrees with the two that have a right-wing flavor and rejects the two that have a left-wing flavor? To me, that simply reveals the extent to which he bases his scientific beliefs on his right-wing ideology.
Someone should get credit as a straight-shooter if they take both left-wing and right-wing anti-science notions to task. Such a straight-shooter is someone like Robert Park of the American Physical Society, who I have quoted here before.
Okay, I’ll add [b]pax[/b] to the list of now 2 skeptics here who are willing to stand up for scientific principles and reject people who are anti-science even when they happen to agree with you on AGW.
PaulID says:
October 21, 2012 at 12:29 am
Jeff Alberts says:
but you must remember Joel is coming from his own deeply held religious belief and in that belief he is as fanatical as the most crazed “christian” zealots.
Joel Shore is more of a zealot and an anti-science ideologue than the author. CAGW is his religion, and it is every bit as scientifically baseless as creationism.
To be fair, the editorial got quite a long way before betraying itself in the usual manner with:
This appears to be suggesting that the science is actually of secondary importance to some other end, as in ‘the end justifies the means’.
The next sentence confirms this:
So. Framing. In other words, ask the right questions to get the answer that you want. DO NOT mention anything that might lead the reader to consider both sides of an argument. Every politician worth his or her salt knows this.
Next sentence:
This is an excellent example of political framing. The writer goes straight to the issues of how we can physically mitigate this [probably non-existent] problem, and what laws must be made to achieve the goal of fixing this [non-existent] problem. The possibility that the science may NOT be settled is ignored completely. It is simply not up for discussion in the author’s mind. And it appears he doesn’t want it in the mind of the reader either.
Those are three astonishing sentences from the head of an organization claiming to be an Association of Americans for Advancing Science.
Mr Watts,
I am a scientist and enjoy reading your blog. I think the case that observed warming is mostly caused by anthropogenic global warming is far from proven,and enjoy your often hilarious and well reasoned examples of junk science, dishonesty and absurd alarmism from various climate scientists. So please take it in the manner intended when I say that you really do yourself a disservice by having statements like the below posted on your blog:
“But on climate change and (naturalistic macro-) evolution (not to oversimplify and distort), I suspect his conclusions and mine differ dramatically”
It’s like having someone discuss their support for a particular economic theory while believing that money is deposited in the Treasury by God.
Mr Beisner is a former Professor of Social Ethics at Knox Theological Seminary, and spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. He has no business guest posting on a climate blog that is supposedly serious and based on science.
REPLY: Thanks for the comment. Just because it is posted, doesn’t mean I endorse it. I’ve also posted many ‘warmist’ essays and press releases that I also don’t endorse. – Anthony
I think that the problem of the credibility of AGW is being made to seem far more complex than it really is. We are told that studies have discovered facts that are of vital interest to us. This is interesting, but when we ask “How were these conclusions reached?”, we are told that a vast amount of data was gathered, it was thoroughly analyzed, and here are the results. This is totally at odds with my experience in scientific and technical matters where my question would have triggered an avalanche of information on how the data was gathered, how it was verified, how it was incorporated into the model, and how the model was analyzed. The process is usually seen as more interesting to discuss than the results. In my experience with electrical engineering, an engineer is usually apt to be more interested in a new and innovative way of analyzing a problem, than in the actual results.
A reluctance to show the original data and discuss the details of how that data was used raises a big red flag. If more direct pertinent questioning does not produce pertinent answers, the individual is simply not credible. It does not really matter what his results are or how dire they appear to be because they do not come from a credible source. If the results are vouched for by prestigious individuals or institutions their credibility is tarnished unless direct pertinent answers are furnished to direct pertinent questions.
The way to improve communication about climate science does not involve modifying the discussion of the results. It requires demonstrating the credibility by long and laborious expositions on how the data was collected, how it was altered, why the alterations were justified, how the models are constructed, what assumptions went into the models, why those assumptions went into the models, how the models are operated, what the results of the models are, how well those results compare to actual measured climate, how those results have been combined for presentation, and why they were combined in that manner. A point that needs very careful explanation is combining many models into a mean result when it is obvious that a significant number of them do a very poor job of actually predicting climate. It makes it look like you are more interested in the feelings of the lousy modelers than the accuracy of the results.
Another point you need to address is the problem of short term predictions. Why should I believe that while you cannot predict short term or even decadal variations, you are much more accurate 50 years out and will be dead on several hundred years out. I have built models of a number of physical processes and my experience has been that the errors grow with time. How would you react to someone who wanted to manage your pension funds and explained that he could not be very sure about the results of the next few years or even a decade, but 50 to 100 years from now he would have done very well?
In short, the problem that needs to be addressed is not climate science, but the credibility of climate scientists.
GlynnMhor says:
October 20, 2012 at 3:12 pm
There is a host of self-centred and greedy ulterior motives different people have for supporting the AGW paradigm.
Exactly on all points! The lie is catching up to the liar.
“scientists may need help from a ‘translator’ to help tell a story simply and cogently”. Where I come from, “to tell a story” is to lie. Well the warmists and alarmists are good at that, they shouldn’t need help from a translator.
I spent a couple of years in the talk.origins USENET group, where the creation-evolution wars are fought. There were people in there who had perfectly mainstream opinions on many scientific topics (vaccines and germ theory in general, physics, chemistry, etc.), but yet believed in young-earth creationism. Here we have an article by a similar soul, and he is attacked on his anti-CAGW position on the basis of his creationist position.
Would it not be just as proper to attack his opinion on vaccines and GMO’s because of his creationist leanings? Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, as it is said. I suspect that Joel Shore and others would say “No,” because vaccines are proven and GMO’s are… well we know they have the same opinion about them, so that’s OK.
It’s not a long walk from saying that a belief in creationism disqualifies one from having scientific opinions on other, non-creationist, topics to claiming that a belief in God at all does the same. I’ve already seen this concept in non-science blogs where it’s been said that a belief in God is prima facie evidence of a mental illness or delusion.
Rather, we should judge a person’s scientific opinion based on what he’s saying about the topic at hand, not on what he believes regarding other topics. After all we don’t despise a person’s knowledge of, say, chemistry, just because he’s delusional about the existence of CAGW, do we?
Apparently since the death of Carl Sagan there are no more “popularizers” of science, as there used to be. Once upon a time we had Sagan and Isaac Asimov, but today there seems to be no one filling that niche they occupied for so long. We are all the poorer for our loss of them.
I wonder if Joel Shore would agree with Mr. Beisner’s statement if it were thus:
IOW, exactly the same except for any mention of God. Surely Mr. Shore doesn’t believe that the Earth and its ecosystems need constant tending by humans to function, or that they are not well-suited for humans?
Joeldshaw or whoever you are pretending to be today (your facebook link is a fake, no doubt like yourself) try looking up the word conflation or better still get something more than a basic education and a thicker skin while you’re at it. Warmists come across tetchy and miserable, must be all the guilt…
Mr Shore states: “Interesting bedfellows you have! And, to think that people around here object so strongly when I note the obvious connections and analogies between “AGW skeptics” and “evolution skeptics”!”
Debate over religious belief is not the real issue. The disagreements are in the CAGW zealotry is using their ideology to tax, control, demonize mankind, and redistribute wealth based on a false fear; similar to some other religious entities. That is where I personally draw a line. The evil is in using any ideology to promote their greed driven agenda and pad their pocket books. The personal attacks to categorize the opposition is the first clue to recognize their motive and lack of substance..
Friends:
Joel Shore has convinced me.
Friar Mendel’s seminal work on genetics conducted in his monastery garden must have been wrong because he was a Roman Catholic.
Michael Faraday’s works on electromagnetism, surface properties of ice and etc. must have been wrong because he was a Protestant.
Copernicus’ revision of the model of the Solar System must have been wrong because he was an astrologer.
But
Joel Shore is right about everything because he believes in CAGW.
/sarc off (just in case)
Richard
There’s a reason argumentum ad hominem is used by the likes of Joel Shore…
Mark
Seems like many (most?) climate scientists can’t look past 1500CE, or don’t want to, since it deflates their narrative of unprecedented warming. Hell, some won’t even look past the last 20 years.
You have successfully failed to include anything I said. Not sure why my name is in there.
I am convinced. Earth is only rotating along its axis and orbiting the Sun because the roman catholic church of the 17th century was lacking in communication skills, right? The other side of the coin might have been that people just didn’t care because purported movement of the Earth had not affected them personally and locally.
LazyTeenager says: October 20, 2012 at 4:42 pm
It’s really about respect for evidence and science’s core idea: no bullshit.
People don’t like evidence interfering with their favorite beliefs and will typically find 50 million excuses to ignore the evidence if it does.
A lot of people can’t handle the truth, they just wanna feel good.
LazyTeenager, your last two points are perfect descriptions of most CAGW believers that I know. They ignore any and all evidence that contradicts the CAGW meme; and by wailing about CAGW they demonstrate (at least to themselves) that they “care” about the environment, and by “caring” they can feel good about themselves.
I have to apologise to Joel Shore, his facebook page only seems to work on my pc not my ipad (and yes I’ve logged on!) so a thousand apologies. But not to joeldshore as I can’t abide mutliple identities on blogs. Now there’s two things Warmists can’t do, own up to being wrong and be consistent. But then I guess being consistently wrong is one thing they can do… (no that wasn’t sarcasm!)
3- Plus of course it gives researchers a good feeling to imagine that they’re working to save the world instead of, say, developing a new scent for feminine hygiene products.
Now I have snot and coffee all over the place . ;>)
As I read Joel Shores bloviating this is his argument, The child in the Emperors New Clothes is not qualified to point out that the idiot is naked? Because he is a christian/yokel/underage/….This is the mark of the despot, to disregard the message and shoot at the messenger.
did you know i tried to twitter this this on George Monbiot’s, of the bankrupt Guardian newspaper, account and was blocked,
what does Phil Jones mean by this:
“the no upward trend has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.”
worried about what?
Richard Courtney, “you are my most complete man” (Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams to Aubrey Montague). I know now why you and Monckton are joined at the heart, though apparently not at the voting booth.
GlynnMhor: fabulous compendium! Your motivation 3 hints at what should be cried from the rooftops, that self- and by derivation tribal- validation/justification/congratulation (virtue) trumps all the other motivations (not just for warmists) and causes us to lie deeply and repeatedly to ourselves rather than.face the humiliation of being proven ultimately wrong, unless we consider honesty to be the highest of virtues.
Dr. Brown, your contribution is rich as always.
Joel Shore, FWIW, up until now I maintained a remnant of respect for your intellectual integrity.
Zap.
Also, some who criticize ID ignorantly confuse it with young-earth Creationism, thanks in part to propogandists like Leshner and apparent bigots like Shore. Many ID advocates (e.g. Behe) are in fact evolutionists to some degree and reject the young earth idea for good and obvious scientific reasons. Their ideas deserve a more accurate portrayal here than they typically receive.
Glynn Mhor says: October 20, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Excellent list. May I add some more:
20 (already said by Philip Bradley) The United Nations sees carbon credits and taxes as a way to generate a large revenue stream and it’s own tax base.
21 (Mencken) for politicians: keep people worried about an “enemy” and they will jump to do what the government ask.
22 The MSM make money from reporting scare stories, not from reporting business-as-usual.
23 This is the ultimate threat because it’s global in scale, CO2 leaks everywhere.
24 There really were some strange coincidences in the data that were misread by secondrate scientists eg the correlation between the CO2 rising curve and our emissions curve; the ice core hockey sticks (these are IMHO some of the items of seriously bad science that still need more exposure here).
25 Major coincidence: the 800-year ocean thermohaline which goes back to the MWP, coincides with the recent century of warming, thus CO2 rise from the oceans is amplified and looks steady.
26 THE UN IPCC is beholden to no government therefore is an instrument for its own survival and for the UN
27 Those who want world government can use AGW to drive attempts to implement it (thankfully Monckton was alerted by Willie Soon to the footnote-within-a-footnote in Copenhagen, which was all about this).
28 A new generation of greenshirt “pushycologists” and “saucyologists” have been co-opted by some of the above, with the goal of selling the faux science while finding sciency ways and means of avoiding dealing with the actual science.
29 It’s the Vengeful God sneaking in by the back door: we won’t roast in Hell but we will roast in Global Warming. It will also be because in the eyes of the Sky God’s priests, we have sinned. It’s an old archetype, easy to sell again in new fancy dress.
30 Many of the best scientists have done one of two things. Either they’ve joined the people developing this marvellous thing called the computer, or they’ve gone underground because they know about the reverse-engineering from Roswell, the cover-ups, the suppression of certain inventions, etc. So only the secondraters were left to populate the UEA CRU and other traditional areas of science.
31 Since WW2, government-funded science has been a disaster waiting to happen, as Eisenhower foresaw.
32 It’s often tough times that bring out the spirit of innovation, commonsense, and good science the best; and the West has been too comfortable for too long, in that respect.
33 The declining power of traditional religion has left the door open for the development of new irrational and fundamentalist belief systems including scientism. Some people need a fix.