Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen
The internet information pipe is gushing out information faster than most people can handle. It is increasingly difficult to sort and strain that information flow to find the bits that are important for one’s work. One of my many filters is the continuing series of blog posts by Judith Curry, titled “Week in review – science edition”, in which Dr. Curry lists science articles, studies, blog posts and the like that “caught her eye” in the preceding week(s). She not only lists pieces that have added to our knowledge base and represent “a lot of progress in climate science” but she includes interesting bits that relate often to the philosophy and practice of science in general. Her suggestions lead to her readers pulling the threads and offering follow-up sources of ideas. One of those follow-ups, offered to us by Climate Etc. reader “Faustino” led me to an article on Quillette.com (“a platform for free thought”) titled “Motivated Reasoning Is Disfiguring Social Science” written by Chris Ferguson.
Chris Ferguson is a psychologist who serves on the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA). This council, he tells us:
“…voted for a resolution opposing parental spanking…. The resolution statement presented spanking research as if data conclusively links spanking to negative outcomes in children such as aggression or reduced intellectual development. I happen to do some research on spanking’s effects on children. Although I am by no means a spanking advocate, I was alarmed by the way an inconsistent, correlational, and methodologically weak research field that routinely produces weak effect sizes was mischaracterized as consistent and strong. Unfortunately, this resolution is part of a larger bias among professional guilds such as the APA, wherein messy science is laundered for public consumption, presenting it as more impressive than it actually is.”
Ferguson is talking about the issuance of Resolution Statements, Policy Statements, Position Statements which are regularly being issued by councils or leadership of professional associations, most often without being voted upon by members and sometimes without member input.
“The bottom line is that professional guilds such as the APA and AAP have a demonstrable track record of unreliability when speaking on matters of science. This means that parents, the general public, and policy makers may base decisions on erroneous pseudo-scientific claims that can’t be backed by good data. Perhaps the most egregious issue is when such bodies simply pretend no controversy exists in fields that are, in fact, highly controversial. This behavior, known as “citation bias,” has been described by some scholars as one of the seven deadly sins of research scholarship. ….. And yet professional guilds engage in such behavior on a fairly regular basis,…”
Ferguson’s original piece (repeating the link), quite a long and detailed monologue, is well worth reading, even for those of us not actively engaged in the world of psychology. Ferguson offers his thoughts on why learned societies, professional associations or guilds, promulgate these type of statements, whether they be called Position Statements, Policy Statements or other kinds of official statements.
Ferguson and his committee members (the APA’s The News Media, Public Education and Public Policy Committee) examined various policy statements on the effects of media in a new paper: “Do Policy Statements on Media Effects Faithfully Represent the Science?”.
Their findings have broad implications:
It was found that current policy statements tend to be more definitive than is warranted by the underlying science, and often ignore conflicting research results. These findings have broad implications for policy statements more generally, outside the field of media effects. In general, the committee suggests that professional organizations run the risk of misinforming the public when they release policy statements that do not acknowledge debates and inconsistencies in a field, or limitations of methodology. In formulating policy statements, advocacy organizations may wish to focus less on claiming consensus and more on acknowledging areas of agreement, areas of disagreement, and limitations.
Ferguson lays out three possible reasons why associations might issue such poorly crafted and ill-considered public statements:
1) The councils of these associations have a decided lack of intellectual diversity. The members of these councils tend to share common liberal and progressive social advocacy positions.
2) The culture of institutions which tend to function on a corporate structure — they increasingly behave like businesses rather than academic centers. As such, they do not appear to foster an appropriate level of critical thinking, skepticism, caution, or solicitation of opposing views, thus their Position Statements resemble advertising meant to improve their reputation in the public view.
3) When issuing Position or Policy Statements, the review processes these resolution statements undergo is obviously failing. (Read on for an example.)
Over the last decade, various professional associations have been tripping over one another to get out strongly worded statements on the topic of climate change. Oddly, it is the U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that offers a web page of Statements on Climate Change, titled “Scientific consensus: Earth’s climate is warming”.
As an aside, someone there at NASA still has enough scientific integrity to add this footnote at the bottom of that page (quoted verbatim):
*Technically, a “consensus” is a general agreement of opinion, but the scientific method steers us away from this to an objective framework. In science, facts or observations are explained by a hypothesis (a statement of a possible explanation for some natural phenomenon), which can then be tested and retested until it is refuted (or disproved).
As scientists gather more observations, they will build off one explanation and add details to complete the picture. Eventually, a group of hypotheses might be integrated and generalized into a scientific theory, a scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.
The list includes quips from each Statement from the following:
Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations (2009)
Letter on climate change from 18 scientific associations
AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change (2006)
ACS Public Policy Statement: Climate Change (2010-2013)
Human‐Induced Climate Change Requires Urgent Action (2013)
Global Climate Change and Human Health (2013)
Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society (2012)
APS National Policy 07.1 Climate Change (2007)
GSA Position Statement on Climate Change (2015)
Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change (2005)
Understanding and Responding to Climate Change (2005)
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009)
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers (2014)
A quick sampling of these statements confirms Ferguson’s fears that “policy statements tend to be more definitive than is warranted by the underlying science, and often ignore conflicting research results.”:
From the American Physical Society:
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” (2007)
This statement from the professional association representing physicists created quite stir which was covered in Scientific American magazine and was followed in detail on Judith Curry’s blog, Climate Etc. In fact, it was so controversial, all on its own, that Steven Koonin, who led one effort to correct the statement, wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in September 2014, provocatively titled “Climate Science is Not Settled (pdf)”. Naturally, the Climate Team responded, two weeks later, with a salvo written by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert proclaiming “Climate Science Is Settled Enough“ published online on Slate.com.
The Position Statements on Climate Change from various professional associations vary in their details, but all commit this error: they rely on inconsistent, correlational, and methodologically weak research … which is mischaracterized as consistent and strong thus, overall they “tend to be more definitive than is warranted by the underlying science, and….ignore conflicting research results.” Thus, by “releas[ing] policy statements that do not acknowledge debates and inconsistencies in a field, or limitations of methodology” instead of increasing public knowledge and confidence in climate science, they not only “run the risk of misinforming the public”, they erode the public’s confidence in the enterprise of science as a whole. When the public is faced with the spectacle of world class scientists from outside the IPCC climate science bubble pointing out the obvious deficiencies of the proffered evidence and calmly punching Mack-truck sized holes in their flawed logic, these hubristic Position Statements backfire and harm not only their issuers, but the greater scientific effort.
[World class scientists from outside the IPCC climate science bubble: Will Happer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Nils-Axel Morner, Lennart O. Bengtsson, John R. Christy, Freeman Dyson, Bjorn Lomborg, Myron Ebell, Ivar Giaever, Ian Plimer, the late Michael Crichton, Alan Carlin, Patrick Michaels — just to name a quick few who come to mind.]
More obvious to the general public than tiny, often imperceptible, changes in climate are the disconnects between the claims made in these learned pronouncements, on the one hand, and on the other, the evidence of history, the evidence of their own experience and the rational counter-evidence from other experts.
Hans Rosling, author of the book Factfulness, accurately stated “Exaggeration once discovered makes people tune out altogether.” And when that exaggeration is combined with rhetoric meant to instill fear and urgency among policy makers, it can lead to “stupid, drastic decisions with unpredictable side effects.”
Do you see this in your nation’s politics? UK? Germany? Australia? France? Poland? I see it here in the United States, with radically misinformed and inexperienced young politicians , informed only by hysterical statements based on intentionally exaggerated Climate Change Positions Statements, attempting to lead the country’s policy makers off a dangerous cliff like proverbial lemmings.
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Author’s Comment Policy:
In this essay most of the Position and Policy statements are from U.S. science associations — and I am unfamiliar with the international situation, other than the IPCC, in regards to other country’s national scientific professional associations issuing these types of statements. Maybe things are better outside of the United States. Please let me know in comments what you think.
The title is a play on Ferguson’s article which focuses on the APA’s Position Statement on the “parental spanking” issue.
In a way, these Climate Change statements represent a type of a [mis]Information Cascade, in which the weak science in a policy statement from one association cascades into seeming universal “the science is settled” consensus statements from others.
Addressing your comment to “Kip…” will help me notice if you want a response.
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Who is Dr. Steven E. Koonin?:
“Dr. Koonin was undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during President Barack Obama’s first term and is currently director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. His previous positions include professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, as well as chief scientist of BP, where his work focused on renewable and low-carbon technologies.” [ source ]
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Language has been disingenuously twisted by psychologists, politicians, activists and the media in their assault on the firm discipline of children. In doing this they ignore the nuances of words to further their own agenda.
They do not speak of a parent giving a smack but a slap.
They do not speak of spanking but of striking or beating .
They do not speak of smacking a young child on the bottom with a bare hand but of hitting with a strap or stick on the hands or head or legs.
They do not speak of hitting the bottom of an older child with a thin rod or bamboo cane but of a leather strap, big stick, sharp ruler or some other rigid object.
They mischaracterize loving parental disciple as violence.
They want parents to talk their children out of bad behaviour with no serious consequences if they misbehave.
As long as most politicians make such a mess in their task of governance, why should they be trusted when telling caring parents how to disciple their children? As long as so many politicians are poor role models of faithful, lifelong marriages and strong families, how can they be morally up to the task of prescribing to loving parents?
Michael in Dublin ==> If you are interested in that topic, follow the links in Ferguson’s article.
As I have opined above, “It’s Not That Simple!”
“ The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
George Orwell
Many of the current problems are caused by the lack of connection between actions and consequences.
It is a given when training dogs that immediate consequences are the only things that work. Punishing or praising a dog long after the event is not understood.
I had a Labrador that would keep going near the cooker until eventually she touched it with her nose when it was hot, uncomfortable but not dangerous. I immediately said ‘HOT’ and from then on all I had to say was hot, and she would stop doing what she was doing. Very useful when near traffic or livestock.
Consequences need to be tailored to the age and circumstances of the person. A spank for a very young child who continually bites their siblings may be appropriate, whereas the example given of removing a smartphone from a 16 year old is most effective.
It would be interesting to decide what consequence to give a crooked billionaire hedge-fund manager, a prison term or a billion dollar fine? If prison, then they come out with wealth intact.
“possible reasons why associations might issue such poorly crafted and ill-considered public statements:
1) … The members of these councils tend to share common liberal and progressive social advocacy positions.”
More simply: they’re not above lying for political effect.
After long experience in the climate wars, I’ve come up with a general principle: if one has to lie to make the case, one doesn’t have a case.
Psst.
The lop-sided appointments by the previous EPA for its Clean Air Committees: The Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel where 24 of the 26 members received over $190 million in direct or indirect grants and the the Scientific Advisory Committee Ozone Panel 17 of the 20 members received over $192 million.
Kip,
Thanks for another interesting post. I’m still digesting this post and its links so I’ve made only a couple of en passant comments, but I find it worrying that so many commenters seem to confuse having a credential like a PhD in a ‘scientific’ discipline with being a scientist. The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is just a credential awarded by a university (university = community of scholars, not something more universal). One would hope that a PhD in a study generally considered a ‘science’ would assure that the owner was a practitioner of science, but this is not true (i.e. the hypothesis has been falsified over and over again). Science can be considered a body of knowledge, but only if that knowledge was accumulated using the scientific method as a test of what was real and what not. ‘Science is a way of knowing’ – I’ve no idea who first arrived at this formulation, but it is the most succinct.
DaveW ==> I appreciate serious readers and those who interact with me as an author.
The word Science comes from Latin ( no surprise there ):
Verb
sciō (present infinitive scīre, perfect active scīvī, supine scītum); fourth conjugation
I can, know, understand, have knowledge.
Scisne ubi habitemus?
Do you know where we live?
So Science is about coming to know — finding out things. And in modern times, has come to be aligned with what we call The Scientific Method.
The National Academies published a little booklet years ago, and has kept it updated titled: On Being a Scientist, a copy sits on my bookshelf and I actually read it every couple of years. It is available at the link as a pdf (in exchange for your email address) or can be read online free.
The study of science itself , as a subject and a practice, is fascinating.