Narrative Based Evidence Making`

Opinion by Kip Hansen

This essay was inspired by a phrase used by Ted Nordhaus ( and here ) in his recent  piece at The Breakthrough Journal  titled:  “The Worst Thing About the ‘Climate Crisis’ Is What It Does To Your Brain”.  Nordhaus used the phrase in this context:  

“Anyone looking for academic studies, NGO, or government sources to validate these [ Climate Crisis ] claims will, of course, easily find them, such has been the scale of narrative based evidence making over the last several decades, underwritten by billions of dollars annually in environmental philanthropy. But that literature is shot through with dubious methods, speculative modeling, and wild projections of ostensible correlations between natural climate variations and all sorts of highly overdetermined social outcomes far into the future …”).

Let me try to breakdown that phrase – narrative based evidence making –to create a clear definition of it.

Narrative:  In its simplest form, a narrative is the telling of a story, or the story itself. A narrative is just that, neither good nor bad, it is just a way of talking/writing about something.

But there is another meaning of “The Narrative”.  I have written about Editorial Narratives (and here, and by others here):  my working definition is:  “A mandated set of guidelines for the overriding storyline for any news item concerning a specified topic, including required statements, conclusions and intentional slanting towards a particular preferred viewpoint. A statement from the Editors of ‘How this topic is to be presented.’” 

Editorial Narratives are just one example.  The climate crisis news cabal running out of Columbia University, Covering Climate Now, in conjunction with  the Columbia Journalism Review,  The Nation and The Guardian, held a conference in June of 2022 to establish a National Narrative for Climate Stories for all of its members news outlets. Those 2022 mandated uber-storylines looked like this:

1.  Climate is a crisis.

2.  The Green New Deal is “a plan to mobilize the United States to stave off climate disaster and, in the process, create millions of green jobs” and “the GND has massive public support”. 

3.  Climate is the “biggest story of our time”.

4.  Journalists should push the  “…warning that humanity has a mere 12 years to radically slash greenhouse-gas emissions or face a calamitous future in which hundreds of millions of people worldwide would go hungry or homeless or worse.”  and that  “our civilization today faces the prospect of extinction”.

You may recognize these storylines from reading your local newspaper or  watching TV news or listening to your local public news station.  It is far easier for journalists, print or radio or television, to use a pre-determined storyline than to do real original journalism, easier when told by one’s editor to “write a story about the flooding in Arkansas showing how it is an example of the Climate Crisis”. 

Climate is not the only topic that is subject to mandated Narratives.  One can find examples in every topic in which there is the slightest controversy when vested interests have a stake in policy decisions.

The health field is a minefield of Narratives – mandated stories that medical/health journals want to publish, which desire informs researchers what papers to write (if they wish to get published).  This often looks like “fad science” – research done on “hot topics”. That’s a real thing, of course, but Narratives in medicine and health are far more insidious [”proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.”].   One current example is “Plastics are bad for health. Plastics are everywhere.  Plastics found in your …. ”. 

These Narratives have become  themselves the story. 

How does this happen? How does The Narrative become the story?

Narrative Based Evidence Making

The editors, newspaper owners, the activists, the advocacy NGOs , federal  government agencies, Soros, Gates, Trump, Musk – anyone or any group with a bit of power or influence with the media – can create a Narrative.  (and, of course, others can equally create a Counter-Narrative).  Let’s ignore all of the multitude of Political Narratives (which I find boring but some find them endlessly entertaining) and stick with  Scientific Narratives – those that touch on and drive the “doing” of science.  (Readers looking for a bit of fun can list current or past Scientific Narratives in the comments).

But just creating a Narrative does not mean it will pass the test of time or catch the its field-wide or public  imagination.  In order to get a Narrative to grow and gain power over the minds of funding agencies, journals, and the general public, it is necessary to engage in Narrative Based Evidence Making.

This process is accomplished in science in a similar way it is accomplished in journalism.  One starts with the Narrative.  Let’s use “Plastics are bad.”  Then one can cast about in one’s lab and say to oneself:  How can I show that “plastics are bad” with my current research?  The current science fad is to “find” microplastics in any- and everything (really, they look for and claim to find nanoplastics – “synthetic polymers with dimensions ranging from 1 nm to 1 μm  or a single micron”).

There are so many sub-Narratives to “plastics are bad” that almost any research that touches on the topic of plastics can readily be transformed, following by the Narrative, into “narrative based evidence” that “plastics are bad”, especially now that there are so many other papers containing narrative based evidence of the ‘fact’.

You see, the Narrative comes first.  Then one creates some evidence to support the Narrative.   Epidemiology is one medical field that is most prone to Narrative Based Evidence Making – and the “plastics” examples are rife, the most recent being “Heart disease deaths worldwide linked to chemical widely used in plastics”.  I won’t bother to rip that paper to shreds – it is worthless, in my opinion, except as an example for this essay.  For more on the ills of epidemiology read or watch Matt Briggs’ series: “The Excesses & Errors Of Epidemiology” – I, II, and III.

Of course, in CliSci (Climate Science ), the vast majority of the “news worthy” science is just this:  the result of Narrative Based Evidence Making.  Think:  World Weather Attribution, an organization created for the sole purpose of Evidence Making (in support of the Climate Crisis Narratives). 

Don’t mistake the usual process of “evidence finding” with the process of “evidence making”.  They are two quite different activities. 

Normal science goes (in an extremely simplified way):

1. Make an observation – see some evidence of something.
2. Ask a pertinent question.
3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
5. Test the prediction (or by designing experiments or observations to potentially demonstrate that a hypothesis is false – following Hopper.).
6. Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

Narrative Based Evidence Making goes more like this:

1. Having been handed a clear mandated Narrative: “X must cause Y” (“Given that Climate Change Could Cause Floods it follows that All Floods Have Been Caused by Climate Change”)
2. Ask the question, “What evidence can I find/make that will support the Narrative?”
3. Create through modelling and statistics, using existing data bases (cherry picked if necessary) or developing purpose-built data bases, evidence that seems to support the Narrative.
4. Publish a paper that asserts [ “to state (something) in a strong and definite way”  ] that your Evidence “proves” the Narrative.
5. Repeat.

How many times have you read or heard “Warmer air can hold more moisture/water” (which is true) used as evidence that some heavy rain event was caused by climate change induced warming? 

Narrative Based Evidence Making often depends on true “factoids” such as that to create so-called evidence for broader, often untrue or wildly exaggerated, Narratives. 

Bottom Lines:

1.  In many scientific fields today, Narrative Based Evidence Making has become the norm, filling scientific journals with papers presenting evidence in support of some mandated and/or preferred larger Narrative.

2.  Narrative Based Evidence Making is a pernicious and pervasive perversion of Science – and should be called out at every opportunity.

3.  Sometimes, it can be tricky and harder to detect. Your Critical Thinking Skills knob must be turned to Full On in self-protection.

4.  Scientists and Researchers must be especially careful not to get caught up in this tempting trap: If I can show evidence supporting “Narrative X”, my paper will find easy publication in a good journal, and my funding will increase.  The alternative being that if I present  evidence that refutes a mandated or popular Narrative, it will end up in the file drawer and my funding will dry up.  

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Author’s Comment:

I recommend reading Nordhaus’ Breakthrough piece.  You will not agree with some of his assumptions about climate, but his read on the science behind the Climate Crisis is terrific.

Narrative Based Evidence Making is so ubiquitous that is has become to be the [almost] accepted mode of doing science.  There is a lot of follow-on band-wagoning that takes place once momentum builds behind some Narrative.  Not all Narratives are publicly obvious – some are created and promulgated far behind the scenes for reasons and purposes not in the public interest. 

I’d like to read your examples in the comments – either generally or links to specific papers as examples.

If your comment is direct to me for reply, please begin with “Kip –“.

Thanks for reading.

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