What does it mean when you have a formerly credentialed "expert" stepping down amid investigations that he "cooked the books?" What does it mean when you have multiple investigations concerning allegations of lying and deception? For goodness sake, even Jon Stewart is commenting on the irony of the moment.
Will all this blow over? Will the public forget this and continue to believe that facts that are scientifically-proven? Perhaps. However, despite my lack of a crystal ball, I can positively predict that conservative commentators will never let this one go. Climategate will be staple fodder for talk radio for a long time.
Let us look an article published in the Wall Street Journal that looks at the long term effects of this scandal.
Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.In other words, science chose to stake its reputation on the issue of global warming. This was not a externally-imposed phenomenon; rather, science chose to lend their collective reputation to the theory of global warming.
The choice to link your scientific reputation to a such a shaky theory seems counter-intuitive. To any person who honestly looks at the issue, it is relatively easy to expose serious flaws in the theory of global warming. I can't imagine that any educated scientist (who does their homework) would chose to stake their entire academic reputation on such a flimsy theory. Why would they make this choice?
I can identify two plausible reasons for why they would take such a risk:
1) They did not do their homework. This is the optimist in me, hoping that these scientists really are misinformed. They could have been deceived by other scientists whose reputations were so impeccable that they did not consider questioning their findings. However, there were thousands of other scientists who declared that global warming was a hoax, so it seems ridiculous to assume that they could have been in the dark.
2) They followed the money. Whether we will admit it or not science is now a big business. There are millions of dollars in grants thrown around the academic world, and the people who are funding these grants have strong political preferences. It is certainly plausible to argue that scientists, in an attempt to garner more grants and funding, would manipulate the data to satisfy a certain type of political preference. In other words, become a proponent of global warming (even if you must lie to do so) and you will garner the donations of pro-global warming institutions.
As I hint at in my analysis, I clearly believe that second reason is far more plausible. Science is now big money, and money corrupts.
Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies.
Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."
If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.
As Climategate continues to unfold, it is interesting to observe what will be the long-term effects. Don't just ask how Climategate will impact the cause of global warming. Ask yourself: will science ever be able to recover? Can the public ever trust the "experts" who are giving them "the facts" again?
Metaphorically, science is committing suicide.
2 comments:
First off, very interesting – a different aspect to look at concerning some of the postmodernity I have been studying this quarter.
As I read, however, I understood the idea of environmental scientists have issues with credibility, but I wonder if I missed something about science in general by the time I got to your concluding statement. All science and scientists? Or just the work and claims of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit? Your opinion is almost ‘jeremiadic’ but you give the bleak situation no answer, no sense of hope.
I grouped all the scientists together (which is a fallacy as you pointed out and I will admit) simply because to the average observer it does seem that science is unanimous in support of global warming.
What I mean is that the main argument of the global warming bloc is that "every 'real' scientist agrees that global warming is real." This argument, coupled with the media/academia/politicians who propagate it, has created a sense of unanimity on the issue of global warming. The voices of the scientists who disagree with global warming have been drowned out.
The solution is simple: be honest about global warming. I am pessimistic for the reasons that I outlined in the post: science has chosen to throw honesty out the window and cling to the theory of global warming.
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