Thursday, April 06, 2006
Where Science and Policy Meet
A couple of great posts from Prometheus blog. The first post looks at the ever morphing term "consensus" and it's misuse
It seems clear that the orientation that each of these researchers take to the subject of study is profoundly shaped by an interest in either consolidating or expanding the ?consensus,? with trans-scientific agendas shaping more than a few perspectives. As a result, many climate scientists have become much more tactical in how they select research topics. If this interpretation is anywhere close to the mark then climate science as a whole suffers because of an adversarial orientation in which scientists pick and choose research topics and stances according to what they want to (dis)prove, not simply what they want to learn.The second post quotes a ASU engineer on what he terms "nightmare science"
Underlying much of the tactics of climate science are of course political perspectives. What the ABC News article cited above really means is that some assert that there are ?uncertainties in the science? as a rationale for business-as-usual policies on climate change, and it is this sort of characterization of uncertainty that is unwelcome. At the same time, it seems that the mentioning of those very same uncertainties in climate science is OK, so long as one also accompanies that with an appropriate qualification about the need for political action.
But the authority in this new model is not derived from sacred texts; rather it is derived from legitimate practice of scientific method in the scientific domain, extended into non-scientific domains. Note that this does not imply that scientists cannot, or should not, as individuals participate in public debate; only that if they do so cloaked in the privilege that the scientific discourse gives them they raise from the dead the specter of authority as truth.Related Tags: science, policy, climate change, global warming, authority
Why is this nightmare science? Precisely because it raises an internal contradiction with which science cannot cope. In an age defined by the scientific worldview, which is the source of the primacy of the scientific discourse, science cannot demand privilege outside its domain based not on method, but on authority, for in doing so it undermines the zeitgeist that gives it validity.
