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On science issues, more "pure science" and less spinning is what's needed

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

In a post titled On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up , Chris Mooney depicts the debate on carbon dioxide / climate change as one between "mainstream researchers and skeptics."

IPBiz notes that if this were all there were to the matter, the "mainstream" researchers would not have to conspire to block acceptance of "skeptic" papers or make plans to embargo journals utilized by the skeptics. The skeptics would be irrelevant.

Mooney writes:

In other words, what's needed is less "pure science" on its own -- although of course scientists must continue to speak in scientifically accurate terms -- and more engagement with the concerns of nonscientific audiences. In response to that argument, many researchers will say: "Why target us? We're the good guys. And if we become more media savvy, we'll risk our credibility."

There is only one answer to this objection: "Look all around you -- at Climategate, at the unending evolution wars -- and ask, are your efforts working?" The answer, surely, is no.

The precise ways in which scientists should change their communication strategies vary from issue to issue, but there are some common themes. Reticence is never a good thing, especially on a politically fraught topic such as global warming -- it just cedes the debate to the other side. "If we come out of this with a more organized way of dealing with these attacks in the future, then it will have done some good," Mann said of Climategate.

On other topics, including evolution, scientists must recognize that more than scientific matters are at stake, and either address the moral and ethical issues themselves, or pair with those who can (in the case of evolution, religious leaders and scientists such as Giberson and National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins, who in 2006 wrote a book called "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief").

Of -- There is only one answer to this objection: "Look all around you -- at Climategate --, the problem with ClimateGate was the presence of emails indicating manipulation through non-scientific approaches.

Of --"If we come out of this with a more organized way of dealing with these attacks in the future, then it will have done some good," Mann said of Climategate. --, the people guilty of the questionable approaches were the East Anglia/Penn State folks. The "attacks" amounted to a disclosure of these questionable approaches.

Mooney's analysis is straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Full post as published by IPBiz on January 01, 2010 (boomark / email).