In what will most likely be remembered as the biggest scientific controversy of my lifetime, this holiday season is packed with new juicy new details on the relationship between ideology and science. The leaked emails (scratch that and insert "the illegally obtained emails") of leading climatologists combined with the destruction of original climate data guiding over thirty years of research is releasing toxic scientific skepticism and ideological emissions into our academic environment.
In case there is any doubt regarding my own personal position on climate change, let me confirm my belief that human beings are most likely escalating harmful environmental changes. Emissions should be reduced, and even if climate change is demonstrated to be a myth, or bad science, I am of the belief that we should still being striving toward Green Communities and a Green Planet, as I mention in my July blog offering.
But…
Serious charges have emerged this week and none of it looks good for science. In fact, what is coming to light looks abysmal for science, and not just climatology. There are numerous avenues to explore, most of which cannot be done in a single blog update. For example, I could easily spend the remainder of this note discussing the dumping of nearly all the original raw data on which a series of value-added data has been based. What this does for climatology is that it eliminates any chance of alternate theories of ever being tested from the original data sources. It basically removes all objectivity from the debate; it cuts the science off at the knees. Scientists don’t dump raw data, and any that do probably aren’t scientists. That should be our first clue.
In spite of the monumental relevance and consequence of the data dump, I find it a bit more interesting, and would rather spend some time thinking about the inner workings of the scientific community as related to its dissident voices, particularly the way in which they are controlled and contrary opinion is usurped almost nefariously.
Of primary importance and in the interest of fairness, I will reveal my own biases which stem from my own experiences in these matters. Approximately 15 years ago I was applying for graduate work in a particular program and a particular University. I was interviewing with the Department Head, when a fierce debate erupted during the question and answer session, one that has forever soured my belief in the objectivity of post-graduate Academia. Higher Education is a highly controlled and even rigidly antiseptic environment in which the ruling powers have little interest in knowledge or research that either exists outside their interest areas or that they are unable to attach their own name to. It’s a game of egos, and the good little players trot along and do the good little research for the big professor attempting to inflate the big name on a big project for the big school.
Furthermore, my experience behind this particular “closed door discussion” revealed the manner in which a so called “education” protects itself from dissent. I got see firsthand the way in which this faculty divided and jockeyed for power along ideological lines and even heard my interviewer describe one of her fellow colleagues as “an unwelcome aberration of what this program stands for.” That colleague happened to be the finest professor I have ever sat under, and that statement sparked one of the most heated debates I’ve ever been caught up in. It was a furious debate that reached all the way into how science and research was to be articulated and maintained in a public setting… and not only science itself, but it also debated the skin color, religion, and a nationality of the one delivering the science.
After some bold faced shouting at one another, I knew the interview was over. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance and everything that was articulated to me in no uncertain terms, was said behind a closed door… it was off the record… not meant for public consumption. That’s my experience and it naturally shades the way I view any information that arrives from any source. The point being, I’m not entirely objective here, and I know it.
This recent event (jokingly dubbed ClimateGate by some) provides us with something much more objective than my experience. We have scientists and project administrators describing the process of creating and disseminating an ideology in their own words via their own private emails. The glimpse we receive into this world is very similar to what I was able to witness behind that closed door fifteen years ago; it serves as an open window into the relationship between science and ideology. These emails are the forbidden fruit of scientific materialism and simultaneously they are the holy grail of philosophical idealists.
So what do these emails say? I’ve been reading them in my spare time and although I’ve got much further to go in my reading I have to believe that these climatologists are extremely bright people who care very much about the environment. My take so far, is that their compassion for the Earth has led to the creation of an Empire of sorts, and they seem ready, willing, and able to defend this Empire, and like any good set of soldiers they strategize the best ways to accomplish their goals by strengthening their positions and weakening the positions of dissident voices.
They openly debate about deleting data, deleting emails to each other, and deleting file attachments because of the Freedom of Information Act. They talk about peer reviewed science and express frustration at some reviewers who questioned their results. They strategize together the best ways to get information out to the public, and discuss ways to ensure the data can be molded into their overall objective, or the best way to overcome any data that might counter their positions. Sometimes this is accomplished by combining data with another data set to mask the overall effect of one set of numbers. Other times, they shift methodology around to try and get the data to say what they want it to say. They bicker back and forth about each other’s methodologies and conclusions, and they discuss and debate the most ethical way to word certain findings to maximize their ideological impact in journal and magazine submissions, as well as in newspaper articles.
Nothing particularly hostile in them…. It was just standard fare run of the mill, another day at the office kind of stuff replete with tweaking data, reporting the parts that fit, deleting the parts that didn’t, and taking offense to anyone requesting any kind of further data from them.
The picture that has been painted for me thus far in reading the emails has been well-rounded and complete. The emails reveal the politics of science – a little worse than that I think – the emails reveal the religion of science.
1. They outline a solid and convincing in-group, while demonizing an out-group.
2. They operate a tightly protected exchange of ideas in which controversy or dissidence must be approved and communicated from the top down.
3. They twist particular ideas and concepts according to a prescribed dogma and protect such dogma from invasion from outside entities.
4. When dissidence cannot be adequately eliminated, potential source material for such dissidence is deleted.
Good science doesn’t have to follow along after itself with a finger on the delete key because of the Freedom of Information Act. Good science means that you communicate to me exactly what materials you used, exactly what methods you used, and should I choose to repeat the process, will obtain exactly the same data you did. From there I am free to accept your findings, or challenge either your materials or methodology. That’s how science works. And while interpreted data can sometimes be more reliable and preferable than raw data, good science doesn’t delete the raw data from which the interpretations were made.
What these emails demonstrate to the world is that science is not immune to ideological infection. They demonstrate that C.S. Lewis was once again right; and that the Abolition of Man should be required reading for post-graduate work in any field. Man will find a way to make himself the measure of all things and no subject, no matter how seemingly objective, is immune from humanity’s anthropomorphic lens, even science.
Of course, we must take these issues quite seriously and follow the lead of our own President, as he was so quick to point out to us this past January that the climate debate has too long rested on the shoulders of “rigid ideology” which has “overruled sound science.” Can we take the President at his word when he committed to us in March that his administration would “restore science to rightful place” and that our nation will make decisions based on “scientific fact, not ideology?” Does Obama have an obligation to respond to these email leaks?
I believe he does. And I believe that each of us have the responsibility to challenge, question, and publicly debate divisive scientific conclusions. The proverbial 'Ivory Tower' protects itself and so does the laboratory. It’s not always malicious and in fact, this protection can arise from a deep-seated belief in what is being researched or presented. The desire among academic elites to circle the wagons around their pet projects and causes can be highly ideological, and ideology is not inherently bad. However, at the same time, government funding and professional prestige are also capable of guiding a) the direction of research, b) the publicity of discovery (or lack of), and c) this kind of power can keep the wall high enough to marginalize its skeptics. The wall which marginalizes skeptics is constructed by the power brokers – the handful of Department Chairs at a university, or team of pre-selected peer reviewers, or a group of journal editors who unwittingly, for good or for ill, have been appointed to pull the puppet strings on scientific hermeneutics.
That’s the world we live in. Just don’t say it too loud... because if some of them hear you, there is a chance one or two might find a way to keep you on the outside, looking in like a marginalized crazy dissident. And in the places such individuals can’t keep you out, with enough forewarning, they might just hit “DELETE” key, leaving you with a bag full of questions and no data from which to answer them.
