Disagreeing with someone’s politics and saying “my disagreement should be listened to because being a scientist makes me an authority” is misusing your scientific credentials.
It sounds as if you expect me to disagree with that, but I’ve no idea why.
(Did you think I was claiming that the people Motl is criticizing were making that claim but not misusing their scientific credentials? I wasn’t, and in fact my opinion is almost exactly the opposite: they weren’t making quite that claim—see below—but what they did say still amounts to misusing their scientific credentials.)
I agree that at one point in Motl’s post he argues that the scientists he’s disagreeing with have misused their scientific credentials. But most of his post (including the bit quoted by VoR above) is not making any such argument, it’s just saying how he thinks their political position is wrong.
To expand on my parenthesis above: The open letter Motl is objecting to doesn’t quite say “being a scientist makes me an authority”, though it certainly leans in that direction. Its opening section says (I paraphrase): “We are scientists. We ought to be good at thinking clearly”. It doesn’t take the extra step and say that they are good at thinking clearly, still less that whatever they say must be right.
This is very widespread in global warming debates. “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented because science”.
I was hoping for concrete examples of people saying things along the lines of “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented”.
What I see plenty of is climate scientists saying “Here is what I think is the current state of scientific knowledge about the climate. Now here is what I think should be done about it.” but there’s nothing wrong with that. (I take it we are agreed that climate scientists aren’t uniquely disqualified by their scientific expertise from holding political or economic opinions.)
But I don’t see a lot of people claiming that scientific expertise gives them the right to prescribe policy. E.g., the first thing I found when looking for what Jim Hansen has said and written in connection with the policy implications of climate science was this near the start of which he says: “I do not attempt to define policy,which is up to the people and their elected representatives, and I don’t criticize policies. The climate science has policy relevance, but I let the facts speak for themselves about consequences for policy-makers.” which seems exactly right. (Of course he might be being insincere there, but I don’t know of any particular reason to think he is.)
It looks to me as if Hansen (1) has strong opinions about what should be done about climate change, (2) is not shy about expressing those opinions, but (3) doesn’t claim that anyone should agree with those opinions because he’s a climate scientist. (He does also (4) claim that people should pay attention to what he says about the science because he’s a climate scientist; that seems obviously reasonable.)
But I haven’t by any means read everything Hansen (or anyone else) has said and written on this theme. Again: examples?
It’s rare that you have such a direct statement like you see in Ghostbusters :-) Generally there is reliance on the halo effect—“Here is the problem and this is what should be done about it” implies that if you are an expert in the problem, you are also an expert in solutions to that problem.
Hereare a couple of Hansen examples. Notice that in the first one he is very direct about what should be done, while in the second he is arguing against the Iowa coal plant explicitly as a scientist.
Of course most of these people are not stupid. No one claims “the right to prescribe policy”.
Imagine that someone is an expert climate scientist, thinks that anthropogenic climate change is a big problem, and has strong opinions about what should be done about it. How, in your view, can they go about agitating for the action they think should be taken, without doing anything you would characterize as “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented because science”?
It’s rare that you have such a direct statement [...] Generally there is reliance on the halo effect [...] No one claims “the right to prescribe policy”
But aren’t the things you’re now saying “of course” no one does exactly the things that would actually be improper if done? I mean, it’s obviously unobjectionable (right?) for a climate scientist who holds strong opinions on these matters to engage in the same sort of advocacy as anyone else might. The point at which what they’re doing becomes improper is exactly the point at which they start going out of their way to have people believe what they say about policy because they’re expert on the science.
And that’s what you claimed was commonplace in discussions of climate change:
This is very widespread in global warming debates. “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented because science”.
but are now saying that of course no one does. What am I missing here?
in the first one he is very direct about what should be done
Indeed he is. And in the first one he at no point says anything remotely resembling “you should agree with me about policy because I am an expert in climate science”. What do you think he has actually done wrong here?
in the second he is arguing against the Iowa coal plant explicitly as a scientist
He was asked about his scientific credentials and experience, and he answered the questions as he was legally obliged to do.
The great majority of his testimony is about strictly scientific questions: if we do X, what do we expect to happen? Most of the rest is about what you might term semi-scientific questions: If we want Y not to happen, what do we need to do? (As e.g. on page 26.) In a few places (e.g., on page 31) he goes further and just says “we should do Z”. But at no point, so far as I noticed (the document is 59 pages long and I haven’t read all of it carefully), did he make any attempt to say “you should agree with me about policy because I am a scientist”.
Sigh. I don’t have a particular wish to stand around that dead equine again and fisk it :-/
What am I missing here?
Mostly, two things. First, normal non-pedantic use of English language. I am not asking for a charitable reading, I’m asking for a normal reading. Conversations along the lines of “—Everyone was at that party! -- Everyone? But there are seven billion people in the world...” aren’t very useful. Second, many ways of asserting authority that do not involve literally saying “I’m a scientist so you should sit down, shut up, and listen to what I’m telling you”.
So far as I can tell, that’s just what I’m engaging in, and I think you can only portray me as doing something else by reading me much more uncharitably and, frankly, unfairly than I am reading you. I would prefer you not to do that, however useful it may be as a rhetorical technique.
I am not saying “no one has used the literal exact words you specified” or anything like that; I am saying the following things:
I do not see lots of people making improper claims of authority in the way you describe, implicitly or explicitly.
The examples you yourself have selected don’t look to me as if the people involved are doing so.
I do see people claiming scientific authority when they make scientific claims, saying explicitly that their scientific expertise doesn’t entitle them to make policy, but not taking really heroic measures to stop people weighing their political opinions more highly because of their scientific expertise. I do not think there is anything improper in that.
I’m not even sure that if their listeners do that they are making a mistake. Expertise on the underlying facts should confer some extra credibility on opinions about policy. What would be wrong is giving more credence to a scientist’s policy opinions than you would give to those of someone else equally well informed about the science. Maybe people do do that, but it’s not obvious.
(I wasn’t formerly saying this out loud, because I’m mostly a polite sort of chap, but it is in fact my opinion:)
I uncharitably suspect that what is actually happening is that you regard merely being a scientist and talking about global warming as claiming scientific authority—at least when what the person in question is saying clashes with your own political position.
I repeat: my disagreement with you is not a matter of observing that no one has used the exact words you put in quotation marks. It is not even a matter of observing that no one has said anything equivalent to those words. We apparently disagree about whether anyone does anything that could without grotesque unfairness be described using those words.
The discussion, recall, was about abuse of scientific authority. To be abusing scientific authority, it is not enough to be a scientist and express strong opinions. Nor even to say “I am a scientist”, talk about the science in which one is an expert, and express some opinions on the way. What constitutes abuse of scientific authority (it seems to me) is going out of one’s way to encourage people to weigh your opinions more heavily than they would because you are a scientist. And that is what I think you are wrong to claim is commonplace in global-warming debates.
(I have the impression that you’re suggesting not only that it’s commonplace in those debates but that it’s particularly common on one side of them. At any rate, all your examples just happen to come from one side. My own impression is that people on the other side are at least as likely to exaggerate or outright misrepresent the scope of their expertise, but I have no statistics to back that up.)
many ways of asserting authority [...]
Sure. But only some of the things I think you are characterizing that way are in any way abuses of scientific authority, or in any way dishonest.
If all you’re saying is that climate scientists talking about global warming will not usually go far out of their way to stop other people thinking they’re credible on policy because of a general halo effect around science, then I think you are being grossly unreasonable in picking them out as an example. It is very unusual for anyone to go far out of their way to discourage other people from thinking them more credible than they should.
On the other hand, if you’re saying that they go out of their way to encourage other people to give them more credence on policy matters than they deserve, then I repeat: Show me some concrete examples.
Disagreeing with someone’s politics and saying “my disagreement should be listened to because being a scientist makes me an authority” is misusing your scientific credentials.
It sounds as if you expect me to disagree with that, but I’ve no idea why.
(Did you think I was claiming that the people Motl is criticizing were making that claim but not misusing their scientific credentials? I wasn’t, and in fact my opinion is almost exactly the opposite: they weren’t making quite that claim—see below—but what they did say still amounts to misusing their scientific credentials.)
I agree that at one point in Motl’s post he argues that the scientists he’s disagreeing with have misused their scientific credentials. But most of his post (including the bit quoted by VoR above) is not making any such argument, it’s just saying how he thinks their political position is wrong.
To expand on my parenthesis above: The open letter Motl is objecting to doesn’t quite say “being a scientist makes me an authority”, though it certainly leans in that direction. Its opening section says (I paraphrase): “We are scientists. We ought to be good at thinking clearly”. It doesn’t take the extra step and say that they are good at thinking clearly, still less that whatever they say must be right.
This is very widespread in global warming debates. “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented because science”.
Could you give a few examples?
Jim Hansen is the most well-known, I think. But you can also take a look e.g. here.
I was hoping for concrete examples of people saying things along the lines of “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented”.
What I see plenty of is climate scientists saying “Here is what I think is the current state of scientific knowledge about the climate. Now here is what I think should be done about it.” but there’s nothing wrong with that. (I take it we are agreed that climate scientists aren’t uniquely disqualified by their scientific expertise from holding political or economic opinions.)
But I don’t see a lot of people claiming that scientific expertise gives them the right to prescribe policy. E.g., the first thing I found when looking for what Jim Hansen has said and written in connection with the policy implications of climate science was this near the start of which he says: “I do not attempt to define policy,which is up to the people and their elected representatives, and I don’t criticize policies. The climate science has policy relevance, but I let the facts speak for themselves about consequences for policy-makers.” which seems exactly right. (Of course he might be being insincere there, but I don’t know of any particular reason to think he is.)
It looks to me as if Hansen (1) has strong opinions about what should be done about climate change, (2) is not shy about expressing those opinions, but (3) doesn’t claim that anyone should agree with those opinions because he’s a climate scientist. (He does also (4) claim that people should pay attention to what he says about the science because he’s a climate scientist; that seems obviously reasonable.)
But I haven’t by any means read everything Hansen (or anyone else) has said and written on this theme. Again: examples?
It’s rare that you have such a direct statement like you see in Ghostbusters :-) Generally there is reliance on the halo effect—“Here is the problem and this is what should be done about it” implies that if you are an expert in the problem, you are also an expert in solutions to that problem.
Here are a couple of Hansen examples. Notice that in the first one he is very direct about what should be done, while in the second he is arguing against the Iowa coal plant explicitly as a scientist.
Of course most of these people are not stupid. No one claims “the right to prescribe policy”.
Imagine that someone is an expert climate scientist, thinks that anthropogenic climate change is a big problem, and has strong opinions about what should be done about it. How, in your view, can they go about agitating for the action they think should be taken, without doing anything you would characterize as “I am a climate scientist, therefore my ideas about economics and politics should be immediately implemented because science”?
But aren’t the things you’re now saying “of course” no one does exactly the things that would actually be improper if done? I mean, it’s obviously unobjectionable (right?) for a climate scientist who holds strong opinions on these matters to engage in the same sort of advocacy as anyone else might. The point at which what they’re doing becomes improper is exactly the point at which they start going out of their way to have people believe what they say about policy because they’re expert on the science.
And that’s what you claimed was commonplace in discussions of climate change:
but are now saying that of course no one does. What am I missing here?
Indeed he is. And in the first one he at no point says anything remotely resembling “you should agree with me about policy because I am an expert in climate science”. What do you think he has actually done wrong here?
He was asked about his scientific credentials and experience, and he answered the questions as he was legally obliged to do.
The great majority of his testimony is about strictly scientific questions: if we do X, what do we expect to happen? Most of the rest is about what you might term semi-scientific questions: If we want Y not to happen, what do we need to do? (As e.g. on page 26.) In a few places (e.g., on page 31) he goes further and just says “we should do Z”. But at no point, so far as I noticed (the document is 59 pages long and I haven’t read all of it carefully), did he make any attempt to say “you should agree with me about policy because I am a scientist”.
Sigh. I don’t have a particular wish to stand around that dead equine again and fisk it :-/
Mostly, two things. First, normal non-pedantic use of English language. I am not asking for a charitable reading, I’m asking for a normal reading. Conversations along the lines of “—Everyone was at that party! -- Everyone? But there are seven billion people in the world...” aren’t very useful. Second, many ways of asserting authority that do not involve literally saying “I’m a scientist so you should sit down, shut up, and listen to what I’m telling you”.
So far as I can tell, that’s just what I’m engaging in, and I think you can only portray me as doing something else by reading me much more uncharitably and, frankly, unfairly than I am reading you. I would prefer you not to do that, however useful it may be as a rhetorical technique.
I am not saying “no one has used the literal exact words you specified” or anything like that; I am saying the following things:
I do not see lots of people making improper claims of authority in the way you describe, implicitly or explicitly.
The examples you yourself have selected don’t look to me as if the people involved are doing so.
I do see people claiming scientific authority when they make scientific claims, saying explicitly that their scientific expertise doesn’t entitle them to make policy, but not taking really heroic measures to stop people weighing their political opinions more highly because of their scientific expertise. I do not think there is anything improper in that.
I’m not even sure that if their listeners do that they are making a mistake. Expertise on the underlying facts should confer some extra credibility on opinions about policy. What would be wrong is giving more credence to a scientist’s policy opinions than you would give to those of someone else equally well informed about the science. Maybe people do do that, but it’s not obvious.
(I wasn’t formerly saying this out loud, because I’m mostly a polite sort of chap, but it is in fact my opinion:)
I uncharitably suspect that what is actually happening is that you regard merely being a scientist and talking about global warming as claiming scientific authority—at least when what the person in question is saying clashes with your own political position.
I repeat: my disagreement with you is not a matter of observing that no one has used the exact words you put in quotation marks. It is not even a matter of observing that no one has said anything equivalent to those words. We apparently disagree about whether anyone does anything that could without grotesque unfairness be described using those words.
The discussion, recall, was about abuse of scientific authority. To be abusing scientific authority, it is not enough to be a scientist and express strong opinions. Nor even to say “I am a scientist”, talk about the science in which one is an expert, and express some opinions on the way. What constitutes abuse of scientific authority (it seems to me) is going out of one’s way to encourage people to weigh your opinions more heavily than they would because you are a scientist. And that is what I think you are wrong to claim is commonplace in global-warming debates.
(I have the impression that you’re suggesting not only that it’s commonplace in those debates but that it’s particularly common on one side of them. At any rate, all your examples just happen to come from one side. My own impression is that people on the other side are at least as likely to exaggerate or outright misrepresent the scope of their expertise, but I have no statistics to back that up.)
Sure. But only some of the things I think you are characterizing that way are in any way abuses of scientific authority, or in any way dishonest.
If all you’re saying is that climate scientists talking about global warming will not usually go far out of their way to stop other people thinking they’re credible on policy because of a general halo effect around science, then I think you are being grossly unreasonable in picking them out as an example. It is very unusual for anyone to go far out of their way to discourage other people from thinking them more credible than they should.
On the other hand, if you’re saying that they go out of their way to encourage other people to give them more credence on policy matters than they deserve, then I repeat: Show me some concrete examples.