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Benefit of the Doubt

Mixing scientific and political debate is a dangerous recipe

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

April 9, 2010

I'm not a scientist. As much as I pride myself on interpreting and understanding the news, stories about science and scientific claims often leave me baffled and unsure as to whom I should believe. I don't mean that I'm so confused as to think intelligent design is credible or that evolution isn't fact, but confused enough to be skeptical of the latest scientific study.

Science, and the types of claims it makes, is different than most political dialogue. The role that government should play in our lives, the economic policy that will benefit the greatest number of people, and the cultural norms that should be established is the stuff politics is typically made of. If I have questions about these things, I can discuss them with my friends and family to educate myself about the issues until I form an opinion.

Science isn't quite like that though. One doesn't change scientific facts based on grass roots coalitions. So why do politicians and pundits treat science like just another punching bag to be melded to their purposes?

Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh are equally ill-equipped to make claims about science, yet neither of them hesitates to do so. And often the facts they cite are contradictory, making it impossible for anyone to know who is right and who is wrong. (We can't base our science simply on our party affiliation.)

We need a better system to include science in the public discourse. Currently, anyone can cite any study they want and the media either lacks the time, energy, or knowledge to check the methodological rigors of that study. New studies and scientific claims are best proven or disproven when the scientific community reviews and replicates the findings of their peers. But that system either is not complete enough or not respected enough. We routinely have our two political parties claiming opposite truths about the same issue, global warming being the best example.

How am I, or are any of us, supposed to know whether global warming is a fact the way gravity is a fact? You can't take a poll of America to find out whether global warming is real or not. An issue of pure research and study has become so political that there's no good way to tell what's what.

The right and left have clearly selected their scientific beliefs about the existence of global warming. Unsurprisingly, each political party has selected the scientific theory on the matter that reinforces their other political positions most completely.

Republicans, ever the economic opportunists, see market destruction, and therefore the end of modern society, if we try to seriously regulate carbon and fossil fuels. Democrats, many of whom are environmentalists and organic food shoppers, think we are pillaging the Earth of all its life and that global warming is just another reminder that we need be more responsible inhabitants of the world.

It's too convenient that the scientists each party depends on so completely and conveniently reinforce the beliefs each party already has. There either is global warming or there isn't. This has something to do with humanity's use of the Earth or it doesn't. Most of us don't have the Ph.D. required to evaluate the immense amount of research done on the issue.

There's also a history of abusing science to motivate people. Remember that we only had 20 years left of oil as of the 1970s and, according to the Paul Ehrlich's widely read 1968 book "The Population Bomb," Earth was going to be plagued by massive starvation due to overpopulation and a lack of food in the 1970s and 1980s. Running out of oil and overpopulation might be very real problems today, but they did not turn into the crises that pop science at one point promised.

There have been instances where science, through popular culture, made dramatic shifts in laws that were really important. Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring," which illustrated the horrible environmental problems of DDT and other pesticides in 1962, is one of the best examples of this.

Today, when someone asks you whether or not you think global warming exists, they aren't asking you a scientific question but a political one. Conservatives don't think global warming is a hoax because they know it to be, but because they reject the political implications it has. Liberals hold global warming up as a banner because speaking in scientific, and therefore hegemonic, terms makes their political claims seem irrefutable.

Politically, I'm sympathetic to global warming. As a movement, it seeks to diversify the types of energy we use, ending our dependence on foreign dictatorships we hate and makes all of our energy use more efficient while cutting pollution.

Global warming also calls us all to be more aware of the types of materials with which we surround ourselves. It asks us to not just recycle, but buy more wisely and make what we have last a little longer. Finally, it compels us to reclaim our food from large corporations that don't care about our health and well-being and bring it into our communities and states so that we end unsustainable ideas of food transportation and production. These are good goals that are convincing without ever mentioning global warming.

If you were asked if global warming were true, what would you say? And why would you think that? I don't fault anyone for being swayed by the science and politics of their party. I do fault those that believe that global warming is either complete myth or absolute fact when most people hadn't heard about it fifteen years ago.

Quite honestly, I don't know what we do to make science a question of fact rather than preference in the debate over global warming (or any other scientific debate for that matter).

I don't know how we bring science to the public without allowing the public to erroneously question science. We need to put science on a pedestal. Our politicians and pundits should debate how to best respond to the conclusions of science, not the science itself.

My point is less to raise skepticism over global warming but how precisely we all came to the beliefs about global warming that we did. Was it through our political beliefs or through objective, scientific inquiry?

You might think that global warming is settled science at this point, but the question remains as to how the debate over it played out and how debates over science should play out in the future. Science itself should not be infused with politics. It's too important for that.

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