Plan to defend against war on science

Posted 9 October 2016 by Matt Young

I just received an e-mail (along with half a million of my best friends) from Shawn Otto, the founder of sciencedebate.org, touting his recent article, "A plan to defend against the war on science," in Scientific American. I thought it was a good article, but a plan it is not; the "plan" shows up in the second-last paragraph and says only,

There are solutions, however. Sciencedebates.org [sic] is certainly a start. Evidence shows the public is hungry for such discussion of science-driven issues--which affect voters at least as much as the economics, foreign policy, and faith and values issues candidates traditionally discuss--that afford an opportunity to hold candidates to account on the evidence. Individuals can join and support organizations like ScienceDebate.org or the Union of Concerned Scientists that fight for scientific integrity. Pastors and preachers can certainly do more by staying informed of cutting-edge science and helping their parishioners parse the complex moral and ethical implications of new knowledge instead of rehashing old political divides. Educators can develop model curricula and provide training for science-civics classes at the secondary and postsecondary level so that nonscience students develop an understanding of how science works in public policy as well as how it relates to their daily lives. There are dozens of others. I discuss many of these solutions in my new book, The War on Science.

I would like to have seen all that fleshed out at the beginning, not the end, of the article. And I keep asking myself, yes, they can, but will they? Still, I thought it was a good article, a good primer on science denial for political reasons from both the left and the right, and even a bit of a primer on postmodernism. So read the article and support sciencedebate.org.

6 Comments

harold · 9 October 2016

I saw this Scientific American article and thought it looked great, with a few minor friendly critiques.

1) Although the article was mainly accurate, it did contain the common error of suggesting that vaccine denial originated on or is associated with "the political left". To the best of my knowledge Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, and other vaccine denial "experts" are NOT associated with "the left". There has been some soft pandering to it by Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, but not by any Democratic politician I am aware of, and Stein's pandering, although more than I can tolerate, is pretty mild. Vaccine denial is current more right wing than progressive trend, as well.

2) The demand for GMO labels is mildly silly and is from progressives for the most part, but having said that I can't see any strong argument against businesses providing consumers with product information that consumers want. This issue is so trivial that it is somewhat insulting to bring it up in the context of discussing vaccine denial, evolution denial, and climate change denial. This is a consumer issue. While obsessing over GMO foods does imply personal lack of familiarity with the science and technology involved, no-one is denying that the genes exist or have the desired effect. Of minor interest, the existence of GMO foods argues against certain creationist claims, but that's not totally relevant to this thread.

3) While I strongly agree that "cell phones causing cancer" is unlikely to be a public health issue of any significance, it actually has not been excluded that cell phone use may be a weak risk factor for rare types of head and neck neoplasm. We're talking about possible mildly increased risk for very rare events. The amount of data needed to resolve this to statistic significance is huge. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-016-5227-1 Naturally, the public health problem of texting while driving is the main significant threat from cell phones.

4) I don't recall seeing tobacco/health denial in the article, even though that old right wing standby has been revived with the adoption of "vaping". I don't recall seeing HIV denial mentioned in the article, even though it's still going strong.

5) The most severe flaw, and I was deeply disappointed to see it, was a gross exaggeration of that imaginary bugbear, academics teaching "post modernism" who claim that all "ways of knowing" are equal. Yet as nearly always, no citation of such claims was provided. Let alone any evidence that even if such claims are made, they have any relevance whatsoever to public attitudes about science. Why don't we all just admit right now that this is not a significant issue? Does the Kentucky legislature reference post-modern academics when they give Ken Ham tax breaks? Does Lamar Smith ground his climate science witch hunt in a rationale that "all ways of knowing are equal" or make reference to post-modern academics? In the future, if we are going to reference this, why don't we provide, not only citations, but evidence that the cited material had more impact than, say, the impact of an untreated schizophrenic making a speech on a corner?

There is no contemporary equivalence. Contemporary US science denial is dominated by the political right. It isn't "more fair" to search for false equivalence, it's "more fair" to admit reality.

Overall, though, I thought the article was excellent.

Mike Elzinga · 9 October 2016

The article is excellent; however, creating an effective plan to systematically educate the public is going to face severe attacks not only from hacking and denial-of-service attacks, but from nasty personal attacks on anyone who presents an effective debunking of the socio/political pseudoscience that is being promulgated by all sorts of sectarian and business special interests. These people can turn really nasty mean when they are exposed for who they really are; just look at what is going on with Trump and the Republican Party right now. Itâs anybodyâs guess if rationality and evidence-driven policies will ever emerge from the total intellectual rot that has taken over the Republican Party.

The forces of ignorance are given a much lower bar; all they need is innuendo repeated over and over despite the complete lack of evidence, real or manufactured, for their histrionic claims. Their âenemiesâ are required to catch them red-handed in shocking lies and behaviors that can be shown on television over and over before anyone starts to suppose that something is amiss with the arguments against science.

Apparently this is the world we are now living in; and it requires not only a solid handle on the concepts of science and their potential implications for future policy, it also requires a powerful new form of debating jujitsu that can take down the charlatans of ignorance in emotionally powerful ways that people will remember and learn from.

TomS · 9 October 2016

How does one convince people that it is in their own best interest to think?

Dave Luckett · 10 October 2016

On the public podium, in actual debate, what is required on the side of science is a combination of qualities, rare in themselves and almost mutually exclusive anyway. The champions of science must be both familiar with the actual science AND with the perversions of it that these people peddle, and simultaneously, must be instinctive AND prepared debaters, even polemicists, sure of manner, possessed of the witty one-liner, able to take falsehoods at the volley, capable of thinking on their feet, instantly possessed of the telling fact, and prepared with well-researched refutations to all the standard lies. Their presentations and rebuttals will include graphic material that can be displayed on media that the entire audience can see, and this material must be deeply familiar to the speaker, as must be the method of selecting and displaying it. That is, they must have the software skills and the systems in place to do it as well as the material itself.

Good scientists of the relevant fields are above all people unlikely to have the second of these two disparate skill-sets. They are even rather unlikely to have the second half of the first set: they do good science, and they will tend to boggle at the idiocies presented to them. But more: if they are used to speaking in public at all, it is to present technical papers to knowledgeable audiences. They will be facing gatherings that will be salted with coached stooges who lead claques. They are used to colleagues who understand how the technical aspects work, and why. They will be facing audiences the average member of which thinks an isotope is one of those squiggly lines on a weather map.

The requirements are so diverse and the disadvantages so severe that I think only a truly extraordinary performer could do it. I have yet to see such a one. Bill Nye didn't have the go-for-the-throat controlled aggression of an instinctive debater. Laurence Krause also misses on speaking manner, and comes across as disdainful and elitist. Aron Ra will be instantly rejected by most uncommitted-tending-conservative people who are actually prepared to consider the arguments just on the way he looks, and anyway is more interested in arguing for atheism. I have seen various others that I forget, and I didn't think were successful.

I think it could only be done with a team. Researcher, technician, presenter. Even perhaps a shorthand writer, to record the creationist lies verbatim so that they can be directly used to skewer them. But this is prohibitively expensive and exorbitant in time costs, and far too elaborate. I don't know the answer.

I therefore understand and sympathise with the usual answer: debating creationists is a waste of time and effort. It only gives them oxygen, and the old saw about wrestling a pig in mud applies. And yet I think it must be done, or they win. The head post to this string makes that argument. I think that it is right to do so.

eric · 10 October 2016

harold said: 2) The demand for GMO labels is mildly silly and is from progressives for the most part, but having said that I can't see any strong argument against businesses providing consumers with product information that consumers want.

Labeling creates a perception that the government thinks the information on the label is important and that consumers *should* consider it in decision-making; it gives an imprimatur that the information matters for health. But in this case, that's misleading. AIUI, the argument from the 'opposed' side is that you're basically creating an implied warning label on a product that doesn't deserve it. Having said that, I agree with you. Weighing the pros and cons of giving consumers the label information they want vs. actively denying them some information based on the risk it might misinform, its probably still better overall to give them the label that they want. Actively denying them information they've requested seems IMO to be a greater government ill. A more technical but possibly more realistic concern is that, unless the definitions are regulated and the products are inspected by government, the label is misleading in the sense that the product inside may not match the outside. A person who makes a social decision not to eat GM food is going to be angry and unhappy with a system where Monsanto gets to decide on its own which Monsanto products get that label, because now they can't trust a "GM free!" label to be actually GM free. They're going to want an independent regulator to oversee the labeling. But that costs money, which gets pushed along to consumers. So accurate and objective labeling may impose a price hike that consumers may not like. Not to mention the constant problem of people demanding government do more things while demanding Congress shrink government workforce and resources. Well. That was much ado about what I agree with you is a minor issue. :)

Palaeonictis · 18 October 2016

Mike Elzinga said: The article is excellent; however, creating an effective plan to systematically educate the public is going to face severe attacks not only from hacking and denial-of-service attacks, but from nasty personal attacks on anyone who presents an effective debunking of the socio/political pseudoscience that is being promulgated by all sorts of sectarian and business special interests. These people can turn really nasty mean when they are exposed for who they really are; just look at what is going on with Trump and the Republican Party right now. Itâs anybodyâs guess if rationality and evidence-driven policies will ever emerge from the total intellectual rot that has taken over the Republican Party. The forces of ignorance are given a much lower bar; all they need is innuendo repeated over and over despite the complete lack of evidence, real or manufactured, for their histrionic claims. Their âenemiesâ are required to catch them red-handed in shocking lies and behaviors that can be shown on television over and over before anyone starts to suppose that something is amiss with the arguments against science. Apparently this is the world we are now living in; and it requires not only a solid handle on the concepts of science and their potential implications for future policy, it also requires a powerful new form of debating jujitsu that can take down the charlatans of ignorance in emotionally powerful ways that people will remember and learn from.

The forces of ignorance are strong, willful ignorance is a powerful ill, the clergy have an immeasurable effect on their flock, all one needs to see are those crazy televangelist scams, and they use plenty of mind tricks to control and dupe their flock. If one is to truly combat ignorance, you must educate them or give them a motive to do so themselves, that said, many people are more concerned about getting food on their table than an education on a topic not useful towards getting said food on their table, unless one is a scientist or science teacher, in which it is different. There is a reason they call it 'willful ignorance', after all.