In a recent article in The New York Times, Andy Revkin talks about the whiplash effect:
When science is testing new ideas, the result is often a two-papers-forward-one-paper-back intellectual tussle among competing research teams.
When the work touches on issues that worry the public, affect the economy or polarize politics, the news media and advocates of all stripes dive in. Under nonstop scrutiny, conflicting findings can make news coverage veer from one extreme to another, resulting in a kind of journalistic whiplash for the public.
An understanding of how science works sheds a lot of light on this problem.
Scientists work at the turbulent interface between what we know and what we do not know. At that turbulent interface, scientists are constantly putting forward new ideas to extend the scientific community's understanding. These new ideas are then tested by other members of the scientific community. Bad ideas wither and die while good ideas survive. Eventually, after an idea has survived replication and other testing long enough, it comes to be accepted (a scientific consensus exists that this idea is correct).
For example, quantum mechanics was put forward to explain puzzling observations at the atomic scale. After concerted testing by the scientific community, a consensus has grown up that quantum mechanics is a correct description of nature.
Once consensus has been reached on an idea, the turbulent interface moves on to the next unanswered question. Arguments about the fundamental correctness of quantum mechanics, for example, are no longer interesting, and the scientific community no longer works on that. Instead, the community is working on some of the unanswered details of quantum mechanics.
If one focuses on the turbulent interface, science always looks uncertain because, by definition, the turbulent interface exists where the science is uncertain.
Because the turbulent interface is the focus of the scientific community, it is also, unfortunately or not, the focus of the media. And this can give the general public a view of science that is more uncertain than reality.
In climate change science, there is lots that we don't know. We don't know with precision how precipitation will change as the climate warms, or how climate change will vary from one region to another over the next century, or exactly how clouds and aerosols affect each other, etc.
One should not take this to mean that our knowledge of the climate is poor. In fact, our understanding of the climate is quite good. We know that greenhouse gases warm our planet. We know that changing greenhouse gases have been associated with changing climate on most timescales over the last hundred million years at least. We also know that humans are increasing the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Given the paleoclimate record, as well as simulations from climate models, we can expect warming of several degrees Celsius over the next century if atmospheric greenhouse gas abundance continues to grow throughout this century.
Since these observations are well known, they are generally not at the center of the scientific debate. Rather, the scientific community is working to expand our understanding of the details of the theory of climate.
The whiplash effect does not work in isolation, but is reinforced by the denial industry and their agenda of pushing "uncertainty."
The ultimate solution is for the general public to become more savvy about how science works. Arguments about Greenland ice melts should not cast doubt on the fundamental certainty of climate change. In the meantime, I'm not terribly optimistic that things will improve.
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
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jfleck Posted 12:35 am
19 Aug 2008
This would be nice, but having toiled in these trenches for years and also looked at the data on public understanding of science, I think it's fair to say that this is a false hope.
This is a specific case of a more general argument: "If the general public became more savvy about X, then the problem at hand would be easier to solve." This argument is made about a huge range of issues. The problem is that most people are not savvy about most things, and never will be. What we need, I think, is a set of solutions that are robust to this reality.
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Andrew Dessler Posted 1:01 am
19 Aug 2008
My point is actually somewhat different. I am not saying that the general public needs to know more about the specific issue of climate science, but rather that the general public needs to be better educated about how science works. If you understand how science as a social system works, then you can decode much of the debate even if you don't understand the technical details of the science. That was one of the main goals (and themes) of my book.
While it may be that that's an unrealistic expectation, I think that as long as people don't understand how science works, we leave open the opportunity for climate denialists and their ilk to drag the debate into gridlock with their uncertainty agenda.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:27 am
19 Aug 2008
Even explaining how science works needs translation into terms that people who have no interest in quantum mechanics can understand.
How about this: The mechanic you took your car to says it needs a new flavum valve and it will cost 600 bucks. You take it to the dealer, the service manager says it will cost 1200.
You call your friend who is a mechanic, he says there is no such thing as a flavum valve and you are being scammed. All these experts disagree, but you need your car fixed.
So what do you do? With no regulation of scamming, this is the norm. Most car owners are familiar with this.
They need to find an honest mechanic.
We need honest scientists that come together and give us their best practical guess on what is happening, then choose their best guess of which technologies will solve the problem.
Scientists that hire out to the highest bidder and parrot what is expected won't do. Take your climate to the coal, nuclear, or fuel farming dealership and you are screwed. Take it to the scientists for hire that work for half the dealer scam prices and you are still screwed.
Obama is going to have to find some honest mechanics for US. He can do it. With our informed help.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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314159265 Posted 2:09 am
19 Aug 2008
If you want to make a career in science you need to be honest and not make up things.
There are, of course, mercenary/ prostitute scientists (e.g. S Fred Singer, Pat Michaels), but they don't do science, but BSing.
Mars J. Pictor Florifulgurator, Western Bavarian Forest.
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jfleck Posted 9:23 am
19 Aug 2008
Sorry for being less than clear. It was precisely my point that a public savvy about how science works is unlikely to be achieved, and we need approaches robust to that reality.
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David Roberts Posted 1:28 pm
19 Aug 2008
grist.org
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