Postnormality of climate science: On the interface of science and society - PowerPoint Presentation

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Postnormality of climate science: On the interface of science and society

Hans von Storch

Geesthacht, Hamburg, and 青岛

18 June 2020

ZOOM-seminar at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Quotes from a recent article in NYT, 14 June 2020

''We shouldn't have published this," XXX said of the study appearing in the N.E.J.M. “We should have had reviewers who would recognize the problem."… called the paper retracted by his journal a ''fabrication'' and ''a monumental fraud." … there is an urgent need to rapidly publish new findings to improve treatments for desperately ill coronavirus patients. Since the pandemic began, N.E.J.M. has fielded as many as 200 submissions in a day

''At our editorial meetings, this comes up almost every day. 'If we publish this, will it hurt people?' That's our biggest concern.“A report in one of these journals can have immediate repercussions both for patients and for research. After [the] initial publication of the study concluding that the antimalarial drugs … endangered the lives of coronavirus patients, the World Health Organization and other groups halted clinical trials of the drugs while safety reviews were conducted.Journals used to take many months … to scrutinize and edit a complicated study, a process that included several weeks for outside experts to peer review the research. Now peer review may be condensed to as little as 48 hours; some studies deemed of vital importance to patients may be published online within 20 days of submission. … ''There is always a tension between getting it fast and getting it right," said another former editor in chief of the N .E.J.M. ''I always favored getting it right. But in the current pandemic, that balance may have shifted too far toward getting it fast.“

Both retracted studies were lead by XXX, a widely published and highly regarded professor of medicine at Harvard … editors and reviewers do know who the study authors are, and that may bias them. XXX is well respected in science.

Th politicization … may have played a role. …

Mr Trump had vigorously endorsed [the antimalaria drugs] as both preventive and curative treatment. The study’s conclusion at first appeared to rebuke the president.

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The work and discussions, which I am reporting at his occasion result from more than two decades of work with Dr. Dennis Bray, a sociologist by training, who bravely survived 20 years of a professional live among natural scientists. He is now retired and has withdrawn to the forests of British Columbia. In the course of time, we conducted five „Bray and von Storch“-surveys among international samples of climate scientists – in 1996, 2001, 2007, 2013 and 2015. The data of all, but the last, are freely accessible through “academia.edu”. Also the results in terms of response frequencies for all questions have been published as HZG-reports, archived at academia.edu.

The analysis of the data of the first survey, from 1996, lead us to our suggestion that climate science would be “post-normal”, or as I prefer to say: “in post-normal conditions”:Bray, D. and H. von Storch, 1999: Climate

Science. An empirical example of postnormal science. Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 80: 439-456. The following is discusses ideas on the significance of the postnormal conditions, which climate science finds itself in. Note – I am talking about climate science in post-normal societal conditions; it is not the science with is post-normal, but its functioning in such conditions. This is likely a bit different from how the original proposers of the term, Silvio Funtovicz and Jerry Ravetz, in the 1980 introduced the term. However, as Ravetz told me, they deliberately were a bit vague abut the term and what it means.

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Truth and CUDOSWhen scientists speak to the public, then scientific statements are expected to present “truth”. Scientists enjoy authority based on their “objectivity”. Society presumes that something like Merton‘s norms (CUDOS) are employed. This is so only to a limited extent (Bray-surveys)

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Natural scientists consider statements as scientific …when they have been derived by employing a scientific method- have „survived“ falsification,

- have out-competed alternative explanations- can be reproduced by independent researcherswhen it is made clear that the statements do not represent “truth” but explanations, which for the time being are consistent with observations and theories considered valid, and better than other alternative explanations. At a later time, a re-consideration may be needed if new data and theories lead to contradictions or make better fitting explanations possible.

But not when formulated by scientifically educated people, who do not employ the scientific method (for instance, do no consider alternative explanations, or opt for an explanation because of consistency with a specific school of research).

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Robert K.

Merton‘s CUDOS (1942)

Communalism: the common ownership of scientific discoveries, according to which scientists give up intellectual property rights in exchange for recognition and esteem. Universalism: according to which claims to truth are evaluated in terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on the basis of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality.

D

isinterestedness: scientists, when presenting their work publicly, should do so without any prejudice or personal values and do so in an impersonal manner.

Organized skepticism: all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community (peer review) scrutiny.

Using the results of an the 2013 on-line survey of climate scientists concerning the norms of science, the climate scientists’ subscription to these norms are explored in this paper: Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015: The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists. Science and Engineering Ethics, DOI 10.1007/s11948-014-9605-1

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Disinterestedness Versus InterestednessDisinterestedness implies that scientists should have no emotional or financial attachment to their work, accept conclusions shaped only by evidence, and that scientists should not campaign for a particular point of view or outcome. Disinterestedness also reflects the quality of perusing personal academic interests rather than the interests of funding agencies,policy priorities or institutional strategies. Interestedness

means that the scientist has personal interests at stake in the reception of his or her results and work.

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The issue here was not if scientists follow the CUDOS norms, but only if they claim their validity as a guideline. The data suggests that while Merton’s CUDOs remain the overall guiding moral principles, they are not fully endorsed or present in the conduct of climate scientists: there is a tendency to withhold results until publication, there is the intention of maintaining property rights, and the tendency to assign the significance of authored work according to the status of the author rather than content of the paper.

Additionally, there is external influence defining research.

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Postnormal science

Jerry Ravetz, Silvio Funtovicz, 1986 and earlierState of science, when facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.

In this state, science is not only done for reasons for curiosity but is asked for as support for preconceived value-based agendas.Climate Science is in a post-normal phase (Bray and von Storch, 1999)

facts uncertain

: e.g. sensitivity of global mean temperature to doubling of CO2 concentration

values in dispute, e.g., do we cement the world according to our present preferences or do we accept a generationally dynamical development?

stakes high, e.g., costs for re-organizing global energy market and future damages

decisions urgent, e.g., to be efficient, re-organization of e.g. traffic must be begun now.

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Characteristic for postnormal conditions isScience is „de-scientized“, and „politicized“.Policy is „de-politicized“, and „

scientized“.Policy decisions are framed as being “without alternative” – scientific knowledge leads to unique „solutions“ which need to be implemented without further democratic influence on the substance.Some scientists act as policy activists, while exploiting their public authority as scientists.Emergence of different knowledge claims, among them “alternative facts”.

A post-normal situation is not “bad”, but needs recognition as such: - limitation of scientific expertise to the methodically sound core (re-scientizing), and- re-establishment of openly value-based democratic decision process (re-politicizing).

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Postnormal conditions have an impact on the functioning of science

Scientific knowledge claims are considered primarily good, when their societal utility is high – not only in a technical sense, but also in terms of reinforcing cultural knowledge claims.Methodical rigor, openness to alternative explanations become less significant.Postnormal conditions lead to changes in the scientific organization – programs, perceived leading scientists – which feed back into societies to support a-priori world views (climate catastrophe and fake news).

In climate science, a substantial number of actors consider “motivate people to act on climate change” as main task of the climate science community.

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Lund

and

StockholmTwo different construction of „climate change“ – scientific and cultural – which is more powerful?

Cultural

: „Klimakatastrophe“

Scientific: man-made

change is real, can be

mitigated to some extent but not

completely

avoided

.

Some

Adaptation

is

needd

Storms

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Climate

scientists …

transgress into policy-prescribing

regularly so,

uniformly (same direction) so.

Trivialize social dynamics, and try to model the world, including the social sphere, as

if its dynamics would be governed by a set of deterministic (or stochastic) equations.

Typical pattern of a science in post-normal conditions (high inherent uncertainty;

high stake, urgent decisions, values in dispute).

The science-policy/public interaction is not an issue of „knowledge speaks to power“.The problem is not that the public is stupid or uneducated. The idea of the “gap model”, according to which people simply do not understand the problem, but will draw the right conclusions when taught accordingly, is false.

The problem is that the scientific knowledge is confronted on the „explanation marked“ with other forms of knowledge (pre-scientific, outdated; traditional, morphed by different interests). Scientific knowledge does not necessarily “win” this competition.The social process „science“ is influenced by these other knowledge forms.

Science can not be objective but should nevertheless strive to be so.Knowledge market

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What to do.

Accept post-normal conditions when they prevail.Accept that science is not unveiling truth (old idea of Arian physics!) but provides best explanations, which are not in contradiction to presently available data and theories. They are considered valid until better explanations have been constructed.Insist on scientific rigor.Be open to alternative ideas; try to falsify your own conclusions.When leaving your territory of competence, extend your range of cooperation – include social scientists when needed, but try to understand which type of knowledge social sciences build, using which premises. (Extended peer review)

When leaving the territory of science, and entering the public / political realm, accept that your knowledge is rather narrow, and provides only a small segment of needed knowledge. (“Campfire”-concept of Krauss and von Storch)Accept that policymaking is not an optimization problem, but an effort to a balance societal values., and that science strives for best explanation not (eternal) truth.

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Climate and corona (in Germany), and other cases

Both climate science and virology are caught in postnormal conditions. It is not their fault, but it is simply so. IN GERMANY virologists withstood the temptation of claiming societal Besserwisserei much better than climate scientists:

- they stressed the responsibility for action and decisions by policymakers, and did not demand ”follow the visible scientists” (vulgo “follow the science”) ,- they did not raise the impression that there would be on almost all questions consensus, but discussed controversies in the open.There have been many other cases, often in relationship to epidemies (ask Silvio Funtovicz). Possibly, also the fights over nuclear energy and over genetics/Lamarckism (vulgo Lysenkoism) should be understood as such.

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