Climate Science Is Based On Evidence, But Science Denial Is Based On Faith
By Collin Maessen on commentAnyone who wants to debate a science denier often needs a thick skin, especially concerning topics like global warming. They often hurl words like leftist, socialist, communist, fascist, sheeple, useful idiot, and worse at you. Though why a political ideology is used as an insult still is something that I don’t understand. At most you’ll get a slightly annoyed roll of the eyes from me when you label me as something that I’m not.
But the one that truly puzzles me is when I’m accused of having a religious like faith in science. Science isn’t a religion, certainly not when you accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW). To me it’s climate science denial that looks more like a faith position.
To understand why I say this you need to take into account that what climate science deniers say is at a fundamental level at odds with the scientific consensus on global warming. A consensus that arises from evidence found through meticulous study and hard work by scientists.
Due to the sheer amount of supporting evidence not a single national academy of science the world over has denied anthropogenic global warming, the vast majority have formally declared that human-induced climate change is real and have urged nations to reduce greenhouse gasses. Independent unions, professional associations, societies, institutes, federations, and other organizations of international standing of scientists and engineers, all have released statements accepting anthropogenic climate change. Considering that most of these organizations are entirely independent this is quite remarkable. These organisations don’t take such positions, or make such statements, lightly.
Another salient point is that the vast majority (97-98%) of scientists who actually work and publish on climate related subjects, and nearly all published papers, support the science behind AGW. This consensus was first remarked in Naomi Oreskes’ 2004 survey of the literature. These findings have since been validated in three subsequent surveys: Doran (2009), Anderegg (2010), and Cook (2013); which used varying methodologies and datasets, yet found similar results.
That’s a remarkable level of agreement over something that is portrayed in much of the media, and among climate science deniers, as a matter of scientific controversy. So where, if anywhere, is the debate happening?
To be sure, there’s a handful of credentialed experts who object to some part of the scientific consensus. These scientists have appeared extensively on television and in documentaries. They are often hailed as heroes, and often quite famous, in climate science denier circles because of their various degrees of contrarianism. Though some of them display very obvious ideological motives.
Roy Spencer is one of the more obvious examples due to him having signed a petition that says “Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting.” Others are often aligned to think tanks with an obvious ideological take like the Cato Instute, ideologies that often cause these think tanks to dismiss valid science. Why scientists like Lindzen would align themselves with such organisations is beyond me.
There is also the group of what seems to be politically motivated actors like Christopher Monckton, Joe Bastardi, Marc Morano, Anthony Watts, etc. who often venture into science denial. Several of these have devoted a substantial part of their professional lives to the speech circuit and/or their own website. They often claim to blow the lid off the ‘official science’, yet they never actually do that.
Of course there are also the news outlets known for their conservative bias, particularly press such as Fox News, and The Daily Mail. This bias seems to have created the environment where they have become outlets for science denial, particularly on the subject of global warming. Of course it’s on those news outlets where you often see speakers appear from the earlier mentioned ideologically motivated think tanks to cast doubt on valid science.
All of these combine to create an information bubble, a sphere of science denial that’s used to maintain their perception of the world. In this bubble they ascribe the lack of dissent in the science community, if they even acknowledge it, to a paralyzing fear of offending the wrong people and losing funding (there isn’t this fear). They assert that data is fabricated or hidden (it isn’t). Laymen pour over raw data, computer code, and the science literature to unveil clues of manipulation. Oh, the patterns of deception they find! (they never do) They assert that government agencies such as NOAA, NASA, or major universities, such as the University of East Anglia, are part of a worldwide conspiracy to enslave us all in a socialist regime.
This last statement by me may seem like a straw man, but it’s something even mainstream ‘contrarians’ claim. George Will, for example, recently called global warming science “socialism by the back door.” Christopher Monckton, who’s arguably the international face of climate science denial, has said that the purpose of AGW is “to impose a communist world government on the world.” Stephen Harper called Kyoto “essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” Many more of such assertions can be found.
Many climate science deniers profess to be mere seekers of truth who question the consensus science because they have such high standards of evidence. Yet they never are able to find a shred of evidence for any of these nefarious motivations on the part of the worldwide science community. These wild speculations of climate science deniers often read like textbook examples of the dangers of failing to apply Occam’s razor. The webs of intrigue, conspiracy, and ulterior motives postulated by them are often far more complex than the science itself.
One of the most spectacular of these conspiracy theories was the narrative pieced together from nefarious-sounding snippets of hacked emails among scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (known as Climategate). The hack produced several formal investigations, all of these dismissed the accusations of scientific wrongdoing. Naturally, this only confirmed and widened the conspiracy, because it meant that the people who did the investigations were in on it (or at the very least thought to be incompetent). The climate science deniers, rather than accepting the conclusions of multiple investigations, constructed their own investigations of the investigations. And of course they concluded they were “flawed” (archived here). Yet they failed to actually provide evidence for this.
So where does this leave the ‘science’ of the climate science deniers? Most climate science deniers are laymen, not participants in scientific research, who scour the literature for things they believe expose the perceived hoax behind the science. They often cite papers by the very scientists who argue for and accept AGW. They must because the scientific literature, as noted earlier, is heavily in favour of the conclusion that global warming is caused by us. It’s also this very same scientific literature that marks global warming as a point of concern. With artful argumentation and cherry picked data they then piece together a massive alternative narrative, which they then publish.
On their blogs.
Which shows more signs of ‘faith’ and ‘religion’ here? The similarities with other actual faith based positions is remarkable. Lets compare climate science denial with another form of science denial: creationism.
Creationists of course also rely on a handful of seemingly genuine experts who reject valid science, or outright deny the existence of it. They also rely on institutes that promote science denial, such as Answers in Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research. Their ‘science’ is also not present in the scientific literature, so they also must present it on the internet, in books, or in media appearances. The lack of creationism in the science literature is explained as being caused by intimidation and fear. They, too, cherry pick and quote mine the literature written by people who accept the science, because they lack the evidence to show they are right. Not a single institute, academy, or professional organization of science has joined them in their science denial. They hint of nefarious conspiracies and spoofing of data, and they rush to judgment when they think they’ve found evidence of such a conspiracy. They devise ‘honest tests’ of the science which, when adequately answered, they ignore and move the goalposts. And of course their science denial just happens to coincide perfectly with their ideology.
Science denial is an inherently faith based position, as it almost always stems from an attachment to a certain ideology and/or a distinct lack of supporting evidence. It’s common to many groups, from climate science deniers, to creationists, to anti-vaxxers, to those that deny the science showing the safety of GMO foods. It’s a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common as technology, science, and the understanding of both become more and more entwined in, and crucial to, our life and politics.
What can be done to counter this? Social science research suggests that better explaining the science won’t work (it’s important, and should be done, but it’s not the tool for this). Those who receive conflicting information tend to become more entrenched in their prejudices rather than becoming better informed and changing their opinions. I would rather point a finger at ourselves, those of us reading this who think we’re so impartial and fact-based. I think we who argue for an accurate understanding of science should lead by example and move beyond politics ourselves. Be scrupulous in our self-skepticism so that our own arguments are free from political rhetoric, and, as much as humanly possible, political bias. Don’t be afraid to change your position when you’re shown to be wrong. It’s this kind of behaviour that can be an important tool to break the escalating spiral of rhetoric.
That’s hard to do, but maybe through that we can find a way forward, a new way beyond politics and ideology. We should be honest with ourselves and hold ourselves to high standards. Lets face and accept what the science says in every field, from global warming, to GMO’s, to vaccines, and so on. Always accept a better understanding rather than a ‘more correct one’ or a ‘more convenient one’. This could be an important tool to create cracks in the sphere of science denial. Maybe a few of your own ideas/biases might be casualties on the way, but isn’t it worth it?
This blog post is based on writings and ideas by John Harrington who graciously gave me permission to use them as a basis for this blog post.
Featured comments
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Pleasingly calm and respectful, Collin.
I have faith in science, necessarily because I cannot personally be familiar with every aspect of scientific research. The center of my faith lies in the fact that my belief in science can be tested, should I be so doubtful as to pursue it. Science is in fact constantly tested, every day, minute-by-minute, as the frontier of scientific research expands. By its very growth of competence science is tested in the material world.
Faith in science and faith in religion are two entirely different coinages and cannot be likened or exchanged. Ignoring this difference and touting equivalence only underlines failure to understand what is science.
“Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
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Yes they are, however when you say “I have faith in science” it’s often misrepresented. That’s why when I was part of SkepticTV we had the catch phrase “I don’t believe, I accept.” That was in response to a creationist constantly misrepresenting our position as something religious, in his eyes science was just like his religion Christianity.
Roy Spencer gave a very good example of this type of behaviour:
The scientific evidence for a “creator” is, in my opinion, stronger than the evidence that everything around us is just one gigantic cosmic accident. I have no trouble stating that — and defending it — based upon science alone. No need to quote the Bible.
But why should any of this matter for real, observable science, like climate change? Belief in macroevolution is a religion, not science. It is an organizing system of thought, a conceptual model of origins, a worldview, which the evolutionist must fit all of his observations into.
So yes, I agree with you that there’s a difference. But simply because it’s misrepresented so much I avoid using the words “believe” or “faith.”
Collin: Kudos on another excellent and timely article. I have posted a link to it on the Facebook page of Skeptical Science.
https://www.facebook.com/SkepticalScience
John Hartz, Member of the SkS Author Team
Good comments. Among climate dismissives, the more intense pseudoskeptics naturally project themselves as science-based versus faith -based, and as examples, following are a few of the phrases found in the comments edxtractred from last year’s SalbyStorm, with counts:
Salby:
Galileo 16 (i.e., as hassled by the church)
heresy 8 as in exiled for
pilloried 2
witch hunt 3
Macquarie U
dogmatic cult psyientists
Jim Jones cult 2
Mainstream climate science
AGW doctrine
church of CAGW
climate cult 2
CO2 church
cult of climatology
cult science of climatology climate church
dogma {-tic} 14
orthodoxy 13
religion 10
religious {-ly-based} 12
sacred CAGW gospel
Misc.
Go away and preach to the already converted. We use our brains here. We think for ourselves.
Most of those types of accusations I’ve already encountered when dealing with creationists. As they are also science deniers I shouldn’t have been surprised that something similar is done by climate science deniers, but it still was a bit of a surprise when I first encountered it. But in the end it does make sense that similar ‘word games’ are being played by science deniers. After all they don’t have the science on their side.
Pleasingly calm and respectful, Collin.
I have faith in science, necessarily because I cannot personally be familiar with every aspect of scientific research. The center of my faith lies in the fact that my belief in science can be tested, should I be so doubtful as to pursue it. Science is in fact constantly tested, every day, minute-by-minute, as the frontier of scientific research expands. By its very growth of competence science is tested in the material world.
Faith in science and faith in religion are two entirely different coinages and cannot be likened or exchanged. Ignoring this difference and touting equivalence only underlines failure to understand what is science.
“Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
Yes they are, however when you say “I have faith in science” it’s often misrepresented. That’s why when I was part of SkepticTV we had the catch phrase “I don’t believe, I accept.” That was in response to a creationist constantly misrepresenting our position as something religious, in his eyes science was just like his religion Christianity.
Roy Spencer gave a very good example of this type of behaviour:
So yes, I agree with you that there’s a difference. But simply because it’s misrepresented so much I avoid using the words “believe” or “faith.”
What’s the difference between believing that e=mc^2 and believing in vampires when you don’t know the story behind it? or in other words when you can’t say why it’s true nor why it’s not. Taking everything what it’s said by scientists for granted (and often fanatically supporting) without any interest in the subject isn’t different from faith.
There’s an extremely popular in Poland example of Al Gore’s „Earth in the Balance” book in which he says that air pollution in Poland is so catastrophic that teachers take school pupils into mines in order to protect them (I suspect that this particular scientific fact might be inspired by polish comedy Sexmission!). I don’t know how many people in the world believe it is true now, but believe me – we are having a good laugh in Poland.
[snip]
There’s a difference between relying on what experts say and believing in something that experts say isn’t true. There’s no shame in that and it’s certainly not a religious like faith based position.
I also find it strange that you use Al Gore as an example. He’s a lobbyist, not a scientist. Sometimes he makes mistakes, and if that’s true what you say, sometimes they are grave. But in general he gives quite good and accessible explanations of the science. He’s not a good example for a religious like faith position, as it isn’t. He does his best to listen to experts and be as accurate as possible, though sometimes how he delivers the science can cause the loss of details.
Could you also provide me with confirmation of where I can find it in that book? As I have trouble verifying what you’re claiming about it.
Interesting.
Bit of work with Google (Google books, search ‘Earth in the Balance poland’) later, this seems to come from the start of Chapter 4. ‘Buddha’s breath’.
Can’t copy and paste, but the anecdote comes from pre-1989 communist times, and was presumably in the 1992 edition of the book. Is it accurate? I can’t say. Does a 25-year-old anecdote from a non-scientist have any bearing on the accuracy or otherwise of current scientific research ? No.
It may be both accurate and wrong. There is a Wieliczka salt mine clinic for people with asthma: http://medicalpoland.ie/objects-list/asthma-wieliczka-super-clinic/ (see also http://www.kopalnia.pl/, with option to select language in the upper right)
Thus, while there is indeed a Polish clinic in a mine that offers “clean air”, it doesn’t look like there were more such clinics and that these were regular places children went to. Looks like some truth (the clinic), mixed with some story telling (why could there be such a clinic? Air pollution!). I don’t think Gore made up the story himself.
I have a few concerns about putting GMO safety in the same list as climate science and evolution. It is a much younger science and therefore does not have sufficient history to be able to state it is safe. Consider, for example, a crop/herbicide/pesticide combination increased the chances of developing cancer; how long would you need to collect data to consider the combination was safe? IMO I see no reason to believe the GM crop itself would not be safe but that is not the only consideration. I also think our understanding of GMOs is too simple. Achieving desirable traits in crops probably involves many different genes so changing just one or two is over simplistic and could lead to other problems. I also have concerns regarding the trend to monoculture favoured by GMO and its effect on biodiversity. GMO research is largely the domain of commercial organisations in much the same way as pharmaceutical companies do most of the drug R&D. And we know the research results produced by the drug companies is often of doubtful quality, if not downright misleading. [snip]
There’s no reason for not including GMOs in that list, as I pointed out that evidence shows that GMOs are safe. It’s why experts say that there’s nothing indicating any issues with eating GMOs. There’s over a decade of research (including epidemiological) that shows this. It’s just that there’s a lot of focus on anything that says otherwise (often invalid):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWQON4FzQo4
Also your cancer point doesn’t apply for food. The genes they use are already present in our food or the products/effect those genes produce. And they check if there’s nothing unintended happening when they do gene manipulation. It’s well known that the type of insertion method you use could have other consequences on the organisms. That’s nothing new, that’s known since the very start. And why they check for this.
Monoculture isn’t an issue of GMOs, that’s an issue of current agricultural practices and demand from retailers. Monoculture was already an issue before GM technology became available. The loss of the Gros Michel banana due to the Panama virus is one of the most well known examples of this.
You are also starting to skirt conspiracy like thinking. It’s known for example that commercial R&D tends to under-report negative results (i.e. they test something, doesn’t work, don’t publish it). But saying that results produced by drug companies is “often of doubtful quality, if not downright misleading” is just plain wrong. I truly wonder where you’re getting your information from.
Collin, thanks for taking the time to reply. I agree with you that eating GMOs is not a problem. My concerns are entirely to do with the growing conditions; e.g. use of pesticides, crop management to minimise buildup of resistant pests. My ‘cancer’ reference was purely hypothetical and entirely directed at pesticide/herbicide use and definitely not at the GMO itself.
I would still argue that GMO is a relatively young science (30 years?) compared with climate and evolution which have histories stretching back more than 150 years. Therefore, we should be more sceptic about GMO.
I agree monoculture is an issue for all forms of agriculture and I hope we have learnt lessons from past mistakes. I just feel that GMO crops encourage large scale monoculture from an agricultural management point of view. Perhaps it doesn’t have to but who is checking/enforcing best practice.
My information regarding pharmaceutical companies being economic with the truth comes mainly from Ben Goldacre’s book ‘Bad Pharma’. There is a good summary at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma
The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons expressed concerns in January 2014 that drug companies were still only publishing 50% of clinical trial results. The British Medical Journal, among others, are asking for results of all past and current clinical trials to be published. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies, in the form of PhRMA, are running a scare campaign stating such measures ‘could risk patient privacy, lead to fewer clinical trials, and result in fewer new medicines to meet patients’ needs and improve health’. Maybe I am being conspirational (along with the UK government and the BMJ) but this feels and sounds like a re-run of the tobacco industry disinformation campaigns.
The very first genetically modified organism was created in 1978, a bacteria modified to produce human insulin. The first genetically modified plants became available in the eighties, which were tobacco plants. The first genetically modified crop approved for commercial production was the FlavrSavr tomato, which was approved in 1994.
So modified organism have now been around for about 36 years, commercially available crops for about 20 years. That’s more than enough time to gather data about the safety of a technology (the internet has been around for a shorter time, yet we already have a good idea what kind of effects that can have). Which you said you accept that GMOs are safe for human consumption.
The rest of the objections you raise aren’t even specific to the technology. You point about herbicide and pesticide usage isn’t specific for GMOs. Herbicides used for GMOs replaced far more dangerous herbicides. And for example the pesticide Bt corn creates is used in organic farming. Bt is so specific in what it targets that it basically cannot harm you.
I have no idea what exactly you’re doing, but it comes across as you’re trying to rationalize a dislike for GMOs by raising criticisms that are not specific to it.
As this is now straying so far away from any actual issue with GMOs, and considering the minor point they were in the above article, I’m going to see any further discussion on this as off-topic.