Discussing Science Left and Right

Chris Mooney recently spoke to WASH MDC on his book  The Republican Brain.

 

There is a something on a competing book called, "Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left“ that is being promoted by more conservative circles.  One  recommendation comes from Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk radio host, author of The 10 Big Lies about America...He's not my favorite source of ideas and  while Medved finds it " Entertaining, enlightening, and important" (along with the American Enterprise Instituted)  I believe  other review such as Publisher's weekly that summarize it as follows:

 

While frequently illuminating, Berezow and Campbell employ sweeping generalizations (e.g., "[I]n truth, Europe is a nice place. European countries have good food.") that often undermine convincing arguments. And their list of 12 issues that would require a blend of science and politics is underwhelming—among them: "Managing resources efficiently" and "Addressing global poverty." (Sept.)

 

Of course the people who really like to use the book are anti-evolutionists such as the http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/science_left_b065791.html site which hawks the book in arn article:

 

"Science Left Behind Can Teach Us about Political Tactics of Intelligent Design Critics"

 

You might also add climate change critics using the book to blur issues too.  Below is a longer review by Ken Silber of the book and comparing it to Mooney's book that was discussed at the December meeting.

 

 

Review: Science Left Behind

I opened with some eagerness my review copy of Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left, by Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell. Having spent much time in recent years criticizing conservatives for denial and ignorance of scientific facts, and being a center-right type myself, I am interested in similar failings on the left. But this is a badly disappointing book.

Some time ago, at David Frum’s blog, I criticized Chris Mooney’s The Republican Brain for (in my view) overstating its case that science is revealing a broad tendency among conservatives to deny or distort facts. Let me say now that Mooney’s book is a model of fair-mindedness compared to Science Left Behind.

Berezow and Campbell open by setting up their target: "progressives." They quickly unleash a bombardment of stereotypes:

Who  are the people we’re calling progressives? Generally, they’re the kind of people who think that overpriced granola from Whole Foods is healthier and tastier. They’re the people who buy “Terra Pass” bumper stickers to offset their cars’ carbon emissions. And they’re the sort of people whose beliefs allow them to feel morally superior to everybody else who disagrees—even if scientists are among those doing the disagreeing.

The authors distinguish between “progressives” and “liberals” on the grounds that the former evince a social authoritarianism not shared by the latter. I find this rather notional, given the virtual interchangeability with which the terms are widely used. Supposedly, though, whereas liberals favor economic interventionism but “value social liberty,” progressives

seek dominion over issues such as the environment, food production, and education. They endorse bans on plastic grocery bags, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, and home schooling. They hold opinions that are not based on physical reality about how energy and development should work. And, most significant, they claim that all of their beliefs are based on science—even when they aren’t.

So it seems that progressives are antithetical to science as a matter of definition. Oddly, this comes just a few pages after the authors assure us that “the purpose of this book is not to demonize all progressives. We just want to demonize the loony ones.” And: “Though some progressives are pro-science, many within their ranks are not.”

Then there’s a look back to what progressive once meant, but the authors are no better on their history. Consider this:

For a time, progressivism made for good politics. [Theodore] Roosevelt was joined under the banner of “progressives” by Democrats including Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryant [sic]. All of these men aimed to mobilize rationalism and science to promote “progress,” just as their philosophy’s name suggested.

Bryan is better described as a populist than a progressive, and the notion that he “aimed to mobilize rationalism and science” would’ve been news to H.L. Mencken during the Scopes Monkey Trial.

This just scratches the surface of what’s wrong with this book. The authors present various examples of  leftists being out of step with science. Some of these are issues that cut across ideological boundaries (anti-vaccine hysteria, for instance). Some are issues where the left-wing anti-science types have had little success in getting the policies they want or even getting support from Democratic politicians (genetically modified foods). Some are just marginal and obscure issues to begin with (the use of compostable utensils in the Capitol Hill cafeteria).

Berezow and Campbell are right that there are anti-science attitudes on the left. They are wrong to see these as of similar current significance to anti-science views on the right.  They fail to show any issue that is a progressive counterpart to the conservative stance of recent years on climate change—that is to say, an important issue where one side, including its elite, is not only grossly out of step with the scientific community but has succeeded in getting its anti-science views reflected in public policy.

After filling the book with tendentious and trivial point-scoring, the authors close with a chapter on the science-related issues that "really matter." This is filled with banality such as “it is imperative that Americans have a serious debate about the country’s future in space.” Thanks for the tip.

 Posted by Kenneth Silber on his Blog. Re-posted here by Gary Berg-Cross.

Thoughtful and Shallow Skepticism

As a boy I was lucky to read the work of Martin Gardner, a brilliant polymath, who was also a hero to “skeptics and science-minded people worldwide”. My skepticism was greatly influenced Gardner’s 1952 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (still in print) which was the classic, rational-empirical examination of pseudoscience and pseudoscientists. As Michael Shermer put it: "Modern skepticism has developed into a science-based movement, beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic". It is worth noting that in 1976 Gardner became a founding fellow of CSICOP, now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (SI), and was an original member of SI’s Editorial Board.

With Garner’s guidance as a base I am respectful of a thoughtful skepticism. But neither he or I view it as an absolute or something that protects us from false beliefs. Indeed increasingly I see Garnder’s disciplined, skeptical stance being replaced with a shallow version that is used to bash topics as diverse as Climate Change, Evolution (Teach the Debate) and Science itself. 

 Some of it is ideological in nature. So libertarians like Penn and Teller who are general skeptics apply shallow thinking to Climate Change. When Penn Jillette was asked whether he “still believed that man-made climate change is bunk, as he has said more than once, his basic answer was:

" I loathe everything about Al Gore, so since Gore has been crusading against climate change it must be garbage.” 

OK, so your loathing emotion means you don't have to examine data and rational arguments???

Both Penn and Teller are well-known libertarians, but also supporters of the libertarian Cato Institute, leaders in spreading doubt about global warming. It is humbling to see people considered both hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics giving way to ideo-emotions that encourage some pretty stupid stances. 
 

Another contributing reason, I suspect, for a shallower skepticism is a false idea of its role in Science. The basic scientific methodology requires any theory to be subject to refutation, and this creates a base skepticism for many people. People latch onto a nihilistic idea that everything should be refutable and people are being "scientific" when they take this stance even while ignoring the other aspects of a scientific stance (e.g. coherence, validation, etc.).

Dr. David Morrison (Senior Scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute) states it well when characterizing climate change deniers, “It is fine to be skeptical, but we need to be concerned when skepticism drifts into denial.” And such denial abounds in climate change despite a pretty prominent scientific consensus. This scientific consensus is combated by lots of misinformation/disinformation about climate change (published on the Internet), driven in part by eco-political and economic positions. 

I have a neighbor who sends me example of these things, perhaps in an effort to convert me. His self image seems to be of a powerful skeptic. But it usually takes me only Google minutes to find that the sources of his articles are people backed by groups and fronts for Exxon and allies. 

I have long wondered why he isn’t skeptical of such backings. When confronted, his “skeptical” response is a knee-jerk negativity - an appeal to the meme-idea that climate scientist receive money for their research and they are just milking the public for more support. He has a reflexive disbelief in the assertions made by climate scientists. He seems unaware of the role rationalism plays in Gardner’s skepticism based on a scientific view of the world. This is a rational skepticism that uses the tools of reason and critical thinking to follow the data wherever it leads. This thoughtful skepticism may start from a simple disbelief, but it qualifies and arms skepticism with an empirical stance; because assertions, no matter how commonsensical, require proof. Proof includes data that is rigorously investigated wherever it leads, which can be an increasingly messy picture for a while.

Clearly some topics like climate change are complicated and messy, but there is a broad consensus when one looks at the complete set. That is not to say that there won’t be surprises. Indeed what some future validated data supports may not be our original hunch, but something else entirely. It is just that these discoveries cannot be expected to follow a simple, ideological narrative. Simple, shallow skepticism’s does have this narrative appeal - it may be lulled into acceptance by being a good story. We often need a simple story that we communicate to others. This is a plus. We prefer stories with a connection to something familiar and comforting over a complex story even one that has a rational-empirical base. In climate change some simple but deceptive narratives include: ‘What we are seeing are “natural variations” caused primarily by variations in solar output’ or “The apparent increase in temperature is an artifact caused by the fact that much of the data are from cities, which are warmer than their surroundings”. Good stories, but not supported by (subsequent) analysis.

Stories that pass our skeptical filter may mature into climate hoax stories that provide a shallow skeptical identity that people happily try on and use happily. We saw this type of thing in the narrative that vaccines cause autism in children, something that seemed to have some data in back of it, but which turned out to be concocted. A publication earlier this month in the British Medical Journal accused Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher responsible for the controversial 1998 study linking MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations to autism, of falsifying data. The wheels of science may grind slowly but truth will out.

And of course from a secular perspective, we see simple, deceptive narratives in religious stories that provide comfort, structure, and cultural identity. Acceptance of these is a challenge for skeptics, but once accepted by the gullible they may offer fertile ground for the shallow forms of self protective skepticism. Often such religious stories intertwine as other shallow skeptical deniers support one another with a lacing of stories.

The simple doubts of confirmed curmudgeons and cynics can be a precious thing held firmly as part of their coping identity. It can be comforting. But a thoughtful skeptic can change his/her mind and not deny the preponderance of the evidence. Indeed there was an informal study done looking at sites of listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Skeptics_and_skeptical_organizations to see if there were climate change deniers on them. Turns out nary a one. 

Thoughtful skeptics are not climate deniers for the most part.

For more on skepticism see http://www.skepticnorth.com/2010/09/what-is-skepticism-week-1-curmudgeon-cynic-skeptic/ and http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/skeptics-circle/