Resources for a sustainable future

9/3/2010 Guardian There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing.No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science
is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control
us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this
view.
The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.
Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner dismissed
scientists as “white-coated prima donnas and narcissists … pointy-heads in lab
coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks … The public is no longer in
awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century,
they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them
any more.”
Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities
students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company –
and precious few journalists – with a science degree, yet everyone knows that
the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by
complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that “any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic”. He might have added that any sufficiently
advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook. Scientific
specialisation is now so extreme that even people studying neighbouring subjects
within the same discipline can no longer understand each other. The detail of
modern science is incomprehensible to almost everyone, which means that we have
to take what scientists say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing, to
believe only what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public
confidence.
Distrust has been multiplied by the publishers of scientific journals, whose
monopolistic practices make the supermarkets look like angels, and which are
long overdue for a referral to the Competition Commission. They pay nothing for
most of the material they publish, yet, unless you are attached to an academic
institute, they’ll charge you £20 or more for access to a single article. In
some cases they charge libraries tens of thousands for an annual subscription.
If scientists want people at least to try to understand their work, they should
raise a full-scale revolt against the journals that publish them. It is no
longer acceptable for the guardians of knowledge to behave like 19th-century
gamekeepers, chasing the proles out of the grand estates.
But there’s a deeper suspicion here as well. Popular mythology – from Faust
through Frankenstein to Dr No – casts scientists as sinister schemers,
harnessing the dark arts to further their diabolical powers. Sometimes this
isn’t far from the truth. Some use their genius to weaponise anthrax for the US
and Russian governments. Some isolate terminator genes for biotech companies, to
prevent farmers from saving their own seed. Some lend their names to articles
ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies, which mislead doctors about the drugs
they sell. Until there is a global code of practice or a Hippocratic oath
binding scientists to do no harm, the reputation of science will be dragged
through the dirt by researchers who devise new means of hurting us.
Yesterday in the Guardian Peter Preston called for a prophet to lead us out of
the wilderness. “We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect
and convince … We need to be taught to believe by a true believer.” Would it
work? No. Look at the hatred and derision the passionate and persuasive Al Gore
attracts. The problem is not only that most climate scientists can speak no
recognisable human language, but also the expectation that people are amenable
to persuasion.
In 2008 the Washington Post summarised recent psychological research on
misinformation. This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can
increase the number of people who believe it. In one study, 34% of conservatives
who were told about the Bush government’s claims that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction were inclined to believe them. But among those who were shown that
the government’s claims were later comprehensively refuted by the Duelfer
report, 64% ended up believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
There’s a possible explanation in an article published by Nature in January. It
shows that people tend to “take their cue about what they should feel, and hence
believe, from the cheers and boos of the home crowd”. Those who see themselves
as individualists and those who respect authority, for instance, “tend to
dismiss evidence of environmental risks, because the widespread acceptance of
such evidence would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities
they admire”. Those with more egalitarian values are “more inclined to believe
that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be restricted”.
These divisions, researchers have found, are better at explaining different
responses to information than any other factor. Our ideological filters
encourage us to interpret new evidence in ways that reinforce our beliefs. “As a
result, groups with opposing values often become more polarised, not less, when
exposed to scientifically sound information.” The conservatives in the Iraq
experiment might have reacted against something they associated with the Duelfer
report, rather than the information it contained.
While this analysis rings true, the description of where the dividing line lies
isn’t quite right. It doesn’t describe the odd position in which I find myself.
Despite my iconoclastic, anti-corporate instincts, I spend much of my time
defending the scientific establishment from attacks by the kind of
rabble-rousers with whom I usually associate. My heart rebels against this
project: I would rather be pelting scientists with eggs than trying to
understand their datasets. But my beliefs oblige me to try to make sense of the
science and to explain its implications. This turns out to be the most divisive
project I’ve ever engaged in. The more I stick to the facts, the more virulent
the abuse becomes.
This doesn’t bother me – I have a hide like a glyptodon – but it reinforces the
disturbing possibility that nothing works. The research discussed in the Nature
paper shows that when scientists dress soberly, shave off their beards and give
their papers conservative titles, they can reach to the other side. But in doing
so they will surely alienate people who would otherwise be inclined to trust
them. As the MMR saga shows, people who mistrust authority are just as likely to
kick against science as those who respect it.
Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief
in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you
spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to
know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work.

Go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/mar/08/belief-in-climate-change-science