Unscientific America -- Denying Science at Our Peril

Increasingly, scientific consensus is failing to influence public policy. Facts, statistics and data appear insufficient to change highly politicized minds... and science has started scrutinizing why.

Alas now, this topic inevitably devolves down to our screwy American politics. And while (as I avow repeatedly) every political wing has its anti-science flakes, growing mountains of evidence suggest that one wing has gone especially frenzied in an anti-scientific snit. Or else (as that wing contends) science itself has become corrupted, top to bottom, rendering "evidence" suspect or moot. Let's examine both possibilities.

Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, has a new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don't Believe in Science, in which he describes how firmly some of our neighbors - even moderately well-educated ones - now cling to aphorisms, assertions and just-so stories in order to clutch a politically motivated view - or mis-view - of scientific data.  Misinformation persists – and propagates – about the dangers of vaccinations, the hazards of nuclear energy, the credibility of creation vs. evolution, and the preponderance of data supporting global warming. In case after politically-redolent case, we find that evidence has a limited power to persuade on hot button issues where deep emotions are involved.

I agree with Mooney that this delusion-conviction effect has done grievous harm to our once-scientific and rational nation. And anyone would have to be deaf, blind, and in hysterical denial not to see these trends operating, in tsunami proportions, among our Republican neighbors.

Still, let’s be fair. There are cases of conviction-delusion on the left, as well. Just look at some fantastically illogical purist stances over the nature-vs-nurture argument, in which leftists hew to absolutist positions based entirely on what is politically correct and dogmatically convenient, never bothering to notice that they claim human behaviors are completely uncontrolled by biology... except when they are completely controlled by biology.

No amount of evidence can alter the way fervent believers want the world to be. Another example, the tense alliance between liberals and leftists  crumbles over issues like the careful restart of nuclear energy, something the liberals are now willing to cautiously resume.

The key difference is not whether such delusionally subjective-selective perception occurs on both political extremes - it does. No, what should matter to us all is how thoroughly the reflexive-denialists on one side control an entire movement, political party and power complex.... and ran the entire country... off a cliff. Meanwhile, the subjectivity junkies on the other side are marginalized (if loud.)

Mooney describes in detail how bad it is - that millions of our neighbors deem facts to be malleably ignorable. Though soundly refuted by scientific studies, angry parents continue to believe their children acquired autism through vaccinations: "Where do they get their 'science' from? From the Internet, celebrities, other frantic-angry parents, and a few non-mainstream researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of misinformation," writes Mooney, noting that for every five hours of cable news, just one minute is devoted to science. In 2009, 15 year old U.S. students ranked 17th out of 34 developed countries in science. A firm foundation in science is fundamental to modern citizenship as well as our ability to innovate and succeed in a global economy.

In fact, the “war on science” has ballooned long past any mere attack upon the credibility of researchers and professors.  It now manifests as a general “war on all knowledge castes” -- including teachers, economists, journalists, civil servants, medical doctors, skilled labor, judges, diplomats... everyone (in other words) who actually knows a lot. All are routinely attacked on you-know-which-murdochian-"news"-network.

Science itself is turning attention to this problem and things are not looking good.  According to one study (via Mooney): “The result was stunning and alarming. The standard view that knowing more science, or being better at mathematical reasoning, ought to make you more accepting of mainstream climate science simply crashed and burned.” It was found that conservatives who knew more tended to dig in their heels against new facts or budging their views, using what they already knew as bulwarks against changing their minds. But this did not hold for the other side. Educated liberals who were pre-disposed to be suspicious toward nuclear power nevertheless were adaptable when shown clear scientific data assuaging their fears. (I would love to see this experiment done on liberals re: nature-vs-nurture issues!)

Mooney concludes that even education fails to serve as “antidote to politically biased reasoning.”

Take a look at this excerpt of Mooney's latest book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality (due out in April). It shows that our current Culture War is not about left vs right at all.  It is about two very different sets of personalities and worldviews.

See also: The Case for a Scientific Nation

== It's not all bad news ==

Oh, heck, want a positive note? It may be possible to overcome this sickness, enflamed deliberately by Roger Ailes and his crew. Stanford Prof. James Fishkin and his colleagues ran an experiment in which a full spectrum of Californians were brought together and asked to soberly deliberate on state problems, negotiating a range of solutions. With their minds focused by sober responsibility, rabid partisans suddenly displayed flexibility, curiosity, willingness to learn and ... (yes even the Republicans)... a readiness to negotiate with their opposing neighbors, without calling them satanic.

Fishkin and his colleague, Bruce Ackerman, call for a new holiday for each Presidential election year, Deliberation Day (to supplement Presidents' Day) when "people throughout the country will meet in public spaces and engage in structured debates about issues..." to revitalize a spirit of open communication and negotiation in democracy.

== But the bad is still plenty bad ==

All too often politicians use bad science to justify their political agenda. Both right and left have favorite conspiracy theories about Global Climate Change (which I've discussed in Climate Skeptics and Climate Deniers). On global warming, Rick Santorum said, "I for one never bought the hoax."  But consider…which is more likely: A massive conspiracy involving 90% of scientists worldwide -- or oil companies spending vast sums to sway opinion, and influence public policy to protect their profits? Decide for yourself.

In any case, most of the methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions involve increasing our energy efficiency and stimulating development of new forms of energy -- things we ought to be doing anyway to remain competitive and current in an ever-changing global economy.

Oh, please... you Brits over there... nail those guys who have done so much harm to America. Whose family name reminds one of the underground-dwelling cannibals of Wells's novel The Time Machine.

==Campaign Finance: Follow the Money==

Talking Points Memo

Compare numbers of campaign donations under $200 and those over $200 between Obama, Paul and Romney. Who has a broad range of support? Who is the populist candidate?  A fascinating comparison... especially when you add in super-pacs, whose average contributors (for Romney) have been in the $100,000 range.  Citizens United, anyone?

Do you think we’ve been exaggerating the degree that the super-uber-rich are buying influence in politics?  Just one small group of immensely wealthy GOP donors...almost all of whom attend twice-yearly secret meetings hosted by the billionaire Koch Brothers -- have already sent gushers of cash to Super-Pacs supporting Romney, Gingrich and even Ron Paul. We’re talking upwards of One Hundred Million Dollars... and it is only March.  Tell me... is there any red line that even your fox-crazy uncle must decide is intolerable?  Can we stop this?

WhoWhatWhy reports that that Saudi prince Walid bin Talal - Rupert Murdoch's top partner at Fox - has invested heavily in Twitter.  An event coinciding with Twitter's recent announcement that it would cooperate with censorship of any content deemed "illegal" in any country, whatsoever.  WhoWhatWhy can get a bit "over-eager" but these facts speak for themselves.

Iceland shows the way. If the European (and American) debt crises seem endless, with Big Banks the only relentless winners, then read up about Iceland, given up for dead after their foolish bankers (who called themselves “geniuses”) leveraged the country into tsunamis of red ink.  What this article doesn’t talk about is the “gender aspect”.  In effect,, the women of Iceland simply took over.  Grabbed the reins of politics and finance out of the hands of their “genius” husbands and sent them back to the fishing boats, where they belonged.

Following those rumors of a brokered GOP convention?  A lot of simmering talk about drafting... Jeb Bush.  This survey of Bush Family "coincidences" may be a little biased... but the facts do speak.

Why Obstinate Humans Find It Hard To Believe Science

Not even those of us who are scientifically trained actually do objective science consistently well. Like all other humans, we are predisposed, with biased, emotionally prejudiced human minds, to first see what we want or expect to see - a dilemma first illustrated by Plato as the "Allegory of the Cave." In one of the few things that Plato got right, he showed how each of us allows our subjective will to overlay and mask anything inconvenient about the objective world.*

Now Chris Mooney (author of the Republican War on Science) explains how this age-old human flaw is being analyzed in scientific detail, by researchers who reveal it to be dismayingly intractable. It seems that obstinacy is as deeply rooted as love or sex! See Moooney's article: The Science of Why We don't Believe Science:

Given the power of our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

Of course, there's hope, or we would never have climbed so far. In the last few centuries w discovered a general way around this dilemma. It is through the enlightenment process that underlies almost everything successful about our civilization - not only science but also free markets, justice and democracy. The one tool that has ever allowed humans to penetrate the veil of their own talented delusions. (See my review of Chris Mooney's Book on my website.)

It is called Reciprocal Accountability -- or criticism, the only known antidote to error.

We may not be able to spot our own mistakes and delusions, but others will gladly point them out for us! Moreover, this favor is one that your FOES will happily do for you! (How nice of them.) And, in return, you will eagerly return the favor. 

In our enlightenment - and especially in science - this process is tuned to maximize truth-output and minimize blood-on-the-floor. But it requires some maturity. Some willingness to let the process play out. Willingness to negotiate. Calmness and even humor.

It doesn't work amid rage or "culture war." Which is precisely why culture war is being pushed on us. By those who want the enlightenment to fail.

Which brings us back to Mooney's cogent and detailed article, which explains the problem of "narrowcasting" to specifically biased audience groups, who get to wallow in endless reinforcement of their pre-existing views, avoiding the discomfort of cognitive dissonance from things like evidence...

... a problem - exacerbated by the internet age - that I predicted in my 1989 novel EARTH - describing a near future in which people shift their attention only to those sources that confirm and reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. (A forecast I would rather not have seen come true.)

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* How ironic then, that the Platonists ( including his successors at "logic-incantation," like Hegel, Marx and Rand) have excelled even the priests at weaving subjective spells to mask the real world. Oh we are good at this. Delusion truly is the greatest human talent! Indeed, all you sci fi fans... what talent of YOURS am I paid to cater-to? Hm? ;-)

Reviewing a provocative book: The Republican War on Science

After doing some catch up miscellany, I find I need feedback on a little project that will actually pay some cash (a little). Feel free to comment on the following, which I’ll post in 2 parts. A book review of The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney

(This review will appear in the .... edition of the San Diego Union Book Review, edited by Arthur Salm. It is posted here entirely for comment as a working draft. A final version is posted on my website.)

Sixty years ago, science emerged dramatically from its ivory tower, with a flash and a bang.

Even before Hiroshima, a multitude of technical advances - from agriculture and antibiotics to radar and rocketry - fed a burgeoning movement called Modernism, that viewed change as inevitable. But the atom bomb made it official. Science had vastly expanded the range of potential human activity, for well or ill. If used wisely, it might spill forth a cornucopia of innovations, to serve and uplift billions. On the other hand, mistakes would now have greater consequence, possibly dooming us all.

Alas, "wisdom" is seldom obvious. We rely on politics to determine policy, a definite improvement over the whim of kings. But politics, despite centuries of hard refinement, is still far more ego-driven art than craft. Habits of at least four thousand years seem to favor self-interest, hierarchies and dogma, instead of gathering evidence and cheerfully letting facts guide us.

What’s more, science has accumulated enemies. Some are put off by the ambitious and optimistic Modernist Agenda of perpetual human self improvement -- a program aimed at discovering and then applying the very tools of Creation, in order to make better societies, better lives, better generations. Some question whether this ambitious goal is possible, or ethical, or even sane.

Aldous Huxley once spoke for all grouchy intellectuals, when he derided progress as "just another idol." Grumbling that it will all come to no good, voices ranging from Bill Joy and Francis Fukayama to Osama and the Unabomber have shared a common underlying theme, protesting the West’s headlong plunge into territories and powers once left to God. Artists and authors, from Michael Crichton to Margaret Atwood, portray technological ambition as hubris, that age-old, prideful route to chaos or damnation.

It wasn’t always like this. Back in 1945, even as humanity was climbing out of the wreckage of its Nadir War, a sense of resilient, can-do determination seemed to overflow. In his famed report Science: The Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush called upon the United States to transform and multiply its martial accomplishments with unprecedented peacetime zeal -- using both technology and perseverance to rebuild cities, refute bigotries, revitalize education, end poverty and provide more fulfillment for all.

So stirring was this aspiration that cynics and curmudgeons could do little more than bide their time.

Nor was this a partisan matter. The aspiration proclaimed by Bush was thereupon propelled as much by Harry Truman and George Marshall as by Dwight Eisenhower, who established the office of Presidential Science Advisor and gave it real clout. John F. Kennedy is remembered as a gung-ho science booster, especially regarding outer space, but Richard Nixon embarked upon just as many ambitious, science-driven endeavors, for example vastly increasing funding for biological research and responding to clear evidence of human generated ecological harm by creating the Environmental Protection Agency.

Moreover, it is plain that such endeavors were generally successful, spawning genuine achievements that did tremendous good. To name only a few, weather and communication satellites transformed our lives, while advances in medicine, biology and agriculture enabled far more people to survive and thrive. Acid rain and stratospheric ozone depletion were rapidly diagnosed, prompting measures that -- at least -- checked immediate calamity. And while there is still plenty of bad news to spur activism, anyone who grew up in Los Angeles, forty years ago, should attest that five times as many people now live there, breathing air that's five times better. (Or, rather, a fifth as bad.)

If the "greatest generation" deserves acclaim for defeating Hitler, let’s add a few more feats to their credit. Like cranking up a thousand universities, combating ancient habits of racism, liberating the ambition of girls, building interstates and internets, while turning a nation of provincially isolated tenants into globe traveling homeowners. Gathered together, these and countless other accomplishments were all rooted in the modernist-scientific agenda.

So why has the whole ambitious program lately come under fierce attack?

According to Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, we need look no farther than an alliance of two reactionary forces. Big business and religious fundamentalism. This era’s burgeoning hostility toward rationality, skepticism, accountability and can-do ambition is little more, and no less than, a deliberate campaign against modernity on the part of "conservatism." A matter of right versus left.

On February 18, 2004, the conservative war on science, which had been gathering momentum for decades, finally jolted the media and American public to attention. All it took was a little star power…. Over sixty leading scientists and former government officials, among them twenty Nobel laureates, had signed a statement denouncing the administration of George W. Bush for misrepresenting and suppressing scientific information and tampering with the process by which scientific advice makes its way to government officials. Examples included distorting the science of climate change, quashing government scientific reports, and stacking scientific advisory panels. "Other administrations, have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front," the statement read.

Mooney presents a long list of cases to support his indictment, portraying a methodical campaign to politicize, ignore, twist or undermine science. His list of topic areas will sound familiar: the effects of smoking and of air pollution, the feasibility and benefits of energy savings through increased fuel efficiency standards, global warming and stem cell research, educational standards and the Drug War, all the way to a campaign aimed at teaching "alternatives to evolution" in the classroom.

Some of these matters are still under some legitimate dispute among reputable scientists, implying that we need more research, pursued promptly and professionally. Others have coalesced around deep and profound expert consensus, with clear majorities of qualified experts recommending urgent action.

Mooney shows there are countless tricks, some old and others innovative, that special interests can use when scientific consensus becomes politically inconvenient. One has been to banish science from centers of power – for example, when the GOP-led Congress dismantled its own, nonpartisan advisory tool, the Office of Technology Assessment, because its counsel kept conflicting with ideological views.

Another is for political aides to edit the reports of scientific panels, so that final versions offer conclusions quite different than panel members intended. Another method used more frequently, of late, has been to pack advisory groups with "experts" who were selected on a basis of ideology, or industry affiliation, or promises to reach a predetermined outcome.

A favorite maneuver, in recent years, has been to magnify uncertainty, especially regarding contentious issues like Creationism and global climate change.

Now, unlike past dogmas, science is unafraid of uncertainty, so long as it is faced in courageous and disciplined ways. Young scientists are taught to nurse some residual doubt toward even the strongest theory. (And yes, even a widely held "consensus" can sometimes be wrong. Graduate students constantly look for these rare "faulty paradigms," which can be toppled and make a newcomer’s reputation.)

This kind of healthy skepticism accompanies -- but does not generally undermine -- the collaborative process of building ever-better and increasingly valid models of the world.

Opponents of science try to turn this strength into a weakness by exaggerating doubts, calling all theories equal, or even claiming that "scientific consensus" is a meaningless phrase. (Is it ironic that officials who were elected by the slimmest of political margins then dismiss as "uncertain" concerns that are expressed by far greater majorities of experts in a given field?)

For those who view this kind of behavior as uniquely a sickness of the right, Mooney’s book will offer powerful support. Evidence overwhelmingly points to orchestrated manipulation of both science and public opinion by groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute all the way to elements now running both Congress and the Executive Branch.

And yet, is this issue really as one-sided and simple as liberal partisans contend?

Not if you listen to a steady stream of punditry pouring from the other side, proclaiming that liberals are the ones betraying both science and modernity. Some of the very same arch-conservative think tanks that Mooney decries have issued their own accusations, for example, the Marshall Institute’s Politicizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking and the Cato Institute’s Silencing Science.

While much is specious, one of their higher-quality efforts has been to effectively demolish the left’s rigid opposition to nuclear power, a reflex that ignores real potential to reduce carbon emissions and help bridge the next few decades, while we develop sustainable technologies.

Stepping back, we see a common theme. "My side is on the side of truth while your side is warped by dogma."

If I must choose sides, I’ll pick Mooney, because the perfidies that he describes have been accelerating in profoundly disturbing ways. For example, it is unambiguous that the GOP Congress cuts funding for the National Science Foundation even while calling for "more research" on global climate change. Nothing could be more bald-faced. In any event, rightwing abuses are inherently more dangerous, because that side currently holds sway in countless boardrooms and every branch of government.

Yet, the very title of this book - The Republican War on Science - ensures that it won’t be helpful. Providing ammo for one side, it will be contemptuously ignored by the other, while just a few -- those still with open minds -- may crack the covers with sincere interest in learning something new.

This is ironic, in light of some wise words about the scientific process that Mooney quotes from cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker:

"The success of science depends on an apparatus of democratic adjudication - anonymous peer review, open debate, the fact that a graduate student can criticize a tenured professor. These mechanisms are more or less explicitly designed to counter human self deception. People always think they're right, and powerful people will tend to use their authority to bolster their prestige and suppress inconvenient opposition. You try to set up the game of science so that the truth will out despite this ugly side of human nature."

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Continue to part II where I will show that Mooney DOES recognize a few left wing anti-science faults, but only a few. I will talk about how problematic a book like this is... telling scary truths, but not - in the long run - being much help.

See also my article: The Case for a Scientific Nation