Climate change has changed the way I think about science. Here’s why

Science is a human approach to understanding the world. Nitirak Rakitiworakun/shutterstock

Sophie Lewis, Australian National University

I’ve wanted to be a scientist since I was five years old.

My idea of a scientist was someone in a lab, making hypotheses and testing theories. We often think of science only as a linear, objective process. This is also the way that science is presented in peer reviewed journal articles – a study begins with a research question or hypothesis, followed by methods, results and conclusions.

It turns out that my work now as a climate scientist doesn’t quite gel with the way we typically talk about science and how science works.

Climate change, and doing climate change research, has changed the way I see and do science. Here are five points that explain why.

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Read more: Australia needs dozens more scientists to monitor climate properly

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1. Methods aren’t always necessarily falsifiable

Falsifiability is the idea that an assertion can be shown to be false by an experiment or an observation, and is critical to distinctions between “true science” and “pseudoscience”.

Climate models are important and complex tools for understanding the climate system. Are climate models falsifiable? Are they science? A test of falsifiability requires a model test or climate observation that shows global warming caused by increased human-produced greenhouse gases is untrue. It is difficult to propose a test of climate models in advance that is falsifiable.

Science is complicated – and doesn’t always fit the simplified version we learn as children. FoxyImage/shutterstock

This difficulty doesn’t mean that climate models or climate science are invalid or untrustworthy. Climate models are carefully developed and evaluated based on their ability to accurately reproduce observed climate trends and processes. This is why climatologists have confidence in them as scientific tools, not because of ideas around falsifiability.

2. There’s lots of ways to interpret data

Climate research is messy. I spent four years of my PhD reconstructing past changes in Australian and Indonesian rainfall over many thousands of years. Reconstructing the past is inherently problematic. It is riddled with uncertainty and subject to our individual interpretations.

During my PhD, I submitted a paper for publication detailing an interpretation of changes in Indonesian climates, derived from a stalagmite that formed deep in a cave.

My coauthors had disparate views about what, in particular, this stalagmite was telling us. Then, when my paper was returned from the process of peer review, seemingly in shreds, it turns out the two reviewers themselves had directly opposing views about the record.

What happens when everyone who looks at data has a different idea about what it means? (The published paper reflects a range of different viewpoints).

Another example of ambiguity emerged around the discussion of the hiatus in global warming. This was the temporary slowdown in the rate of global warming at the Earth’s surface occurring roughly over the 15 year period since 1997. Some sceptics were adamant that this was unequivocal proof that the world was not warming at all and that global warming was unfounded.

There was an avalanche of academic interest in the warming slowdown. It was attributed to a multitude of causes, including deep ocean processes, aerosols, measurement error and the end of ozone depletion.

Ambiguity and uncertainty are key parts of the natural world, and scientific exploration of it.

3. Sometimes the scientist matters as well as the results

I regularly present my scientific results at public lectures or community events. I used to show a photo depicting a Tasmanian family sheltering under a pier from a fire front. The sky is suffused with heat. In the ocean, a grandmother holds two children while their sister helps her brother cling to underside of the pier.

After a few talks, I had to remove the photo from my PowerPoint presentation because each time I turned around to discuss it, it would make me teary. I felt so strongly that the year we were living was a chilling taste of our world to come.

Just outside of Sydney, tinderbox conditions occurred in early spring of 2013, following a dry, warm winter. Bushfires raged far too early in the season. I was frightened of a world 1°C hotter than now (regardless of what the equilibrium climate sensitivity turns out to be).

At public lectures and community events, people want to know that I am frightened about bushfires. They want to know that I am concerned about the vulnerability of our elderly to increasing summer heat stress. People want to know that, among everything else, I remain optimistic about our collective resilience and desire to care for each other.

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Read more: Distrust of experts happens when we forget they are human beings

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Communicating how we connect with scientific results is also important part of the role of climate scientists. That photo of the family who survived the Tasmanian bushfire is now back in my presentations.

4. Society matters too

In November 2009, computer servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked and email correspondence was stolen.

A selection of these emails was published publicly, focusing on quotes that purported to reveal dishonest practices that promoted the myth of global warming. The “climategate” scientists were exhaustively cleared of wrongdoing.

On the surface, the climategate emails were an unpleasant but unremarkable event. But delving a little deeper, this can be seen as a significant turning point in society’s expectations of science.

While numerous fastidious reviews of the scientists cleared them of wrongdoing, the strong and ongoing public interest in this matter demonstrates that society wants to know how science works, and who “does” science.

There is a great desire for public connection with the processes of science and the outcomes of scientific pursuits. The public is not necessarily satisfied by scientists working in universities and publishing their finding in articles obscured by pay walls, which cannot be publicly accessed.

A greater transparency of science is required. This is already taking off, with scientists communicating broadly through social and mainstream media and publishing in open access journals.

5. Non-experts can be scientists

Climate science increasingly recognises the value of citizen scientists.

Enlisting non-expert volunteers allows researchers to investigate otherwise very difficult problems, for example when the research would have been financially and logistically impossible without citizen participation.

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Read more: Exoplanet discovery by an amateur astronomer shows the power of citizen science

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The OzDocs project involved volunteers digitising early records of Australian weather from weather journals, government gazettes, newspapers and our earliest observatories. This project provided a better understanding of the climate history of southeastern Australia.

Personal computers also provide another great tool for citizen collaborators. In one ongoing project, climate scientists conduct experiments using publicly volunteered distributed computing. Participants agree to run experiments on their home or work computers and the results are fed back to the main server for analysis.

While we often think of scientists as trained experts working in labs and publishing in scholarly journals, the lines aren’t always so clear. Everyone has an opportunity to contribute to science.

My new book explores this space between the way science is discussed and the way it takes place.

This isn’t a criticism of science, which provides a useful way to explore and understand the natural world. It is a celebration of the richness, diversity and creativity of science that drives this exploration.

Sophie Lewis, Research fellow, Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Why researchers have a duty to try and influence policy

Simon Chapman, University of Sydney

Very early in my career, I was invited to afternoon tea with the head of the Commonwealth Institute of Health at Sydney University, where I worked. The best bone china was produced and pleasantries exchanged. The agenda soon became clear.

He laboured into a parable about the difference between young and old bulls when locked in a small yard. He told me young bulls run hard at the gate, exhausting and sometimes harming themselves.

But old bulls are generally patient and placid. They always know the farmer will open the gate and they’ll walk out and soon get among the pasture and the cows.

Young bulls should learn from old bulls, he told me.

I knew exactly why he’d called me. For some months, I’d been in the forefront of a small group of public health people who were confronting the advertising industry’s self-regulation body with data about the appeal of Paul Hogan, who fronted the massively successful Winfield cigarette advertising campaign. Hogan’s own TV program had huge appeal to children. The advertising campaign was, therefore, in flagrant breach of the industry’s own guidelines and so needed to be stopped.

After 18 months of trying to ignore us, we won. We quickly discovered while the advertising industry could ignore our letters, going public turned 10,000 watt arc lights on the self-regulation farce. Over that time the media often interviewed us. A headline after we won said our slingshot had cut down the advertising ogre. Hogan said he’d been sent from the field for kicking too many goals. That was in fact our argument.

My “young and old bulls” mentor later told me he’d been tapped by the Vice Chancellor to tighten the reins, after receiving complaints from connections with the tobacco industry.

Then, and even today, there still remain large remnants of the attitude in universities that scientists and researchers should avoid talking to the media. News media are frequently disdained by academics as trivialising and superficial, something from which those with ambitions of gravitas should keep well away.

A long history

The roots of this go way back. In 1905 Sir William Osler a foundation professor at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital, warned against “dallying with the Delilah of the press”. More than 100 years later, a 2006 report by the UK Royal Society noted 20% of UK scientists believed colleagues who engage with the media are “less well regarded” by their peers.

Public engagement was something “done by those who were ‘not good enough’ for an academic career”. Those who did so were seen by some as “light” or “fluffy” and, wait for this, more likely to be women. While 60% of UK researchers wanted to engage with politicians about their research, far fewer (31%) wanted to engage with journalists.

The cocooned naivety of this position is quite staggering.

Knowing someone, but never meeting

Early in Nicola Roxon’s tenure as Australian health minister I approached her after a talk she gave at a conference. “I don’t think we’ve ever met,” I said. “No, but I feel I’ve known you all my adult life,” she replied.

This could have only meant she knew me through the media.

There is an abundance of research showing people get a huge amount of their information and understanding of health issues from the news media. Equally, most politicians and their advisors rarely read scholarly papers in research journals. They form their understandings of the issues in their portfolio in a variety of ways. But like us all, they are daily exposed to information and discussion about health and medicine through the media they consume voraciously every day.

I had an instinct about the importance of all this right from the beginning of my career and so quickly took to trying to get my research covered in the media; I gave high priority to making room in my day to provide commentary about the areas in which I worked.

Here, I quickly learned the constraints on time and space meant something richly nuanced and complex always needed to be condensed into just two or three sentences in print media reports, or 7.2 seconds in television news. When I started taking opportunities to write opinion page and feature articles, the access to my work and commentary on controversies in public health rapidly accelerated.

Visibility brings access

The visibility this brought opened many doors to senior policy advisors and politicians. I also frequently had the experience of dozens of people telling me across a day they had read and enjoyed a piece I’d written in a newspaper that morning, or a breakfast radio interview as they got ready for work. Most of these colleagues work in adjacent areas of public health and would have only occasionally read my research work in journals.

My own GP and other clinicians have often told me about patients who brought in one of my newspaper articles to ask about it. This was especially true about pieces I wrote on the risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening. This feedback inspired a 2010 book – Let Sleeping Dogs Lie?: what men should know before getting tested for prostate cancer. Colleagues and I published it as a free ebook and it’s been downloaded over 35,000 times.

My 85 articles in The Conversation have been read over two and a half million times. Just two of them have together been read over 1.8 million times. By contrast, the most read of over 500 papers I’ve published in peer reviewed journals has been read only 150,000 times. Many are lucky to get even 5000 readers. Being locked behind subscription paywalls doesn’t help.

Who are the ‘influencers’?

A few years ago, colleagues and I researched the characteristics associated with peer-voted “influential” researchers. We invited all Australian researchers who had published 10 or more papers in particular fields of public health to name five Australian researchers who were “most influential” in each of these fields. We then interviewed the top five from each field.

Overwhelmingly, nearly all said they believed researchers had a responsibility and even a duty to produce work that might help shape policy and practice. Most of these were very comfortable in actively pursuing media opportunities to bring understanding of their work to the public. Those who weren’t comfortable in the media were very happy for others to do this on their behalf.

This approach started with choosing research questions they hoped would provide strategically useful information to inform policy. Their approach then passed through the necessary steps of grant application craft to best ensure it was funded through the highly competitive National Health and Medical Research Council process that now sees only 17% of applications funded.

These two steps are meat and potatoes for all funded research.

But it was in post-publication behaviour where influential researchers differ. They actively promote their work – not just to other colleagues in seminars and conferences, but to the public and those who might act on it politically.

And after all, isn’t helping evidence-based policy and practice the whole point of wanting to do the research in the first place? Why else would you bother?

Don’t just ‘stick to the facts’

Some critics of researchers with media profiles argue researchers should just “stick to the facts” in media interviews. Our study participants saw this as naïve because “people always want to know what the policy implications are”.

A total of 94% of those we interviewed disagreed with the view it was inappropriate to express opinions in the media about public health policy. Journalists might begin with a research finding or an expert clarification of a new report. But they invariably then asked what needed to be “done” about the problem, typically by government.

Journalists and audiences would meet with incredulity any researcher who tried to end an interview when there were questions about policy reform “oughts”, or claimed to have no opinion on what should be done. We expect those who know most about health problems to have views about what should be done to solve them and the courage to put these forward, even if they imply criticism of governments or powerful interest groups.

Speak up, speak up

Trump’s recent gagging of all government environmental agency staff is surely the start of a process that will spread to government funded universities in the USA. There has never been a more important time for researchers all over the world to speak up about their work, it’s implications and how societies and governments should act on it.

I’ve just published a collection of 71 of my essays and op eds across a large variety of public health issues. Like this column, the book is called Smoke Signals, and is published by the Sydney University Press imprint, Darlington Press. It’s available in paperback or as an ebook.

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This article will be the subject of ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor on Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 7.45am.

Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in Public Health, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Why should we place our faith in science?

Jonathan Keith, Monash University

Most of us would like to think scientific debate does not operate like the comments section of online news articles. These are frequently characterised by inflexibility, truculence and expostulation. Scientists are generally a little more civil, but sometimes not much so!

There is a more fundamental issue here than politeness, though. Science has a reputation as an arbiter of fact above and beyond just personal opinion or bias. The term “scientific method” suggests there exists an agreed upon procedure for processing evidence which, while not infallible, is at least impartial.

So when even the most respected scientists can arrive at different deeply held convictions when presented with the same evidence, it undermines the perceived impartiality of the scientific method. It demonstrates that science involves an element of subjective or personal judgement.

Yet personal judgements are not mere occasional intruders on science, they are a necessary part of almost every step of reasoning about evidence.

Among the judgements scientists make on a daily basis are: what evidence is relevant to a particular question; what answers are admissible a priori; which answer does the evidence support; what standard of evidence is required (since “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”); and is the evidence sufficient to justify belief?

Another judgement scientists make is whether the predictions of a model are sufficiently reliable to justify committing resources to a course of action.

We do not have universally agreed procedures for making any of these judgements. This should come as no surprise. Evidence is something experienced by persons, and a person is thus essential to relating evidence to the abstractions of a scientific theory.

This is true regardless of how directly the objects of a theory are experienced – whether we observe a bird in flight or its shadow on the ground – ultimately it is the unique neuronal configurations of an individual brain that determine how what we perceive influences what we believe.

Induction, falsification and probability

Nevertheless, we can ask: are there forms of reasoning about evidence that do not depend on personal judgement?

Induction is the act of generalising from particulars. It interprets a pattern observed in specific data in terms of a law governing a wider scope.

But induction, like any form of reasoning about evidence, demands personal judgement. Patterns observed in data invariably admit multiple alternative generalisations. And which generalisation is appropriate, if any, may come down to taste.

Many of the points of contention between Richard Dawkins and the late Stephen Jay Gould can be seen in this light. For example, Gould thought Dawkins too eager to attribute evolved traits to the action of natural selection in cases where contingent survival provides an alternative, and (to Gould) preferable, explanation.

One important statement of the problem of induction was made by 18th-century philosopher David Hume. He noted the only available justification for inductive reasoning is that it works well in practice. But this itself is an inductive argument, and thus “taking that for granted, which is the very point in question”.

Karl Popper wanted science to be based on the deductive reasoning of falsificationism rather than the inductive reasoning of verificationism. Lucinda Douglas-Menzies/Wikimedia

Hume thought we had to accept this circularity, but philosopher of science Karl Popper rejected induction entirely. Popper argued that evidence can only falsify a theory, never verify it. Scientific theories are thus only ever working hypotheses that have withstood attempts at falsification.

This characterisation of science has not prevailed, mainly because science has not historically proceeded in this manner, nor does it today. Thomas Kuhn observed that:

No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature.

Scientists cherish their theories, having invested so much of their personal resources in them. So when a seemingly contradictory datum emerges, they are inclined to make minor adjustments rather than reject core tenets. As physicist Max Planck observed (before Popper or Kuhn):

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Falsification also ignores the relationship between science and engineering. Technology stakes human lives and personal resources on the reliability of scientific theories. We could not do this without strong belief in their adequacy. Engineers thus demand more from science than a working hypothesis.

Some philosophers of science look to probabilistic reasoning to place science above personal judgement. Prominent proponents of such approaches include Elliot Sober and Edwin Thompson Jaynes. By these accounts one can compare competing scientific theories in terms of the likelihood of observed evidence under each.

However, probabilistic reasoning does not remove personal judgement from science. Rather, it channels it into the design of models. A model, in this sense, is a mathematical representation of the probabilistic relationships between theory and evidence.

As someone who designs such models for a living, I can tell you the process relies heavily on personal judgement. There are no universally applicable procedures for model construction. Consequently, the point at issue in scientific controversies may be precisely how to model the relationship between theory and evidence.

What is (and isn’t) special about science

Does acknowledging the role played by personal judgement erode our confidence in science as a special means of acquiring knowledge? It does, if what we thought was special about science is that it removes the personal element from the search for truth.

As scientists – or as defenders of science – we must guard against the desire to dominate our interlocutors by ascribing to science a higher authority than it plausibly possesses. Many of us have experienced the frustration of seeing science ignored or distorted in arguments about climate change or vaccinations to name just two.

But we do science no favours by misrepresenting its claim to authority; instead we create a monster. A misplaced faith in science can and has been used as a political weapon to manipulate populations and impose ideologies.

Instead we need to explain science in terms that non-scientists can understand, so that factors that have influenced our judgements can influence theirs.

It is appropriate that non-scientists subordinate their judgements to that of experts, but this deference must be earned. The reputation of an individual scientist for integrity and quality of research is thus crucial in public discussions of science.

I believe science is special, and deserves the role of arbiter that society accords it. But its specialness does not derive from a unique mode of reasoning.

Rather it is the minutiae of science that make it special: the collection of lab protocols, recording practices, publication and peer review standards and many others. These have evolved over centuries under constant pressure to produce useful and reliable knowledge.

Thus, by a kind of natural selection, science has acquired a remarkable capacity to reveal truth. Science continues to evolve, so that what is special about science today might not be what will be special about it tomorrow.

So how much faith should you put in the conclusions of scientists? Judge for yourself!

Jonathan Keith, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission) . Read the original article.
 

Seven myths about scientists debunked

By Jeffrey Craig, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and Marguerite Evans-Galea, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

As scientific researchers, we are often surprised by some of the assumptions made about us by those outside our profession. So we put together a list of common myths we and our colleagues have heard anecdotally regarding scientific researchers.

Myth 1: Researchers are paid by their research institutes

A research-focused academic will be provided with excellent colleagues, space, core technical support and often some money for lab maintenance. But not always a salary. Tenure is rare and is more likely to occur in universities but usually with teaching commitments.

The requirement for most researchers is to attract their own salary and research funding from outside their institute. This is typically in the form of competitive government grants, philanthropy and/or industry collaborations.

Scientific researchers are finding it harder to fund themselves due to reduced competitive grant funding. Luckily, some research organisations have a “safety net”, offering subsidies for limited amounts of time to top-performing researchers who have not funded their own salaries.

Myth 2: Researchers are paid to publish in journals

Surprisingly, unlike contributors to off-the-shelf journals and magazines, researchers have to pay the journals to publish their papers after they have been accepted for publication.

This is because, unlike mainstream publications, scientific journals generally do not receive money from advertisers. Costs can range up to A$2,000 per article, and up to US$5,700 (A$7,359) for “open access” journals, which do not charge a subscription fee. With most researchers publishing between five and ten papers a year, this can quickly add up.

Myth 3: Researchers are paid for working long hours

Scientific researchers are typically paid for between 37 and 39 hours per week.

However, due to a combination of healthy obsession, the increasing cost of experiments and the pressure to compete for an ever-shrinking pool of funds, many put in up to twice these hours, often working evenings and weekends.

In contrast to those in the legal and accounting professions, for example, no overtime is paid to scientific researchers.

Myth 4: Worthy research always gets funded

In 1937, the success rate for medical research grants was 49%, with a total of 63 applications made.

Through to 2000, success rates hovered around 30%, meaning one in three grants were funded. This sustained research careers and allowed growth in the research workforce. Today, around 7,000 PhD students graduate each year, with more than half in science, technology, engineering and maths.

In 2014, however, the success rate for most Australian government funded research grants hit a 30-year low of 15%, with another drop predicted for 2015. With 4,800 grant applications every year, there is a lot of excellent research – and researchers – missing out.

This issue was highlighted recently by four Australian Nobel Laureates. Unfunded research is often terminated, leading to a loss of valuable resources, such as specialised disease models and highly skilled research staff.

Myth 5: Researchers can claim costs of journal subscriptions and society memberships

Subscribing to leading journals is essential for staying up to date with discoveries in one’s research area research as soon as they are published. A typical subscription will be a few hundred dollars each year.

Although many journals are available free via university libraries, many make their articles available only to personal subscribers in the first year after they’re published.

It is also important that researchers keep in contact with colleagues via societies, and a researcher will often hold two to five different memberships. Generally, grant funding bodies do not allow budgets to include such items, and most research institutes will not provide funding either.

The best a typical researcher can do is to claim part of these expenses back as a tax deduction.

Myth 6: Researchers are trained to write and to manage budgets

In general, there are no compulsory courses in science communication, grant writing or budget management. These are usually picked up from mentors and from trial and error.

Progressive research institutes and university departments may offer some training in these areas, but again, this is not systematic.

Myth 7: Researchers have a career for life

Gone are the days of “once a researcher, always a researcher”. This is partly due to the “casualisation” of Australia’s research workforce and higher education sector, but also the high turnover of research personnel.

Most researchers sign a 12 month contract – sometimes less. Senior investigators with Fellowships may receive a contract for the duration of their fellowship, but few, if any, are considered “permanent employees”.

This is not unique to scientific research, but this short-term, high-risk career path has serious consequences for all researchers, particularly women in science.

Young investigators are being encouraged to consider careers beyond research and some of our best and brightest are choosing to stay abroad.

The truth

It’s also a myth that all scientists wear white coats and work in labs. Source: woodleywonderworks/Flickr, CC BY

Scientists are passionate about their research and readily do overtime and work pro bono (minus the executive assistant and company car), all while seeking funds for their salary, and for those in their team.

This is after more than a decade of higher education enabling the researcher to become an international specialist in their field. A huge investment for the individual, the government and society. Few researchers complain though because of the joys of research, the thrill of discovery and the desire to help others.

We hope this has helped shed some light on the life of a scientific researcher, and dispelled a few myths that are floating around about how and why we do what we do.

Scientists want you to “get” what we do. After all, our science impacts you too, and much of it is funded through your tax dollars. Increased investment in Australian science, together with diversified training of the research workforce, will secure the future of Australian research and researchers – and every Australian.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Dennett on philosophers and scientists

Prof. Daniel Dennett (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

“The history of philosophy is the history of very tempting mistakes made by very smart people, and if you don’t learn that history you’ll make those mistakes again and again and again. One of the ignoble joys of my life is watching very smart scientists just reinvent all the second-rate philosophical ideas because they’re very tempting until you pause, take a deep breath and take them apart.”  – Daniel Dennett

The Scientific Conspiracy Fallacy

by Tim Harding

The 2013 National Australian Skeptics Convention was held from 22 to 24 November in Canberra.  The theme was Science, Skepticism and Conspiracy Theories.  We understand the connection between science and skepticism, but where do conspiracy theories fit in?

You may have noticed that irrational beliefs such as anti-vaccination, anti-fluoridation, anti-GM foods and extra-terrestrial visitations are often associated with conspiracy theories allegedly involving scientists.

The late Christopher Hitchens described conspiracy theories as “the exhaust fumes of democracy” – the unavoidable result of a large amount of information circulating among a large number of people.  Conspiracy theories appear to make sense of a world that is otherwise confusing.[1]  They do so in an appealingly simple way – by dividing the world into bad guys versus good guys. They also enable people to believe whatever they want to believe, without the bothersome burden of conclusive evidence.

The Scientific Conspiracy Fallacy takes roughly the following form:

   Premise 1: I hold a certain belief.

   Premise 2: The scientific evidence is inconsistent with my belief.

   Conclusion: Therefore, the scientists are conspiring with the Big Bad Government/CIA/NASA/Big Pharma (choose whichever is convenient) to fake the evidence and undermine my belief.

It is a tall order to argue that the whole of science is genuinely mistaken. That is a debate that even the conspiracy theorists know they probably can’t win. So the most convenient explanation for the inconsistency is that scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to fake the evidence in specific cases.

In informal logic, many fallacies can be demonstrated by citing a counter-example.  In this case, a possible alternative explanation for the inconsistency is simply that the scientific evidence is right and the conspiracy theorist’s belief is wrong.  The notion that scientists are regularly engaged in conspiracies is implausible, because amongst other things, published scientific papers are required to explain the experimental methods used so that the experiments can be repeated and tested by anybody.  And as Prof. Lawrence Krauss has said, “scientists become famous by proving their colleagues wrong”.[2]

Endnotes 

[1] Van der Linden (2013) Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories.  Scientific American 18 August, 2013. 

[2] ABC1 TV program ‘Q&A – A Show About Nothing ‘ Transcript 18 February, 2013. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3687812.htm

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