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The Nature of Scientific Debate

  
 
alterity
13:39 / 16.04.05
In light of Mr. Coates' call for more participation in the Laboratory, I thought I would raise the following set of related issue.

  • What does it mean to debate science? After all, science is (often, although not always) involved in interpreting the real world, which, if you believe in it all, seems hardly open to "interpretation." So whence the debate?
  • Who gets to pass judgment or sanction science? Otherwise put, who gets to end debate by claiming that the answer has been found? Who gets to reopen the discussion? Why?
  • In light of, say, assaults on science in the United States in the last four+ years (intelligent design anyone? discussion here), what is the future of scientific debate? Will it be left in the hands of experts, or will politicians and pundits with little or no scientific background claim that global warming is not real because they know something the thousands of scientists do not, because they were told by an institution that was founded to tell find that very thing (Michael Crichton anyone?)?
  • Finally, regardless of who ultimately holds the keys to scientific knowledge, what happens to nature, the oft purported object of science? Is there a way in which science can be true to its object? Is there a possibility here for escaping the socio-political pressures scientists face, or are those socio-political pressures themselves so naturalized that nature is doomed to being simply one more area of human culture among many?


I am sure there are more questions that need to be raised herein, but I shall leave off for now. I look forward to hearing both from people who are invested in science as an occupation and those who simply affected by science everyday (which is to say all of us).
 
 
charrellz
14:43 / 16.04.05
To address the first point, I think there are two reasons to debate science. The first, is that often the debate isn't over the results, but the validity of the results, and whether or not a particular person's work should be trusted. The second issue is the whether or not the findings are ethical and useful. For instance, some people resist studying gender differences, claiming that there will be more discrimination if there is some sort of scientific support for one sex being 'greater' than the other (personally, I think we should do the research. We should know all there is to know about the/any subject, and the people dumb enough to develop a bias/prejudice over the results were probably dumb enough to form one without the help of science.).

I'll let someone smarter cover the rest. Good idea for a discussion by the way, and welcome to Barbelith.
 
 
Psi-L is working in hell
18:03 / 16.04.05
Great thread alterity...there's almost too many questions to cover in one go here, perhaps each should be in a separate thread. While I dwell on them, I'm going to have a go at a couple:

Considering your first question....I think that there is a huge amount of interpretation and framing that goes into the hypotheses about how the real world work....so I don't think that scientists just read off these 'facts' from nature in some sort of impartial way. So a debate at this technical level is about what counts as proof, or a vaild experiment to 'prove' anything.

With respect to the third point, as I see it, it is crucial that whilst scientific research itself should be carried out by scientists, it should not be solely steered by them alone, for they as much as anyone else are as prone to social and political framing assumptions or interests as anyone else, and this can lead to whole areas of inquiry being closed off or disregarded. The idea that scientists are any more objective than anyone else is a very old Enlightenment idea which doesn't hold up to much scruinty when you really examine how for example laboratories, research programmes, and the peer review process work. You can call me Chük, has already shown that trust in the scientist or institution are just as important in determining the validity of scientific results, and this is a subjective jusdgement not some sort of objective scientific one. Science and scientists are often separated out from society or culture as a special thing but it is as open to social and subjective interpretation as many other collective processes.

So I think as many different people should have a say in deciding the direction of research, firstly because any new technology, or technological solution could have a massive impact on society, and the way people live and interact, so as many people as possible need to debate how we want to live, what we are prepared to change, what is or is not an ethical way to proceed and these are questions that scientists are no more qualified to answer than anyone else.

Secondly, the more concerns and aspirations around science and technology that are debated upstream in the innovation process the more all of this can feed into it. We would then be less likely to be locked into only a few technological trajectories which are decided by a few people and this in turn should lead to more innovative science, and science and technology which more people are likely to accept (unlike say, GM crops in the UK where social interpretations of the risk as well as ethical and political concerns were largely ignored until it was too late to do anything about it).

Where this argument does get tricky is, as you say, when groups such as creationists or climate change deniers hide their political or religious views behind a scientific argument. In both cases their scientific evidence does not stand up to much scrutiny and neither does their political position as they are either being funded by oil companies to get a particular result or they have unshakable faith in the literal truth of the bible, neither of which are very in line with what I see as a scientific approach, which is to maintain an open mind and not stick to any theory with too much dogmatism e.g. you should always be prepared to change your theory in light of over whelming contradictory evidence, something neither group seems willing to do.

So coming back to the first point scientific debate needs to happen on two levels for me. One, is the more closed technical scientific debate about hypothesis, experiment and what consitutes proof and the other is a broad society-wide discussion about the impact and place of science in society. If the the former took into account as far as is reasonable the social concerns and aspirations and knowledges of the wider society I think we'd get much more interesting science to debate.
 
 
grant
14:11 / 18.04.05
1. I think the key source of debate is what Chuk said up there -- validity. And what is viewed as "valid" is going to depend on all sorts of other fuzzy human social qualities, like politics & religion & epistemology & whatnot.

2. I think this needs to be unpacked, possibly in a thread all of its very own: Is there a possibility here for escaping the socio-political pressures scientists face, or are those socio-political pressures themselves so naturalized that nature is doomed to being simply one more area of human culture among many?

As long as scientists are human, they're going to be subject to the social & political pressures that humans all have orbiting around them, I think. But in the second half of the question, I'm curious what constitutes "nature" vs. "culture."
 
 
alterity
15:07 / 18.04.05
(personally, I think we should do the research. We should know all there is to know about the/any subject, and the people dumb enough to develop a bias/prejudice over the results were probably dumb enough to form one without the help of science.)

Alas. . too true. All too true. I agree that the research itself should not be curtailed per se, but that we need to think about the implementation of that research. Of course it will be misused, but that does not make research qua research bad. Of course the line between research and its implementation is a fine one. Once something is in the world, how long before it is used (nuclear weapons being an easy example)?

With respect to the third point, as I see it, it is crucial that whilst scientific research itself should be carried out by scientists, it should not be solely steered by them alone, for they as much as anyone else are as prone to social and political framing assumptions or interests as anyone else, and this can lead to whole areas of inquiry being closed off or disregarded.

The question is one of disciplinarity. Where does politics end and science begin, and vice versa? Scientists, being humans and citizens of various nations, are subject to political forces, and, as such, should not have the sole ability to steer scientific research. However, should we allow people like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist to do it (for readers not in the US: these two are congressional leaders who are simply wacko in regards to science, both placing their faith before empiricism and evidence when it suits their politics, despite the fact that Frist is a medical doctor)? It seems that non-experts too often feel empowered to make scientific decisions because they are on a government committee that deals with science (even though they have no scientific training) or because they're religion rejects science, or because they saw an episode of CSI: Miami. I don't want to say that we need to listen to the scientists all the time. How could we? They don't always agree (which only gives more fuel to the creationists, who point to scientific debate over the nature of evolution as proof that it is merely a theory, and therefore no better than creationism at explaining life, the universe, and everything). What is to be done?

As you rightly state, whole areas of inquiry are being cut off because of various political and ethical pressures from both within and without science. I believe that this course is a foolish one, but I also am cautious about unfettered research. Too often I have read accounts of science by scientists who claim to be unconcerned about the potential impact of their work on the rest of the world. They are interested in "pure" research, research uncontaminated by politics or any form of cultural concern.

Which brings me to one last point in this rant.

I'm curious what constitutes "nature" vs. "culture."

The divide between nature and culture is one of the big questions, like free will vs. determinism or The Beatles vs. Elvis. Richard Dawkins, in his theory of the "meme" makes a pretty sharp divide between the two spheres (even if it is unintentional and seemingly contradictory to his work in The Extended Phenotype as I recall). The gene explains natural evolution and survival, while the meme explains cultural evolution and survival. I am a big fan to his anti-humanist standpoint (humans are merely vectors for genetic survival and proliferation, also for memetic survival and proliferation), but question the necessity of a separate heuristic device for cultural explanation. On the other hand, philosopher Elizabeth Grosz argues that if we had a sufficiently complex understanding of nature, we would be able to explain culture as well. I agree on the grounds that I believe nature to be primary over culture in a certain sense (primary over human culture, if we can make a distinction between human culture and other cultures). So, in short, in my opinion the distinction between the two spheres is a specious one. See Bruno Latour's excellent books We Have Never Been Modern and Politics of Nature for very lucid and elaborate explanations of how the two spheres in fact inform one another, and perhaps how they are just one sphere after all.

In any case, while I don't see the split, others claim it implicitly if not explicitly. For example, take the hole in the ozone layer. Is it purely a cultural phenomenon? Well, there's little doubt that humans are at least mostly to blame. On the other than, it is caused by a mixture of what is commonly understood to be a product of culture (pollution) and the stuff of nature (ozone itself). When we make a distinction between the two, far from making humans culpable, we are in fact enabling them to shirk responsibility. After all, they can just blame nature, with which humans share no real relationship in the klogic of the split described above (we are, after all, cultural). This is exactly what politicians do. However, when we want to drill in the Alaskan oil fields and disrupt the "natural" ecosystem, we have the right to do so because our cultural needs trump nature because, once again, there is no fundamental relationship between the two spheres. We don't have to worry about that which can't affect us.

Put another way: too often nature is simply understood as an object: the object of science, the object of politics. It is inert and awaits our hand. Nature is something that we affect but are not affected by. (Note: this is not my argument, but one that is implicit in how nature is treated by humanity when it is understood to be separate from humanity.) Culture, on the other hand, is understood to be the subject, the agent, that which acts in general and that which acts upon nature specifically. If one is inert and one is lively, which is going to trump the other? In the end, the distinction between the two fields is a political maneuver that allows, in its reduction and simplicity (which are often necessary for the sake of pragmatics), the needs of one to overshadow the reality of the other. Understanding both together, and reframing scientific debate in terms of its fundamental relationship to political debate (if we understand science to be a means of representing nature and politics as a means of representing culture), is a crucial (if difficult) move for a progressive politics that would embrace scientific facts and cultural values, rather than playing each off of the other.
 
 
andrew cooke
00:36 / 21.04.05
i've been getting my pants in a wad recently about the "lancet study" - the report that was widely reported as giving a "conservative estimate" of 100,000 additional dead in iraq. that coming in at least a couple of major quotes (bbc, iht) from the researchers involved.

yet, when published, the 95% confidence limits were 8,000 to 190,000. there's a good article here. this may have been big news in the states, i don't know - here in chile i didn't notice til recently.

to me, this seems - at least at face value - like the most appalling abuse of scientific authority. any future studies that show firm evidence for massive casualties are going to be ignored because these people way overstated their case (for those that don't know the stats lingo, a conservative lower limit would be 8,000 dead, not 100,000, and any study that can't measure a number to within a factor of 10 or 100 is more or less useless).

and, worse, these people were experienced in this kind of work. so they must have been able to predict that they would get appallingly wide error margins. so why even bother - presumably this kind of work in iraq puts people's lives at risk.

does anyone have more info on this that looks at what happened from this angle? most of the stuff i've seen is heavily politicised, with people on the right attacking the report and the left defending it. to me (i would say i'm left wing) this is crazy. the left should be furious with these people for pulling such a stupid student and, ultimately, making a mockery of science.

(sorry of this seems rather random; i thought it was a good practical example of some of the issues in this trhead).
 
 
xenosss
06:43 / 21.04.05
What does it mean to debate science? After all, science is (often, although not always) involved in interpreting the real world, which, if you believe in it all, seems hardly open to "interpretation." So whence the debate?

I think it's important to first to create two categories before even beginning to discuss science debate. Science is discussed in two main areas: Amongst professional scientists or at least those with a true interest in the subject, and amongst the greater public. The only important debate occurs in that first area, and as has been stated before, focuses mostly on validity. Enough has been discussed on that already, and at greater length/eloquence than I could, so... onto my main point.

It is the second area, that of the public arena, that is most problematic. All discussions, generally, of science in a public manner require "objectivity" on the part of whomever is moderating the discussion. Whether it be a news show, newspaper, magazine, etc., journalistic methods necessitate that objectivity be upheld. Unfortunately, this has horrible effects when applied to science. The public debate of science is not concerned with the validity of a theory, but instead with how one theory holds up when contrasted with a contradictory theory. For instance, creationism versus evolution (even though one has no real scientific basis at all).

What journalists, as representing the public at large, do not understand is that science cannot be subjected to the same objective standards used for, say, politics (although, even then, objectivity is crap, but that's a whole other topic). When objectivity IS applied to science, it allows for the personal opinions of the editor/moderator/journalist to come forth. Those involved in the public debate of science need to realize that just because you talk about evolution doesn't mean you have to talk about creationism. In science, one often remains most objective by presenting only one theory: the tested and accepted theory.

All of that in mind, what is the future of scientific debate? In the scientif realm, it will go on as it always has. And, I fear, it shall do the same in the public realm. In a sense, it will remain in the hands of both experts AND politicians and pundits, albeit in different ways. Experts will continue to utilize debate as a means of refining scientific knowledge, while politicians and pundits will utilize debate as a means of furthering their own beliefs.
 
 
Lurid Archive
08:35 / 21.04.05
What does it mean to debate science? After all, science is (often, although not always) involved in interpreting the real world, which, if you believe in it all, seems hardly open to "interpretation." So whence the debate?

Well, what often distinguishes science from psuedo-science is precisely the standing assumption that current knowledge isn't the last word. Open mindedness, like a sense of humour, is something that everyone claims to have of course but the normal procedure in scientific research is precisely to find out new stuff and see if it confirms or contradicts what is known. (This is overly simplistic, but I think it has some merit.)

Naturally, trends, fashions and social concerns also come into play in a variety of ways. Inevitably so, since scientists are people. But I think the progress science has made tends to indicate that these social factors aren't completely inescapable, at least for the harder sciences. Within even that broad view of progress, however, there is a lot of room for debate and scientific error.

In my experience, scientists themselves do not believe in the infallibility of science. Rather, a scientifically illiterate media (and public, to be fair) insist on final, god-like pronouncements. And then complain when the world is rather more complicated than that. Since andrew cooke has brought it up, the Lancet study in Iraq is an excellent example of this. I don't intend to be mean but this,

to me, this seems - at least at face value - like the most appalling abuse of scientific authority. any future studies that show firm evidence for massive casualties are going to be ignored because these people way overstated their case (for those that don't know the stats lingo, a conservative lower limit would be 8,000 dead, not 100,000, and any study that can't measure a number to within a factor of 10 or 100 is more or less useless).

is pretty badly wrong on almost all counts. Firstly, the Lancet study was a detailed study, clearly outlining methodology and results into deaths in Iraq. The media doesn't like that so went for headline figures - black and white again. Having said that, it is absurd to say that the headline figure should be the most unlikely lower estimate that is produced. If that is what you want, why not use "0"? I absolutely guarantee it as a lower bound. Or you could do a detailed study and consider the midpoint - 100,000.

Second, the confidence interval is large because the study was undertaken in a combat zone. What it does tell you is that it is quite likely that tens of thousands of people died.

All of which is probably a little too particular for this debate...but it does show, to my mind, the level at which science is often discussed. A pretty low level. Which puts discussions about who should control science into a different light, I think.
 
 
andrew cooke
11:15 / 21.04.05
i should have given the quotes. it wasnt a case of using a typical value, they clearly and repeatedly presented 100,000 as a lower bound.

bbc: Dr Les Roberts, who led the study, said: "Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

iht: "We were shocked at the magnitude but we're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate," said Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins study team.

i agree that the press will go straight for these. but that would have been obvious to the researchers. they knew what they were doing and misrepresented the facts.

this isn't a criticism of the study itself, which is a refereed paper. what i am criticising is the way the scientists overtly and knowingly "span" the story. in a way that must damage future work.

i also question the utility of a study that gives results with errors that exceed an order of magnitude. these were experienced workers - they must have expected such results (the report details various problems, but nothing that would explain such a massive deterioration in quality from "useful" data). so what did they hope to acomplish before they even started?

anf finally, i'm amazed at the response of so many academics from the left who have a hard time recognising this. your tactic - of defending the paper and ignoring the comments made to the press - is depressingly common. isn't a scientist's responsibility to be as careful - if not more so - when talking to the press as when writing a paper? if we want public policy to be based on science then the press is a useful tool. politicians don't read papers, they read quotes in newspapers. and we all know how bad the press is at understanding and presenting info.

so why on earth lie to the papers? the only explanation i can see is that these "scientists" knew that the study would have little real value from the outset, and did this solely so that they could exploit the press for propaganda value. in the long term this is crazy - and in the short term it had depressingly little effect.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:56 / 21.04.05
But, aren't you making too much of the word "conservative", here? I agree that it isn't ideal and that headlining this figure is unfortunate, but it is also fairly defensible to take your mean as the baseline. Certainly, taking the lower bound of your confidence interval as a "conservative" estimate is just as misleading. In fact, I think it would be more so. Why shouldn't conservative work the other way? Shouldn't we "conservatively" be overestimating the deaths in order to be more cautious? (assuming we care about Iraqi deaths) That would certainly be defensible in studies on safety of chemicals or radioactivity, say.


i also question the utility of a study that gives results with errors that exceed an order of magnitude. these were experienced workers - they must have expected such results (the report details various problems, but nothing that would explain such a massive deterioration in quality from "useful" data). so what did they hope to acomplish before they even started?

as I understand it, this is to be expected in this kind of survey. They had neither the time nor the resources to conduct a study that would yield very reliable results. Potentially, such a study was not possible. Are you saying that in that situation, "we don't do body counts" becomes the neutral stance? Because I think that that attitude blatantly serves a political agenda. What is interesting is that the study indicates a great many deaths in Iraq - even factoring in the large confidence interval. Even the lower bound of the confidence interval is surprisingly high.

As for scientists being responsible for the media...I dunno. I'm not sure that scientists have that kind of control and there has been a significant response to the Lancet study that essentially argues that stats is rubbish, and we are better off not knowing how many people we kill. I'd answer your point about lefty academics by pointing out that critics of the report show little to no interest in actually trying to determine an accurate picture of deaths in Iraq - they just want to silence unfavourable stories.

You can bend over backwards as far as you like to try to present an "accurate" headline of a detailed statistical study. But wouldn't one really be confusing accuracy with pandering to dominant political prejudices?
 
  
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