If you can't publish, how can they make you perish? Bias against marine conservation papers in scientific journals

As a semi-reformed oceanographer and marine scientist, I still read scientific publications regularly. I even manage to sneak in a paper or talk to a professional meeting every couple of years. And right now, this situation hits home because I'm trying to write a conservation oriented paper for scientific publication that might (over a decade late) get the major portion of my Master's thesis published:

the environmental situation in the marine environment is pretty dire in many respects, and publishing biases exacerbates the problem – getting good science-based management and decision-making that can alleviate marine environmental problems is made even more difficult if timely publication of essential science is prevented by the biases of journal editors.

Part of the problem for me - as someone working in a science agency at HQ - is I don't take data anymore.  This means that if I want to write, and i do, I have to lean on policy or management topics that allow me to synthesize the work of others or to draw out my own small data sets into new and interesting way.  Marine conservation topics - which often cross what used to be a hard boundary between process or characterization studies and applied management of natural resources - are right up the alley that's open to me right now.

Funny thing is I would have thought that the rise of on-line open access journals would have begun to ameliorate this. Perhaps I'll write about that as a paper topic someday - assuming i can find a publisher.

Calling the game by its name: the Government Lockout of 2013

The Republican Party has, over the last 40 years, become experts at the art of framing – tailoring your message to the predispositions of the audiences you are trying to reach.  Between Sarah Palin’s oft quoted (and not quite dead) Death Panels, the Tea Party’s continued focus on federal spending as the source of Great Recession (As opposed to the financial dereliction of Wall Street), and the NRA’s outright lying about the Manchin-Toomey gun control bill, right wing politicians, pundits, and interest groups are more then willing to bend their story to inflame passions when they think it will get them a political victory.

Sadly, the Main Stream Media (MSM) seems to have taken a few pages from te Republican playbook as they describe the . . . dereliction of duty  . . . going on in Washington DC at the moment.  The MSM, the Republicans, and even Democrats keep referring to what happens when the federal government runs out of money as a “Shutdown.”

Bollocks.  What is happening now is nothing less then a classic Management Lockout of labor in a dispute.  Except here, federal workers are not being locked out because they (as labor) are demanding better working conditions or more wages (even as a part of the profits).  No, labor is being locked out of doing its lawful work because Management and owners (here the politicians and the 1% who fund their campaigns) no longer agree on what role is whose, and more importantly they no longer agree on what the outcome of the American Political System is supposed to be.

See, the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) does two main things.  First, it brings more people into the health insurance system.  This ultimately drives healthcare costs (and profits) down, since more people will benefit from preventive care and from lower cost treatments.  Second, it mandates how that insurance must care for patients, most importantly by removing the bars on preexisting conditions.  Again, that will eat into the profit margins of health insurance companies.

SO the 1% have deployed one group of their manages to do battle with the others.  The result is labor will be locked out, Americans will suffer, and the 1% will NOT get the comeuppance they deserve. 

That is, until the federal government breaches the debt limit ceiling, and markets tank.  When that happens, locking out labor will no longer be a sufficient tactic to keep the 1% in the level of greed to which they wish to become accustomed.

Defending science : Again and Again

My latest defense of science is up in the comments at The Intersection. I just have to say that it IRKS me beyond belief that so many people think "science" is some sort of massive conspiracy to waste money. Anyone of my carefully vetted readers want to help me out?

Let me close with this:

Science will never AGREE 100% with anyone’s personal or political worldview or beliefs. NEVER!

Nor should it. That doesn’t make sceince “bad” or “wrong” or “suspect.” Rather, that makes science an independent path to understanding how the world works. For that reason alone it should continue unfettered and fully supported. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have eradicated polio, learned how to prevent skin cancer, or discovered the caridac healing properties of red wine. If science was always constrained by politics, you wouldn’t have smoke alarms, or reusable coffee mugs, or windshield washer fliud that can dissolve ice.

Of course, maybe you don’t want such things.

The latest Refutation of Climate Crisis Deniers - Finally the WaPo gets it right.

On 9 December, the Washington Post published yet another in a string of climate crisis denying editorials, this one by Sarah Palin. It follows on the heels of the many lies and half-truths cooked up by George Will to try and derail sensible policy changes to confront a slow rolling, but all too real set of changes in the Earth's climate system.

Well today, a mere 24 hours later, and without any serious campaign by scientists, the media, or grade school kids, the WaPo publishes the rebuttal. Alan Lesher, who is the publisher for the prestigious journal Science, writes this:

Climate-change science is clear: The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- derived mostly from the human activities of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation -- stands at 389 parts per million (ppm). We know from studying ancient Antarctic ice cores that this concentration is higher than it has been for at least the past 650,000 years. Exhaustive measurements tell us that atmospheric carbon dioxide is rising by 2 ppm every year and that the global temperature has increased by about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. Multiple lines of other evidence, including reliable thermometer readings since the 1880s, reveal a clear warming trend. The broader impacts of climate change range from rapidly melting glaciers and rising sea levels to shifts in species ranges.

Pretty clear stuff. I'm sure some deniers will try to spin this, but it is tough to do when you add in this:

None of these tactics changes the clear consensus of a vast majority of scientists, who agree that the Earth is warming as greenhouse gas levels rise. The public and policymakers should not be confused by a few private e-mails that are being selectively publicized and, in any case, remain irrelevant to the broad body of diverse evidence on climate change. Selected language in the messages has been interpreted by some to suggest unethical actions such as data manipulation or suppression. To be sure, investigations are appropriate whenever questions are raised regarding the transparency and rigor of the scientific process or the integrity of individual scientists. We applaud that the responsible authorities are conducting those investigations. But it is wrong to suggest that apparently stolen emails, deployed on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, somehow refute a century of evidence based on thousands of studies.

Already I can hear the groans - release the data. Scientists already did. Don't be fooled - this is just a conspiracy to take away your rights - as if that hasn't been done under other rubrics already (such as security from terrorists). The bottom line is that, while the nature of the impacts and their duration is still a subject ripe for study - the fact that impacts are already occurring is not open for debate. No should we waste time laying blame, or looking the other way. The time is now for the U.S. to summon her collective national will and tackle this problem head on. We need more innovation in green energy, not less. We need to hold the patents on Carbon Capture technology, not the Chinese. We need to lead, not just spout platitudes. Otherwise, our children and grandchildren will richly deserve the chance to heap scorn on us for our lazy, self-centered response to clear and present danger.

Geoengineering - an idea whose time has NOT come.

Over at ClimateWire yesterday (subscription required), there was a story about the “new” controversy that’s brewing in climate crisis response. It seems there’s now open debate in the climate science community about whether geoengineering – active manipulation by humans of the Earth’s many systems – should be on the table as part of our climate crisis toolkit.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Some geoengineering schemes to fight climate change would probably succeed in cooling the planet, scientists said here Friday -- but whether we should ever deploy them is still an open question.

Researchers who gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology outlined a stark list of potential side effects of different climate engineering approaches, including further depleting the ozone layer, inducing drought and turning the blue sky white.

At the same time, many experts said geoengineering could be a planetary "Plan B," an option to exercise if cutting greenhouse gas emissions can't stave off dangerous climate change. "Even if we cut emissions, we have a lot of carbon dioxide already in the air," said David Keith of the University of Calgary. "We don't know exactly how bad the climate response will be, and we have to think clearly about how we manage the risk posed by CO2 already in the air."

Here’s where the scientists begin to loose the framing battle. By explicitly acknowledging the uncertainty around whether emissions reductions alone will have an effect on the warming trend that is occurring, Dr. Keith (following good scientific practice though he is) has opened the door to denialists. “Wait,” they will now scream “if all this carbon is still going to be left in the air, and you’re right (snicker) about carbon causing global warming, won’t the remainder still do that? If it will, why cut emissions (i.e. change our lifestyle) – it won’t do any good.”

The following three paragraphs don’t make it any better in the framing war:

An ongoing MIT research project into the risks posed by different levels of greenhouse gas emissions suggests that even steep cuts won't guarantee the world will stay under the 2-degree-Celsius climate guardrail espoused by many political leaders.

Stabilizing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the equivalent of 550 parts per million of CO2 -- a goal that's "not easy," according to MIT Energy Initiative director Ron Prinn -- would give the world just a 25 percent chance of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees between 1990 and 2090.

"Even with a very tough and expensive target, we are still at risk," Prinn said. "Hence, I think it's legitimate to begin thinking about geoengineering as something that should be on the table."

Much of the rest of the article from that point talks about the two main types of geoengineering being debated – those approaches that eat more carbon (like ocean fertilization), and those that reflect more sunlight back into space (like painting roofs white, or seeding the atmosphere with sulfates). Sure, it would be nice to have tools like this IF emissions reductions fail, but . .
.

'Precious little' science has been done

"The thing that's always frustrated me," said Philip Boyd, a professor of ocean biochemistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand, is that geoengineering "has great press coverage. It has that science fiction component that makes good copy. But there's been precious little or no science done."

David Keith, the University of Calgary scientist, agreed. "The actual number of real, serious science done on this topic is pitifully small," he said.

And that’s a huge part of the problem where both the efficacy of the techniques are concerned, and for how science frames this issue in talking to the general public. Because geoengineering as a word appeals to humans apparently innate desire to control nature, these approaches seem to get disproportionate media coverage. Far easier, so the story goes, to “geoengineer” our way out of the crisis, then to change our habits that lead to the crisis in the first place. That’s been the stuff of climate crisis denial for years now, and will continue to be so as long as scientists refuse to make “normative” statements about the impacts of all these decisions.

Yet, there is hope for my fellow science travelers :

Boyd said he's about to publish a study that predicts many geoengineering proposals would increase the potential for conflict, in part because documenting their effectiveness and assigning blame if things go wrong would be difficult tasks. He and others also noted that some climate engineering options, like delivering sulfate particles to the stratosphere, appear cheap enough that a large corporation or an individual country could deploy them without any international input. "The fact that it's cheap automatically means the policy challenge is control," said Keith, the University of Calgary professor. "The challenge is to control early actors."

But in the end, if more conventional efforts to blunt climate change don't succeed, whether to proceed with geoengineering may become an easier question to answer. "The most dangerous approach," said Keith, "is to assume geoengineering will work if we need it to -- without doing the research to prove it."

Dr. Keith is, of course, correct from a scientific standpoint. And, he and his colleagues do a better job then most of highlighting explicitly the threats from geoengineering as an approach to dealing with this self-inflicted wound. Yet they don’t go far enough, in my view. They avoid discussions of how, in essence, the climate crisis is the result of generations of unintentional, undirected geoengineering. They miss (perhaps because they are unaware) the fact that climate crisis induced ecological effects are already upon us. And they couch it all in the emotion-less, cautionary language of science. And by doing so, they give deniers one more chance to drive a wedge between the good that science can bring to this issue, and the reality that we’re all living today – namely that Americans want more then anything for this slow bleed out to be someone else’s’ fault.

The Science of Evolution - Still Trumped by Emotional Appeals

One thing about the scientific enterprise that seems to bother many “ordinary” people is the lack of definite conclusions that science draws. We scientists go running around, so it seems, proclaiming that “This discovery answers That question . . . “ Only to have the NEXT discovery answer THAT question, or blow That Question right out of the water. This one of the primary tools of Creationists – deny evolution as the explanation of life because the scientific take on evolution keeps . . . well . . . evolving. The Bible, on the other hand, has a consistent description of how the world was made, so it must be right.

So, then, what is a non-scientific society to do with Ardi? This newly described “human” skeleton is being interpreted as a protohuman of some kind – and evidence that chimpanzee behavior and evolution is not actually a good stand-in for human evolution (Ardi's describers conclude that modern chimpanzees may have co-evolved with Ardi, but not from Ardi). Rather, it seems that Ardi may have been the first ape ancestor to go try bipedalism for reasons of transferring food from males to females to create a monogamous or mostly monogamous relationship. In other words, Ardi’s male counterparts started walking upright to make sure they could get, and keep, the girl.

This wouldn’t be a huge thing – anthropologists have been speculating for years as to what drove the apes out of the trees and into upright positions. The change comes, however, in that Ardi points to this trait appearing a full 1 Million years before Lucy, who was described previously as the hominid ancestor who shows this trait. Lucy and Ardi, then, may well be close cousins in the human evolutionary tree – but it remains to be seen how their relationship is worked out and how that changes the description of the evolution of humans.

For Creationists, however, Ardi represents yet another turn in the evolutionary story – and thus another reason evolution is wrong. Because Ardi predates Lucy, they will no doubt argue, we have to reject everything that we supposedly learned about humans from Lucy. This means, to Creationists, that science isn’t delivering ANSWERS about how humans came to be but questions and contradictions (never mind that good scientists never claim to have definitive answers). Thus, the Creationist crowd will crow, we must reject science.

How will science respond? Will we rise to the occasion by pointing out how such deterministic thinking is, inherently flawed? Wills scientists describe the joy of discovering an expanded narrative to our ancestral tree, thus blunting Creationists emotional appeals for certainty with our own emotional appeals to the wonder of discovery? Or will we retreat to our probabilities, our R2 values and our caveats? If we do the latter, we will lose the debate just as surely as when we debate climate deniers with facts and figures, instead of blunting their underlying emotional appeals. And I think if we lose this debate, we do Ardi little justice.

Vitamin D deficiancy higher in kids, but the WaPo won't help

Today’s online edition of the Washington Post has a great example of how hard it is to communicate science to the public, especially when you operate under the mis-guided notion of a “fair balance” and thus have an need for two sides to a story.

Titled “Millions of Children In U.S. Found to Be Lacking Vitamin D – Links to Diabetes, Heart Disease Examined” seems, at first read, to be a straightforward report that 9% of children don’t have enough Vitamin D in their bodies to ward off a variety of both early and late life diseases. The WaPo authors note that scientists studying this question point to a decline in the consumption of Vitamin D enriched milk, and the lack of outdoor play time as significant causative factors.

Had they left it there, the story would have given parents and doctors something to talk about – how much sunlight does a nine year old Hispanic girl need to make adequate Vitamin D, and how can we help her get it? Why aren’t kids drinking as much fortified milk as before and is this really the best way (nutritionally) to supplement the lack of natural production? These would have been great questions, and great conversations.

Sadly, they aren’t likely to happen if you read the full piece. Ten paragraphs in, after the study and it’s findings are explained we hit this:

"The bottom line is that these numbers are interesting," said Frank R. Greer of
the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who served on a panel that recently
doubled the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for daily Vitamin D
intake. "But I'm not ready to make a great hue and cry until we have more data.
I think we should use them for further research to determine their
significance."

Why is this a significant paragraph? Isn’t it just an expression of the uncertainty that is inherent in science? Shouldn’t we do more studies after a finding like this to replicate them?

If you are a scientist, those are sensible responses. But the average reader, looking at the Citations to Authority presented here (i.e. Greer is a University academic who sits on an important panel of doctors who make important recommendations so we’d better listen to him), this is a contradiction to the findings presented in the prior 9 paragraphs. “Joe Sixpack” is thus likely to conclude that, since there is not a “scientific consensus” presented (i.e. the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t agree with this finding), he shouldn’t do anything differently, nor should he worry about his kids and whether they have Vitamin D deficiencies.

In addition, the WaPo fails to tell its readers that it’s counter-expert may have a vested interest in further study going a certain direction. If you Google Dr. Greer (who is, thankfully, a pediatric MD); you find this at ProCon.org:

Position: Pro to the question "Is drinking milk healthy for
humans?"
Reasoning: "Milk is one of the richest dietary sources of calcium and vitamin D, critical for building strong bones in kids and teens, and providing the best defense against developing osteoporosis later in life. While calcium supplements and non-dairy foods such as calcium-fortified beverages are an alternative, these products do not offer milk's unique nutrient package."

Clearly, Dr. Greer will have to advocate for more milk consumption if the study proves true, and will have to admit his efforts so far have not gone far enough. Even if he were neutral on the subject in his interviews, demanding more study and better numbers is often the tactic of deniers, or those with specific agendas that run counter to the conclusions of study authors.

So what could the Wa Po have done differently in presenting the story? First, I see no reason to have someone on as a counter point to these conclusions. Perhaps the WaPo editors thought that someone urging an ounce of caution before making major life changes was a good idea. Afterall, no use going off half cocked. But given the urgent need for some sort of change (9%) of kids suffering form this is not good) they might have done better to focus on the need for more outdoor play and exercise to increase sun exposure, and the need to increase milk intake. At the very least, they could have suggested talking to your kid’s pediatrician earlier in the article.

The bottom line, for me, is that while science is iterative, and thus never “done” and possessing “conclusions” as most people understand this term, the WaPo did its readers yet another science disservice by implying a need to wait for something more concrete, instead of evaluating your health now, and making better choices. This is why the media are failing so badly in communicating science to the general public.

The Deadliest Catch - Fan conventions, ocean acidification and science framing

Just when you thought it was safe to venture forth and enjoy spring, comes this word from Seattle: There is now a Deadliest Catch annual fan convention. Yes sir, no longer are fan conventions limited to the likes of Star Trek, Japanese Manga collectors, or even model train enthusiasts. Nope, now you can (if you were lucky enough to get a ticket) sit down and listen to the real life fishing boat crews from this Discovery Channel reality show.

Which makes me, as an oceanographer and ocean policy wonk ask this question – how does the ocean community leverage such phenomena to help educate the public on ocean issues? Are there ways we can, for instance, use a convention like this to help people understand the economics of commercial fishing? Or how about the intersection between king crab biology and ocean acidification? What would the impact be of Capt. Sig Hansen giving a talk not just about how he runs his boat, but about how climate change could drive his fishery to extinction?

I asked this question this morning to some of my federal ocean science colleagues. As you might imagine, I’m still getting an earful. The best crafted response so far, however, comes down on the side of not leveraging this opportunity:

“{Our Agency} is not a professional wrestling or football team, and we should not try to emulate what Discovery does. Most people don't know what an ecosystem is and won't care what {we} does. PBS viewers probably would--and this is the audience we should be targeting-- not the mindless masses who watch the other stuff (sorry if you're one, but I just can't abide them).

so--- most people just really aren't interested in the science {we do} or want to know that the world is falling apart. Stupid TV shows have replaced church as the opiate of the people, and most folks wouldn't be interested unless you can put in lots of shots of sharks eating someone. Neil Postman got it right in "Amusing Ourselves to Death".”

In many respects, I can’t say that I am surprised by the response. I know many really well educated scientists, policy analysts, economists, etc who would agree. And in a perfect world, they’d be right. PBS, for all the political bashing it does, is really the best “reality TV” out there. It is one of the things that got me hooked on ocean science as a career (Portuguese Man o’ War being another). And since I don’t have cable anymore, I haven’t seen a Deadliest Catch episode in a long time.

But where I and my colleague part ways is this – those opiated masses are the ones who want to buy steamed king crab by the pound at Giant or Red Lobster. They are the demand creators for this fishery. They are also the ones driving SUV’s, buying coal fired electric power, and doing a host of other climate change enabling things. As long as no one draws the link for them, in clear terms, between their actions and the long range consequences, there will be no groundswell politically to tackle these issues. And as any good framer of science knows, you have the best chances with the public if you get to them through existing information channels that they already access.

Does Capt. Hansen know that increasing ocean acidification might imperil his catch? If he did, would he speak to his legion of fans about it, and how they might be causing it (however indirectly)? I don’t know, but I’m hoping one of the convention goers this year will find out.

P.S. One of my other colleagues suggested that we start working on Somali coastal and fisheries restoration projects as a way to inject the needed action sequences into the program. I'll give him props for thinking WAY OUTSIDE the box!

Ways to fight back - Climate Deniers 101

On a fairly regular basis, the red headed wife sends me articles about science policy that are worth reading. Which is to say that, while everything she sends me is worth my reading, there exists a subset of articles that are worth reading by everyone. Pasted below is one such article:

Synthesizing Science and Politics

By Alexis Madrigal February 17, 2008 12:18:02 PM BOSTON, Ma -

Climate change highlights the interesting relationship that the political world has with science. While almost all scientists say that climate change is occurring, the policies of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, continue to make the problem worse, flying in the face of the best available science. Lawrence Susskind, an MIT professor, presented an easy answer for why this is happening at talk here at the AAAS annual meeting. "We know that politically motivated stakeholders reject scientific analysis that challenges their policy positions," he said. "They reject the science, not just the policy."



Wish as we might, those political motivations aren't going away, so he suggests, we have to learn to deal with them. From the largest resource problems like climate change to much smaller decisions like protecting a wetland while incorporating a suburban development, everyone recognizes that increasingly complex science has not translated well into the public sphere. Susskind, however, thinks that he's developed a framework for making science not just useful but usable in the public sphere. Stakeholders, and that probably means environmentalists and businesses, need to be brought into the very design of a scientific study. Susskind argued that only if major stakeholders agree that the right questions are being asked will they be willing to accept the answers that come back. He calls the process of incorporating stakeholders from the beginning, joint-fact finding.



To execute on this so-called joint fact finding Susskind recommends bringing a new type of person into the normal debates about science: the neutral. Neutrals are mediators who all stakeholders agree can act as an honest conduit between, say, Chinese coal plant owners, American energy companies, and Greenpeace. As someone who writes about climate change regularly, this sounds like the worst job imaginable.



His basic prescription for the broken system is to make it a little more like collective bargaining. He's initiated a pilot program with the US Geological Survey called the MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative. Dryly, he said, "The acronym is MUSIC because we're trying to harmonize science and policy."



(A quick peek at the website revealed some interesting papers. I've added Alexis Schulman's "Bridging the Divide: Incorporating Local Ecological Knowledge into US Natural Resource Management" to my reading list.)


Regular readers here, and elsewhere will know that I've been advocating a different approach to climate change policy, and specifically denial of climate change, for some time. Simply put, we can't deal with the science, because those who don't want to change economic, transportation, and/or energy policy to prevent further climate damage either ignore the science, or they manipulate the data in ways that say something that it doesn't. So I definitely like the article's suggestion that we invite them to the table at the beginning.

There is, however, one major flaw in this plan - most folks who deny the impacts of AGW, and misrepresent the science in the process, do not actually care about science. They care about economics, or energy generation, or capitalistic markets, or ending regulation, or . . . . anything but science. They just use science as their excuse or their hiding post from which to attack the real issues. It's intellectually dishonest at best, and I don't think having them at the table would change that.

SIDE NOTE - If you were to design a process to do this, might I suggest the often successful NEPA Scoping process?

POSTSCRIPT - Yesterday I asked for a link to the original article. Lucky for me. Mr. Madrigal's Google Alerts is working, and he supplied it himself in the comments section. SO I've added it to the title in case you want to go to the source. Thank you sir!

What we learn from Mr. George Will.

There has been much press since 15 February about the writings of George Will on climate change. Back then, Mr. will wrote an opinion piece continuing his fight against climate change (and particularly climate change caused by human action) by misrepresenting global sea ice data to try and prove that global warming isn’t occurring, or is at least not the next big catastrophe. If you’ve missed this tempest, I’ve included many links below you can follow for a variety of view points.

I’m not going to spend time rebutting the science – others have done a far better job then I could. I’m also not going to spend too much time dealing with the journalistic ethics, though I did leave a fairly lengthy comment on the Columbia Journalism Review blog about the controversy. There, I wrote in part:

“So, if Mr. Will believe (sic) the science says something that I do not, he needs to do two things. First, he needs to accurately tell us what scientists say, instead of telling us the opposite, and he needs to cite his sources. And for the record, published scientists do not cite blog posts in peer-reviewed literature.”

Having framed my two arguments, now I am forced to ask myself – what do I as a scientist and blogger do about this? What role can I adopt? And what can I carry forward as a lesson for future events like this one?

First, I think it needs to be said that Mr. Will can always be expected to start his columns from a conservative ideological point, not a set of facts. Pundits always start with their worldview. Second, I think I need to remind a few people that we shouldn’t expect Mr. Will to frame the facts he chooses in ways that we recognize or agree with, at least if we come from a liberal perspective. That’s not his job. Third, we do need to be on our guard in our responses. As I have noted before (and so Glenn Greenwald), too many forthright and reasoned responses to conservative opinion makers get shoved aside because they can too easily be accused of being shrill (as if conservatives never are). Finally, we need to make sure our responses not only set the facts straight, but make clear when ethical standards have been violated. This is especially important, since many Republicans rail that liberals do not believe in personal responsibility, the rule of law, or any kind of moral or ethical code.

Having digested all that, I view Mr. Will’s two columns as a cautionary tale for liberals (and climate change scientists especially). We need to get out ahead of these controversies. We need, as bloggers, science journalists, scientists, bureaucrats in science agencies, to start figuring out where we might be confronted by conservative ideologues and run their stories with our rebuttals before they do. This shouldn’t be too hard anymore.

Over at The Intersection, one of Chris Mooney’s commenters, Wes Rolley, notes he has suggested to ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolous that they have Chris on as a guest to debate Mr. Will. While I’d love to see Chris on that show (he’d thus be in D.C. and we could meet for brunch after), responding to Mr. Will now is too little, too late. Had we been data mining before hand, someone could have put this out on the intertubes, and then when the first column came out, we could have all politely directed the WaPo to the blog post in question, thus making the error not just one of science (where faked controversy helps the Post sell papers) but rather one of process. And journalists, as we’ve seen, love to defend their process.

I’ll grant you I don’t have the time to do that regularly. I don’t have the audience to make that impact. And I don’t have a good command of every aspect of the science. I also can’t easily think like a conservative most days. But I’m betting there is someone out here who can. And they need to start doing so, or we’ll end up fighting rear-guard actions for decades, all the while witnessing the increasing economic, environmental and security demands of a planet driven warmer by our inaction.

One note – my typing isn’t the best, and I have now spotted three typos in my CJR comment, even though I reread through it twice before hitting the POST button. I’d really love to see more spell checking available in blog comment sections for typing challenged folks like me.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/02/27/unchecked-ice-a-saga-in-five-chapters/#comment-15159

http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2009/02/george_will_lies_music_to_my_e.php

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/02/the-george-will-scandal/

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/15/george-will-global-cooling-warming-debunked/

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/27/in-a-journalistic-blunder-reminiscent-of-the-janet-cooke-scandal-the-senior-editors-of-the-washington-post-let-george-will-reassert-several-climate-falsehoods-plus-some-new-ones/

http://mediamatters.org/items/200902240010?f=h_top

http://mediamatters.org/static/pdf/wapo-letter-20090224.pdf

http://mediamatters.org/items/200902260029?f=h_latest

http://mediamatters.org/discuss/200902260029

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/expers-big-flaw-in-wills-ice-assertions/

UPDATE:
Here's a good summary page that gives you the state of Play as of 5 March or so.

James Hansen - Climate Realist 2.0

H/T to Climate Progress for bringing us the latest James Hansen outreach piece. Sadly, I think he'll be as ignored in the UK as he is here.

The Face of Modern Science?

Elsewhere at the Intersection, Sheril has spent a lot of time writing about women in science, both from her professional perspective, and as an observer of the opportunities and challenges she and her sisters deal with. In a similar vein, Darlene challenged readers of the Science Cheerleader to tell her, and us, whether the U.S. is still a technological leader.

Against this backdrop, the Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual almanac issue on 29 August 2008. Known for its insider stories of success and challenges in university and college campuses, the Chronicle is not normally on the reading radar of most Americans.

That’s a shame, because if it was, Americans would know that American universities and colleges granted 594,065 Master’s degrees in the 2005-2006 academic year (the reporting year for this issue), along with 56,067 Ph.D.s The statistics don’t tell us how many of those went to American citizens, or to folks who stay in the U.S. after they finish their studies. But for the sake of argument, we’ll say that a majority probably do. Of that total, 356,169 women took Master’s degrees (59.95%), and 27,433 of the Ph.D.s were to women (48.93%). Not too shabby if you ask me.

How does this break for science? I pulled together the breakdown below to split out a few major disciplines that are easily recognizable as science or aligned with science:

Biological/Biomedical Science: 8681, MS; 57.9%, Female ; 5775 Ph.Ds, 49.2% Female.

Engineering : 30,989 MS, 23.2% Female; 7,396 Ph.D, 20.1% Female.

Physical Science/science technology: 5,922 MS , 39.8% Female ; 4,489 Ph.D , 29.98% Female.

Obviously, several interesting things fall out of this summary. First, the science related categories are fairly broad, and so there are very few of them. Second, we are turning out a lot of people with advance degrees in engineering fields. While it can be good in terms of Darlene’s question about innovation and technological leadership, it may not be so good for understanding the impacts of human actions on our environment. Finally, while women are making great strides biological and biomedical science, they are still in the minority in the physical sciences and engineering. I have to wonder what that says about America’s perspectives on climate (which is a physical science), and on the many engineering disciplines that keep our bridges up, our roads open, our buildings standing and our AC systems in top shape. I’m not saying that men can’t still contribute to these areas in new and innovative ways. I am saying that those disciplines are loosing something by not attracting more women.

Ok, fine you say, what do we do about this? Any solution has to start with girls (like my daughters) who are still in grade and middle school. They have to be exposed to folks like Danica McKeller, the Nerd Girls, and even Sheril, so they know that science and math are cool. Then we have to call them to the board, and we have to challenge them in their academics. At the same time, we have to recognize that, because women are not men, their perspectives, conclusions, and innovations won’t look or sound like they came from a man. And we as a society need to make that ok.

Taking a virtual leap of faith

In which I take on big time science blogging

Alaska Burns - and Global Climate change looses

Burning the Alaskan wilderness seems to have an impact on tundra temperatures. On the one hand, this shouldn’t be news. Anyone who has watched the temperature plummet after a good rain fall under a black cloud knows that if you limit how much sun reaches you, you can cool off. And anyone who has ready about Pompeii or any other catastrophic volcano has probably heard about lowered temperatures lasting weeks.

Back in the 1980’s there were many “doom and gloom” scenarios about Nuclear Winter , all variations on the theme that with a Mutually Assured Destruction type exchange between the US and USSR, the amount of debris and fallout would darken the skies for years. This would plunge us all into winter, causing further hardship for the survivors of the war.

Based on this climate work, it seems they were right about that one, though the scientists caution about the usual uncertainties that come with their work. And there is where I have a problem with the language. You see, too many scientists think that because they understand statistical uncertainty, everyone does. So they don’t bother to explain statements about how something “might” be caused by something else, or what they mean by an event being “highly likely.” By approaching their topic this way, scientists leave themselves open to criticism from groups opposed to whatever principle they are advocating. Doubly so for anything having to do with Anthropogenic Global Warming.

So, by being open and honest about the uncertainty surrounding the impacts of forest fire smoke on tundra, as these scientists are at the end of the article, they leave open a small door for others to take their conclusions and run in a totally inappropriate direction. “See,” those opposed to human climate impacts will say,” nature caused Alaska and Canada to burn, and the fires LOWERED temperatures in Arctic regions. Those fires were x times as much (or as little) as the carbon we generate in our powerplant/manufacturing plant/tailpipes, and it helped lower the temperature. So humans can’t raising the temperature by burning stuff. All this global climate change language is just a scare tactic.” Or something like that.