Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
thing, so resulting in confusion; for CO 2 emissions
the 'target' should be well below the 'threshold'.
ence is an open debate or an ongoing dialogue
amongst peers who are sceptical by nature. So there
is a misperception by society of the role of the scien-
tist. Scientists would do well to recognize and per-
haps address this issue. They should also recognize
that scientii c evidence and the expert advice that
they provide are just two of the many links in the
policymaking chain. Science supports sound poli-
cymaking when it informs risk management by
describing the risks, how they can change through
time, dei ning knowledge gaps that might be impor-
tant in assessing the risks, and how the risks can
change by action or by further research. At all costs
scientists should steer clear of advocacy but rather
focus on communicating the evidence in an under-
standable, impartial, and objective fashion.
13.5.3
Science as organized scepticism
Subsequent to the media focus following the
'hacked' or stolen emails from the Climatic Research
Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (coined
'Climategate' by the media) in December 2009, the
science of climate change and the IPCC process of
assessing climate change has been under extreme
scrutiny by the media despite investigations i nd-
ing no evidence of behaviour that might under-
mine the conclusions of the IPCC (e.g. House of
Commons Science and Technology Committee
2010). Often the so-called 'climate sceptics' have
been given greater exposure to put their case. It is
interesting that the term 'sceptic' has, in a sense,
been high-jacked from scientists by the 'climate
change deniers'; indeed science could be dei ned as
organized scepticism as opposed to denialism
which is 'motivated by conviction rather than evi-
dence . . . scepticism forms the intellectual corner-
stone of scientii c enquiry'(Kemp at al . 2010). It is
this scepticism that scientists must retain or
reclaim as it is essential for the scientii c process.
Additionally, the scientist sceptic has the ability to
change his or her mind when presented with new
evidence, that is, a scientist is sceptical only until
adequate evidence is presented to convince him or
her otherwise. Denialists, on the other hand, will
rarely change their minds. It is therefore important
to recognize denialism when confronted with it
and accept that the normal academic response, to
debate the evidence as a whole without deliberate
distortions using principles of logic, will not neces-
sarily be returned (Diethelm and McKee 2009).
Undoubtedly the public perception of the scientii c
process and what it can and cannot offer society
can be very different and needs clarifying.
13.5.5 Coni dence and certainty
Assessing 'certainty' (Fig. 13.6) can be difi cult for
scientists giving evidence to policymakers. There
are statistical methods for assessing the probabili-
ties of data following specii c trends; for instance,
scientists frequently interrogate their data so that
they may say that there is a probability that 99, 95,
90% etc. of their data will follow the expectation. Of
course, this also means that the chances are that 1, 5,
10% of the data will not follow the trend. This
behaviour of seeking trends in data is how our
understanding of science grows and generalizations
are made. However, assessing certainty for evi-
dence-based policymaking is more qualitative; it
tries to assess the level of agreement or consensus in
datasets and model coni dence, as well as the
amount of evidence from theory, observations, or
models. Because of the non-quantitative aspects,
this may be divided into low, medium, and high
coni dence associated with the generalized state-
ment. If we do this for ocean acidii cation, we imme-
diately have a dilemma, as the coni dence changes
if we talk about what is already happening and
whether we are referring to changes in chemistry,
biology, biogeochemistry, or ecosystems. The
Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership
(MCCIP) went through an interesting process of
trying to assess coni dence in what is happening in
terms of ocean acidii cation now and what may
happen in the future (Turley et al. 2010b ).
13.5.4
Evidence, not advocacy
The ambiguity and uncertainty of science does not
sit naturally with policymaking. Many politicians,
the media, and the general public expect certainty,
proof, facts, and answers from scientists. Scientists
cannot usually speak in such certain terms as sci-
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search