Via Jennifer Marohasy, I found this recycling of the infamous doctored Schneider quote, this time by Frank Furedi who writes in the Times Higher Education Supplement
Appeals to a “greater truth” are also prominent in debates about the environment. It is claimed that problems such as global warming are so important that a campaign of fear is justified. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, justified the distortion of evidence in the following terms: “Because we are not just scientists but human beings… as well… we need to capture the public imagination.” He added that “we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified statements and make little mention of any doubts that we have”.
Schneider’s statement was originally quoted in an article in Discover magazine (not available online as far as I can tell). Reading it in full and in context, it’s an unexceptional statement about the difficulties of dealing with the media and their penchant for oversimplication and overdramatisation. However, the history of the quote, and its use by anti-environmentalists is fascinating and, in many ways, a demonstration of Schneider’s point.
The first hostile use of the quote was by the late Julian Simon, who not only omitted crucial sentences but inserted some fabricated ones. Although Schneider forced him to retract the fabrication, Simon continued to use doctored versions in which crucial phrases and sentences were omitted, and these have proliferated throughout the rightwing blogosphere.
Thanks to the marvel of forensic Googling it’s possible to trace the evolution of the quote as it is passed from one propagandist to another, with hardly any of them ever bothering to check the original. Furedi’s version with the exact pattern of misquotes, omissions and ellipses can be traced back to Dick Taverne in the Guardian in February 2005, who also recycles the standard farrago of lies about Rachel Carson and DDT. I’d guess Taverne derived his version from The Economist which in turn took it from Bjorn Lomborg (who used the doctored version but was careful enough to print the full version in a footnote).
Having raised this before, I know I’m sure to get at least someone who thinkgs that this kind of doctoring of evidence doesn’t matter as long as the person doing the doctoring believes that they are getting the basic message right (WMD’s anyone?). I’ll refer them here, and ask them not to bother with this point.
The interesting point about all this is that Schneider’s opponents are committing exactly the offence of which they accuse him. They are convinced he is a dangerous scaremonger who needs to be exposed in the interest of “making the world a better place�. Unfortunately, their best piece of evidence has a lot of “ifs, ands and buts�. So rather than “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but�, they extract the “simplified dramatic statements� and serve them up to “capture the public imagination�. Indeed, “each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest�, and for not of all us does it mean being both.
Here’s the full statement
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
fn1. Schell, J. (1989). ‘Our fragile earth’, in “Discover� 10(10):44-50, October. (thanks to reader Greg Bauer for the exact reference).
John Quiggin 
I suppose that those that misquote Schneider might defend themselves thus:-
”
So we have to offer up scary quotations, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
”
One mans promotional campaign is another mans propoganda. With my apologies to women everywhere. Luckily we have good people like doctor Quiggin to straighten out the record.
My favourite out of context quote to get annoyed at is the one where Thatcher says “there is no such thing as society”. She is mischaracterised as being indifferent to public well being. When in fact her full statement was merely making a concise comment on the fact that positive rights imply obligations and you can’t have one without the other. Her full comment is here:-
http://briandeer.com/social/thatcher-society.htm
Thankyou Terge. I followed the link, and no matter how you spin it, the Iron Maiden did say “… there is no such thing as society”. The context may amplify the statement, but doesn’t modify it at all. Essentially she is not being misquoted.
On the other hand, the critics of Schneider are cherry picking phrases which, out of context, distort the essence of his statement.
Yes zoot — and Schneider really did say: we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have
So do you like context or not?
JQ — to be honest I can’t see a lot redeaming about the full Schneider quote. People shorten quotes all the time, and in this instance the shorter quote doesn’t seem to change the meaning.
The caveat: I hope that means being both. is not sufficient to undo the imlpications of the preceeding sentences… which are obviously that truth can be stretched by scientists in the name of their political agenda.
‘Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.’
There’s a trade-off between being effective and honest? Goodness me! Here I thought honesty was the best policy.
So, John, you’re happy for me to quote Hayek as saying
“as between democracy and dictatorship … I prefer a dictatorship”
and impute that view to libertarians generally, as long as I think it’s an accurate summary of his meaning. He certainly said all those words. You can find the full quote if you like.
One of the things that’s clear from the original Schneider statement, but not particularly from any of the “paraphrases”, is that he doesn’t recommend saying anything that the scientist thinks is false. The thing he is most worried about is suppressing doubts and caveats, not saying something that appears to be untrue.
The kind of tradeoff he is considering is between saying We think there’s about a 98% chance that X will happen if we continue to do Y, although if Z happens (which is unlikely) that number might go up or down because we don’t really know how to model that and saying X will happen if we continue to do Y. Ordinary, well-intentioned, speakers always face tradeoffs between epistemic precision, as illustrated in the first option, and concision, as in the second, and it is perfectly normal, indeed in most cases preferable, to choose concision. There might even be a good evolutionary reason for this – That’s a lion is probably better to say than That rustling in the bushes could be many things; most probably a lion, maybe something else that’s dangerous, maybe something not a threat, but I think we should probably take precautionary measures anyway. No one would accuse the first speaker of dishonesty, indeed we prefer such speakers.
It’s part of training to be a scientist that this innate preference for concision is drummed out in favour of a preference for precision. That’s part of why science is as successful as it is. But it’s no harm to remind scientists that these epistemic tradeoffs are permissible. That’s all Schneider’s doing, but you wouldn’t know it from the bogus quotation.
Last week I attended the Australian Professional Society on Alcohol and Other Drugs annual meetings in Melbourne. In 2001 there was a marked increase in the price of heroin in Australia and consequently dramatically reduced levels of heroin use and overdose deaths. Property crime fell. There was some substitution into use of other illicit drugs but harm associated with this was low relative to the hundreds of heroin overdose deaths avoided.
The economics of this are trite: the demand for heroin use is elastic so use fell when price rose as did the needs to steal to support an illicit drug habit. While there are other possible explanations these all seem far-fetched.
Prominent speakers from the medical profession argued that these facts should not be presented to the public because of their potential use by politicians arguing for increased levels of enforcement to limit the supply of heroin. They argued that the facts should be presented in a way that excluded drawing this conclusion and which, instead, favoured a continued emphasis on treatment and harm-minimisation.
I was stunned by this line of argument. Its related to the fake claims case discussed above. In essence it states that evidence should be presented in a way that avoids making politically incorrect deductions. The claims of the doctors for continued emphasis on harm minimisation were not necessarily wrong but the attempt to distort the presentation of evidence to support their claim was.
Like John Humphrey’s, I don’t see that the truncated version of the quotation greatly misrepresents Schneider’s views.
Presumably you have no problem with the omission of:
“And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, ”
or
“That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage.”
So you’re simply arguing that:
“This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
Is sufficiently exculpatory to make it’s omission from any rendering of the quote unreasonable. Certaintly the truncated quote puts a lot more emphasis on one of the constraints Schneider says he seeks to satisfy, but that’s nothing more than a question of focus – chosing the bit you disagree with is a fairly common basis for deciding how to cut a quote down to a manageable size. I suspect he said a great deal of other things in that interview, none of which anyone has felt the need to reproduce.
As for “I hope that means being both” – that’s a motherhood statement that does absolutely nothing to change his stated intentions in the previous lines. It’s the kind of closer you throw in when you’re unwilling to resolve an obvious contradiction.
Me, I’m opposed to distorting quotes, but in favour of summarising people’s views. Ultimately, I’m in favour of making the right decision.
Paul, you criticize Schneider for being “unwilling to resolve an obvious contradiction”, then throw out a meaningless statement like “I’m in favour of making the right decision”? I’m guessing there aren’t many who would argue with that sentiment, but it hardly helps resolve the question of how to conduct the debate leading up to that decision (which is essentially the issue at stake here).
That’s satire scuffs, or at least it’s intended to be. However, I note I’ve put an errant apostrophe in John Humphreys’ name, so I won’t feel too impressed with myself just yet.
On the contrary, the omission of “to get media coverage” is crucial. Schneider is saying that, if you want media coverage you can’t put in lots of qualifications and caveats because they won’t print them.
Furedi wants to read him as saying that scientists should undertake a “campaign of fear” to convince the public to adopt their preferred policies. These are two totally different things.
I’d be interested to know if either you or JH has read the complete interview, as I have, or even Schneider’s response to Simon, linked above. If not, I think you’re on shaky ground in asserting the reasonableness of your reading of the quote against mine, backed up by Schneider’s own statements.
But the basic point is simple. If the speaker doesn’t accept that an alteration or paraphrase preserves the meaning of their views then it doesn’t. Any attempt to get around this leads straight to fabrications like those of Simon and Furedi.
JQ — I didn’t say I think all quotes should be shortened. I said that I didn’t see how the above shortening changed the meaning of the quote.
I’m sure you can answer for yourself whether your modified Hayek quote changed the meaning from his full quote.
Further, I can’t see where I defended extrapolating from one persons views to others in their political philosophy. I don’t hold you responsible for everything Clive Hamilton or Phillip Adams says.
Brian — I think you are being far to kind. When I read the full quote I still get the impression that Schneider is justifying deceit for political purposes. Why else say “we have to offer up scary scenarios”? Quite simply, no. You don’t have to. You do it iff there are scary scenarios.
John,
I think you’re setting the bar a little high as far as procedure goes. Are you firstly asserting that the quote you reproduce above does not accurately summarise the speaker’s views, and secondly that every quote that is not cited verbatim requires the approval of the speaker?
The suggestion to review the full text is well made, I’ll try to take a look later today, but it’s incredibly out of place in a meta-argument in which you claim to have corrected the record by reproducing the quote in full.
I’ll also explicitly reject the idea that a speaker has a power of veto over the interpretation of their past statements. Presumably you’re familiar with the concept of back-pedalling?
sorry to go a bit off topic.
Harry: If supply decreased and price went up, “addicts” (as opposed to users who usually just stop), would presumably take smaller doses and have less risk of OD. Might it also be possible that the smallish number “at risk of OD” users (not all or most by any means) might be in rehab or prison.
Not all or even most heroin users commit crimes (other than purchase and use) to support their usage. It would be possible that there are other causes or correlations of deaths to heroin OD than price or scarcity.
I’d be keen to read any info on the economics or correlations around 2001 figures.
JQ,
It’s not all that clear what your “reading of the quote” is, other than the value judgement that it’s “unexceptional” – he certainty doesn’t seem to be pointing to the tempation to over-simplify and dramatise crises (which is what the truncated quotes accuse him of) as something dangerous or something to be on guard against – if anything he seems to recognise it as a competing claim to be weighed against scientific accuracy – though there’s not enough evidence to conlcude that he puts them on an equal footing. Does any of that strike you as innacurate?
As for the “to get media coverageâ€? part of his claim, I don’t see that it’s at all critical. The first problem is that your assuming that the remainder of the (truncated quote) is explicitly conditioned on the “media coverage” phrase, rather than some combination of the media coverage and capture of the public’s imagination concepts taken together. You are suggesting that one simplifies only in order to get media coverage, but once one has obtained media coverage simplification or exaggeration are irrelevant to the public appeal of a message.
The second problem is that the link between capturing the publics’ imagination and obtaining media coverage is a pretty easy one for the average reader to fill in. You seem to suggest that, following the removal of the “media” phrase, the reader will conclude the Schneider was planning to go door to door delivering his simplified message of impending doom. That is not the conclusion I would think the average reader would reach and so the omitted material, even if relevant, is obvious from the context.
QUOTE: If the speaker doesn’t accept that an alteration or paraphrase preserves the meaning of their views then it doesn’t. Any attempt to get around this leads straight to fabrications like those of Simon and Furedi.
RESPONSE: I can’t cite the date and place but I recall seeing an interview with Margaret Thatcher in which she was asked about her quote. She said that the summary form misrepresented what she was saying. So I hope JQ or those that support his assersion above will never choose to misuse the Thatcher quote.
Often more important than the lack of original context is the nature of the new context in which an extract is used. For instance if I say “Thatcher hates workers. She said that there is no such thing as society” then it kind of distorts the original meaning even more than the removal of original context.
So removal of content can be as distortionary as addition of context.
Also of importance is the inclination of the audience. If you already hate Thatcher then the above misquote will resonate and the original context will probably not mollifier your intitial reaction, where as if you love Thatcher then the original context will make you feel that the lie has been revealed.
The “get media coverage” line is critical. These are people used to communicating between scientists, in which the details pile up and the skill lies in absorbing them. The kind of proliferation that occurs on this post.
If you were a journalist, how would you report the discussion on this thread? With my journalist’s hat on I can tell you that the above approach makes the thread unreportable. You of course would say “If we wanted it to be reportable, we would have conducted it differently.”
Which is precisely the point.
There is a common rhetorical trick at work here, which cuts to the psychology of language. If you drill down to the individual words and phrases, chopping logic and picking nits, then the debate falls apart. We have to ask “what is the sense of the statement” and has the sense of the whole changed.
In any editing job, the ethics of the thing lies in that point. We have to simplify while keeping the sense. And the sense of Schneider’s remark is that dealing with the media, entering the public debate, is about avoiding debate about the details, and finding the events, scenarios and stories – the metaphors – which stick in the public mind.
I am sure you have all noticed how consistently the climate and evolution denialists use the tactic of attacking the details and not the whole. Usually by inserting some irrelevant fact which can be used to imply that it brings the whole structure down. It is just a sick form of theatre.
As a scientist myself, I find Schneider’s full quote shocking. The relevant piece
“That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
When I read that, I immediately think I can’t trust the guy to give me all the facts so I can make up my own mind. And if he is representative of his profession, then it makes me doubt the veracity of all their claims.
Schneider’s attitude is antithetical to the scientist’s credo. It is not the scientist’s job to manipulate public opinion. It is his job to discover and report the truth; doubts, caveats, warts and all.
He betrayed the public trust. The guy was rightly pilloried.
David,
Having now read Schneider’s response to Simon, I can see you point. He certainly represents himself as having been involved in a more general discussion about how to publicise scientific findings in the media, and having offered suggestions to that effect. Without the original article it’s difficult to know whether that’s an accurate summary.
That said, you seem to be arguing that Schneider is being misrepresented because of the “vibe” of what he was saying, and that we can’t go looking at the individual phrases he uttered to see if the truncation omitted elements essential to his meaning. That’s an interesting position, but deeply out of place in a “gotcha” post about how a bunch of bad people are misquoting a good one. If language doesn’t stand up to the kind of analysis above (ie a demostration that the omitted words are or should be obvious to the reader) then discussions of misquoting necessarily become a good deal more complex than the one Prof Q engages in above.
In S King & P Lloyd, eds., Economic Rationalism: Dead end or way forward?, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1993 there are statements by supporters of economic liberalisation that good policy advice has to be simplified. Are they to be condemned?
Geoff — hard to answer without the quote, but I would suggest there is a difference between (1) simplifying an issue and (2) offering up scary scenarios, making simlified, dramatic statements and making little mention of any doubts.
Let my simplify what I’m trying to say — if you disagree with me the world will explode, 100% guaranteed.
It seems to me that the undoctored Schneider quote can be read either as statement on effective scientific communication which hasn’t been worded particularly well or as call for dishonestly. As such, I would prefer to judge Schneider on his actions, rather than a single quotation.
Can any of Schneider’s detractors give an example of Schneider offering up a scary scenarios or other such injustice which doesn’t have support in the scientific literature?
Saying something is a type of action. Otherwise we could not judge people who lie.
You are right that in general terms people should be judged by their actions. And statements should be judged by their meaning. I thought we were judging Shneiders specific statement not him as a person.
At some times we can forgive people their actions if their intentions were good. I forgive JQ and much of my extended family for being Socialists. Even though I loath Socialism with a deep passion. Of course people with good intentions can cause hell on earth.
P.S. I don’t mean to single out JQ as a Socialist. Even that is a bit rude. It is just that he is famous in this corner of the Internet so it was expedient.
“Must be nicer. Must be nicer. Must be nicer. Must be nicer.”
If Schneider advocates making “little mention of any doubts we may have”, then he is advocating distorting the scientific literature.
Pharmaceutical companies that adopted Schneider’s ethics would get sued for billions and their executives/scientists would end up in jail.
Terje, I find the Schneider quote annoying because it comes up all of the time as “evidence” that there is something wrong with environmental sciences. It seems to have become a substitute for real evidence.
The content of quote doesn’t worry me, because I know that I’ve made statements in the past which weren’t totally clear and can be misinterpreted. As such in the absence of a real abuse of science by Schneider, it seems reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Dogz, do you have an example of Schneider doing this?
I suggest that anyone who thinks Schneider advocates leaving out crucial details should read his web page. Over and over again he gives space to evidence that does not support his conclusions – while explaining why he thinks this evidence is overwhelmed by much larger bodies of competing evidence.
He is also remarkably charitable to those who not only have a record of very bad science, but of vicious personal attacks against him.
In this context (along with the wider interview) it is absolutely clear that he is talking about the difficulties of dealing with the media – wanting to put out the full scientific detail, but knowing that won’t get run unless he simplifies things more than his scientific training tells him he should. His phrasing was unfortunate, but this was a verbal statement, not a carefully rewritten submission.
He could have added that he is constantly competing with others, both scientists and politicians, who have no problems at all about distorting the science and even straight out faking evidence in order to claim that climate change does not exist.
I had a federal MP tell me once “The scientists who believe in global warming lie all the time. Schneider straight-out advocates it”. The exact wording of this is probably not correct, but it is as near as I could get given that I was not taping the interview and do not do shorthand. There is no way anyone reading the full quote, let alone looking at Schneider’s record, could say he advocates lying.
Then again, this was an MP who not only had four blatantly false statements about climate change in his Maiden speech, when I challenged him on some of these he sent me a link from a Lyndon La Rouche site as “evidence”.
Ken Miles, I don’t have an example. Which is not to say there isn’t one – I just haven’t looked hard.
Whether he has followed through or not, the onus is on Schneider to distance himself from his remarks. Maybe he has, I don’t know.
The problem with the climate debate is that there are far too many prominent advocates on both sides with an alternative agenda. Schneider’s statements are controversial precisely because they are made against that backdrop. If any field is in need of scientists who don’t operate as Schneider advocates, it is climatology.
BTW, this is the same Schneider who in the 1970s was warning of an impending ice age. Luckily we avoided that one!
Dogz, Schneider has gone into more detail on the quote here.
The important point reads:
Vested interests have repeatedly claimed I advocate exaggerating threats. Their “evidence” comes from partially quoting my Discover interview, almost always -like Simon – omitting the last line and the phrase “double ethical bind.” They also omit my solutions to the double ethical bind: (1) use metaphors that succinctly convey both urgency and uncertainty… and (2) produce an inventory of written products from editorials to articles to books, so that those who want to know more about an author’s views on both the caveats and the risks have a hierarchy of detailed written sources to which they can turn… What I was telling the Discover interviewer, of course, was my disdain for a soundbite-communications process that imposes the double ethical bind on all who venture into the popular media. To twist my openly stated and serious objections to the soundbite process into some kind of advocacy of exaggeration is a clear distortion. Moreover, not only do I disapprove of the “ends justify the means” philosophy of which I am accused, but, in fact have actively campaigned against it in myriad speeches and writings. Instead, I repeatedly advocate that scientists explicitly warn their audiences that “what to do” is a value choice as opposed to “what can happen” and “what are the odds,” which are scientific issues… I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered.
Did Schneider really warn of an impedding ice age? As far as I was aware, he did some research into what-if scenarios regarding aerosol cooling. But it’s drawing a pretty long bow to suggest that this study warned of a ice age. Do you have anything else?
The formatting of my quote has been distorted (it looked ok in the preview). “like Simon” shouldn’t have a strikethrough and the last paragraph is mine, not Schneiders.
Ken,
Here’s a cut and paste from an anti greenhouse site on Schneider’s ice age stuff – given the context it’s worth noting that its accuracy has not been independently checked:
“During the Ice Age Scare of the 1970s, Schneider was one of it’s foremost advocates. He published a book titled “The Genesis Strategy” at this time, warning of the coming glaciation, and wrote glowing a testimonial on the back cover of a popular `Ice Age’ book of the time – (Ponte, Lowell. “The Cooling”, Prentice Hall, N.J., USA, 1976), in which the author claimed that the climatic cooling from 1940 to the 1970s was but the precursor to the main event – the coming Ice Age.”
and, form the same source, the abstract of his aerosols paper:
“ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE AND AEROSOLS:
Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate.
Abstract. Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Becuase of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg.K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.
The rate at which human activities may be inadvertently modifying the climate of Earth has become a problem of serious concern 1 . In the last few decades the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere appears to have increased by 7 percent 2 . During the same period, the aerosol content of the lower atmosphere may have been augmented by as much as 100 percent 3 .
How have these changes in the composition of the atmosphere affected the climate of the globe? More importantly, is it possible that a continued increase in the CO2 and dust content of the atmosphere at the present rate will produce such large-scale effects on the global temperature that the process may run away, with the planet Earth eventually becoming as hot as Venus (700 deg. K.) or as cold as Mars (230 deg. K.)?
We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.
However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!”
I’d say we have evidence of ice age predictions, and circumstancial evidence of a prediliction towards doomsaying.
The abstract suggests that Schneider backed the wrong horse in the 1970s, predicting that the cooling effect of aerosols would outweigh the warming effect of CO2, and that this might lead to an Ice Age. Obviously he has since changed his mind, though the cooling effect of aerosols is still important.
I agree that he is “alarmist” in the sense that he tends to put more probability weight on extreme outcomes than most climate scientists, and correspondingly less weight on homeostatic mechanisms (negative feedbacks). So, if you wanted the average view of climate scientists you probably wouldn’t go to Schneider.
But that’s not what’s being asked for here. What’s needed is evidence that he distorted the evidence to support particular policy proposals. The quotes above do nothing to establish this.
“Pharmaceutical companies that adopted Schneider’s ethics would get sued for billions and their executives/scientists would end up in jail.”
I think you might like to review a few pharmaceutical company ads, even the versions they give to doctors. They do list contraindications, ie conditions when the drug has been proven to be harmful, but they won’t mention studies that show an alternative therapy like a daily run around the block is as good as their drug, and safer. Not a good example.
If nothing else, it seems this guy is not consistent:
“That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.�
is not consistent, even on a pretty generous interpretation, with:
“I repeatedly advocate that scientists explicitly warn their audiences that “what to doâ€? is a value choice as opposed to “what can happenâ€? and “what are the odds,â€? which are scientific issues… I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered.”
Orthogonally, he makes a nonconventional distinction between “subjective” and “objective” probabilities. A Bayesian would say there is no bright line; at some point we all start with a subjective prior and it’s just a matter of the extent to which the evidence overwhelms the prior in the posterior.
Francis.
You can get data on heroin use in Australia in the recently published Australian Institute of Health and Welfare drug use survey 2004 and from the NDARC website and publications. Also Goggle on ‘heroin drought Australia’. New use virtually ceased after the 2001 heroin drought and numbers going into rehab did not increase much. More people went crazy using cocaine and amphetamines but social damage was overall less because of markedly reduced heroin overdose rate. ( The problem with making claims about the total population of heroin users is that it is hard to identify — mainly observe a biased sample who intersect with the health and criminal justice system).
This is off-topic — my point was the way this information was treated by medical scientists in Australia. They argued it should not be reported because of its adverse implications for their priors regarding the case for harm minimisation.
Hi Paul,
As far as I’m aware, the Genesis Strategy doesn’t predict an ice age. I haven’t read it myself, but William Connelly takes it apart here: http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/schneider-genesis.html
As for the Rasool and Schneider paper, it presents a possible scenario for global cooling. However, there is big difference between presenting a scenario (indeed the authors state at the end of the paper that their results are dependent on their model, aerosol and making a prediction.
There are some big flaws in this paper (the climate model is too simple, there are errors in the estimation of the future aerosol emissions and the estimate of climate sensitivity towards CO2 is too low) but it hardly fits into the scaremongering category (the authors even note that nuclear power could prevent this).
And as an aside, the basic theme of the paper is still correct. If we introduced sufficient aerosols into the atmosphere, we could induce an ice age. The authors numbers are wrong so it would be considerably harder, but it isn’t impossible.
“The abstract suggests that Schneider backed the wrong horse in the 1970s, predicting that the cooling effect of aerosols would outweigh the warming effect of CO2, and that this might lead to an Ice Age. Obviously he has since changed his mind, though the cooling effect of aerosols is still important.”
The paper (which incidently is Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate by S. I. Rasool and S. H. Schneider Science, Vol. 173, 1971 pp. 138-141) even notes that other researchers estimate the climate response to CO2 to be ~3 times higher than what they used. Shortly after this was published a reply pointed out that aerosol emissions were unlikely to as high as what they projected.
When Schneider saw that his initial assumptions were wrong, he changed this point of view – this is good science in action.
“When Schneider saw that his initial assumptions were wrong, he changed this point of view – this is good science in action.”
except that he changed his point of view from humanity freezing its proverbial tits off to one in which we all either cook or drown under global-warming-induced sea-level rises.
I wonder how much probability mass he assigned to each outcome, and whether he adequately identified the contribution of his subjective prior to those probabilities, as he so advocates? The point is, he can only believe in such contrasting outcomes with high probability if the earth’s climate is inherently unstable, or if there is a strong subjective component to his belief in at least one of the outcomes.
“except that he changed his point of view from humanity freezing its proverbial tits off to one in which we all either cook or drown under global-warming-induced sea-level rises.”
Given that Schneider has advocated neither scenario and the theme of this thread, that’s really ironic.
As for probabilities, Schneider has been advocating (in editorials for the journal Climatic Change) for quite a while for more research into the probability of different climate change scenarios. So he probably doesn’t know himself.
Also, you really should read Schneider’s paper before you make up stuff on what he believes (didn’t you say that your a scientist?). One of the theme’s of the paper is that heating due to CO2 scale levels off with increasing CO2 concentration which is pretty much the opposite of “earth’s climate is inherently unstable”.
The reason I think Schneider’s quote get picked up on is because of the widespread silly scare stories on global warming.
That is not to say that scientists are starting the scare stories… but they aren’t always the loudest in correcting them. Greenpeace gets a relatively easy run through the scientific community despite their bullshit. When you then hear the Schneider quote it doesn’t leave you confident of scientific objectivity.
“One of the theme’s of the paper is that heating due to CO2 scale levels off with increasing CO2 concentration which is pretty much the opposite of “earth’s climate is inherently unstableâ€?.”
That’s fine, I was only pointing out that, at least within Bayesian reasoning, anyone who believes with significant probability that global _cooling_ is likely, and then subsequently believes with significant probability that global _warming_ is likely must either:
A) have a reasonably subjective component to at least one of those beliefs, so that it can be swayed to the other by the addition of a relatively small amount of evidence; or
B) hold that both beliefs are well supported by the available evidence, which would require the climate dynamics to be highly unstable (tiny changes in boundary conditions yielding widely different outcomes).
I don’t need to read his papers to make this observation; they are the only possibilities. But the observation was not meant to be pejorative, holding either A) or B) is fine. I make the point only to illustrate that perhaps Schneider does not always follow his own advice that scientists should distinguish the subjective and objective when they offer probabilities:
“I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered.”
Given that it now appears the IPCC has been underestimating the changes those scare tactics might actually come out to be true.
I wonder though which is worse sexing up things when there is a need to get attention when there is a need for change or the denial of a consensus postion so that business can keep their profits?
One common problem is the statement that average temperatures will rise by 2 degrees in the next (whatever number) years. Many people see that as equivalent to raising the thermostat on their central heating by 2 degrees – maybe not as comfortable as they would like, but no big deal. Scientists, who are often intuitive and can immeditaely see the implications of the simplified summary of global warming, immediately grasp that a 2 degree rise in the global average means that some areas, for some parts of the year, would experience far greater temperature increases. And, of course, some much less. But what, for example, would be the effect on the Australian wine industry if, just before picking, the Riverland experienced 5 successive summer days of 50 degrees? Sometimes scientists are justified in mentioning the extremes, because nobody pays much attention to the usual story.
“Scientists, who are often intuitive and can immeditaely see the implications of the simplified summary of global warming, immediately grasp that a 2 degree rise in the global average means that some areas, for some parts of the year, would experience far greater temperature increases.”
That doesn’t follow at all. An increasing mean temperature is consistent with an increased temperature variance, a decreased variance, or no change in variance. Eg, the climate could change so that the global temperature is constant, always, at 2 degrees higher than the current mean (of course that’s not going to happen, but it illustrates that just knowing the mean will rise by 2 degrees doesn’t tell you anything about the variance).
QUOTE: Greenpeace gets a relatively easy run through the scientific community despite their bullshit.
RESPONSE: Well scientists go pretty gentle on Snap, Crackle and Pop also. You and I know that rice bubbles don’t really contain funny little men but try telling the kids that!!! Greenpeace is a global marketing corporation. Nobody expects them to be intellectal or honest. They just exist to make you feel good as you hand over the money. They are just selling cotton candy to the kids so go easy.
As people have mentioned, a key aspect of this seems to revolve around whether one is seeking a fair assessment of the statement, as opposed to a partisan one. Fairness would seem to require a spirit, not letter, of the law approach, and again as people have mentioned, reading the thing whole, not seizing on convenient (spun) interpretation of phrases in isolation.
My point is, what is the real whole of Schneider’s statement? I suggest it starts with:
” working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. ”
So the premise is that potentially disastrous climatic change is real.
With that as the given, the “scary scenarios” are simply that subset of the real evidence which is likely to be compelling to the audience – which will create the “this is serious, Mom (Mum?)” moment. Likewise for the “simplified, dramatic statements”.
The making “little mention of any doubts we might have” to my mind could have been worded more clearly by Schneider but haven’t we all been in that position? To my mind, as Brian Weatherson put it, the doubts Schneider meant were caveats. My sense is that the hostile readers of Schneider wish to leave the erroneous impression that his doubts were of the type of really believing that the opposite was more likely to be the case (in this case this would not be the ethical bind that Schneider referred to, but an ethical transgression, such as made by a hired gun expressing views he or she does not hold).
As always, when your opponents have to use erroneous argumentation – even in part – to oppose you, it tells you volumes!
>They just exist to make you feel good as you hand over the money. They are just selling cotton candy to the kids so go easy.
So over the years how many people have died or gone to jail for selling cotton candy?
There are some serious questions about how Greenpeace codncut themselves but your comments are unfair and overly dismissive.
Has anyone here had much experience in dealign with the media?
Give a two hour interview and they’ll condense it into a two paragraph article containing five factual errors and a dozen misquotations.
If you talk to the media (print or broadcast) it is a given that your comments will be distorted, simplified, misrepresented and cast in either the most alarmist or the most Panglossian way possible.
Simon — “I wonder though which is worse sexing up things when there is a need to get attention when there is a need for change or the denial of a consensus postion so that business can keep their profits?”
It is not clear at all from a public policy standpoint that there is a need for change. You are starting with a political position (need for government action) to justify “sexing up” the facts.
I’m not advocating denying the facts. You have painted a false dichotomy that people must either “sex-up” or “deny” the facts. What about just reporting them?’
Terje — I don’t think the lies from Rice Bubbles cause any fundamental and widespread misunderstandings of a potentially vital public policy issue. If they did, it would be appropriate for the people in the know to set the record straight.
Ian: “Give a two hour interview and [the media will] condense it into a two paragraph article containing five factual errors and a dozen misquotations.”
I like that… 🙂