Why not look back and consider how Climate, Etc. has managed to construct and maintain a fragile community?  What kinds of communication practices are making the site work?  At the beginning, Curry aimed for discussions in three different styles.  Did that work out?  There’s at least one rule that didn’t:  limiting comments to 250 words!

I think most people who like science and are interested in climate science would welcome more “skeptic” arguments that meet the above criteria. It is a relief, even when disagreeing, to have some sort of a common language and set of expectations. Without that, argument is pointless, or to put it another way: The first thing you need to prove to me is that your ignorance is something that concerns me.

That’s exactly what I decline to do. The hockey stick needs no defense. Rather, you need to find some cogent explanation of why your ignorance of paleoclimate concerns me.

The writer here asserts that his position “needs no defense”;  it’s up to his opponents to produce reasons–or in other words, they have the burden of proof.

Of course, both sides can make this move.  Another writer comes back later in the discussion to assert that it’s the “hockey stick” [graph] that needs the defense:

There is no basis for discussion about AGW that starts with “the Hockey Stick is correct and unassailable”.

The true statment is  “the Hockey Stick is part of a very large con game and until the AGW side acknowledges that and apologizes, nothing they say should be believed.”   [Later:]   AGW is discredited until it confesses its fraud.

And this argumentative move–”MY position stands until YOU meet your burden of proof”–isn’t just confined to the climate debate.  Should genetically modified crops be presumed to be safe, until there is definitive evidence that they are harmful?  Or by the precautionary principle should this kind of new technology be considered dangerous, until it is shown to be safe?

To straighten out what’s happening in these moves, I want to distinguish between (a) the way people are using “burden of proof” to manage their own, personal thinking, and (b) the way they are using it to manage the debate they are having with other people.  For more on (a), proceed below;  (b) will follow in the next post.

It would not be reasonable to be too reasonable

I like to think of myself as a reasonable person–someone who searches out good information, evidence and expert opinion, considers it carefully, and reaches a sound judgment.  But I’m also a person living in 24-hour days, 365-day years, and only perhaps 80-90 of those (trusting the actuaries on that).  So at some point far, far short of having all the evidence about most subjects, I have to stop thinking about them.

For example, there are a half a dozen different toothpastes available at my local store.  I suppose they have some meaningful differences that I could find–if I investigated.  Or perhaps they’re all basically the same–but I’d have to investigate to find out whether that was the case.  I’m not going to investigate, however;  absent some fairly conspicuous new consideration (e.g., something that looks like a big sale, or some new advice from my dentist) I’m just going to buy the same brand as usual.

Or consider donating to charities–that’s a more significant choice.  I have put some time into investigating some charities, trying to determine whether they’re doing things I think are important, and are doing them efficiently.  The phone bank person who calls trying to persuade me to consider a new option is basically out of luck.  It could be that the charity she’s working for does much better than the one’s I’ve chosen, but unfortunately, I’m not even going to listen to her arguments.  I’m confident my choices are good enough, and I have better things to do with my time than to donate it to a salesperson.  In fact, I don’t even have to explain to her the reason why I’m not going to listen to more reasons.

Not listening to reason about climate change

The controversy over climate change has been going on for two decades now;  it sprawls over dozens of academic fields, and has produced an inconceivably large heap of arguments.  (There are 60K+ words just in the blog discussion linked above.)  Given the size of the controversy and the limits of human reason, every one of us is going to reach a point when we’re going to have to “say when.”  As one participant in the discussion put it:

If I had multiple lives, I might spend one of them doing the same. Unfortunately, I have no inclination to do so, any more than I have the desire (or time) to learn biology so that I can argue about evolution “inteligently.”.  .  .  I will certainly not learn a new topic just to defend a much broader theory from point-scoring attacks that are not directed toward advancing science. It is a useless endeavor, and life affords only so much time.

“Burden of Proof” #1:  Managing our own thinking

Since thinking takes up limited resources, we need to think about our thinking.  One of the tools we use to do this is something like the “burden of proof”.  At some point, after we’ve reached a considered decision, we tell ourselves that we’re not going to think about that any more, until some fairly significant consideration becomes obvious.  The burden of proof is on the other side.

Like all reasoning, reasoning-about-reasoning can go wrong.  A close-minded person turns her brain off too soon;  her opposite–the excessively open-minded person–continues to gather evidence and weigh options when he should have gone on to something else.

How do we tell how much is enough?  That would be a good question to ask a philosopher.  I’m a communication person, however, and I’m more interested in another use for “burden of proof”–the way we use it to manage not our own personal thinking, but our debates with those who disagree.  As soon as I can dig out of some other work, I’ll post some thoughts about that.

Between Scientists & Citizens: Assessing Expertise In Policy Controversies

June 1-2, 2012
Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Keynote speakers:

• Sally Jackson, Communication, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
• Massimo Pigliucci, Philosophy, Lehman College, CUNY

We are increasingly dependent on advice from experts in making decisions in our personal, professional, and civic lives. But as our dependence on experts has grown, new media have broken down the institutional barriers between the technical, personal and civic realms, and we are inundated with purported science from all sides. Many share a sense that science has lost its “rightful place” in our deliberations. Grappling with this cluster of problems will require collaboration across disciplines: among rhetorical and communication theorists studying the practices and norms of public discourse, philosophers interested in the informal logic of everyday reasoning and in the theory of deliberative democracy, and science studies scholars examining the intersections between the social worlds of scientists and citizens. For this conference, we invite work on expertise in policy controversies from across the disciplines focused on argumentation, reasoning, rhetoric, communication and deliberation.

Once upon Shakespeare’s time, the art of disagreement was pursued with elegance.  Degrees of challenge were measured out by the book, as one of his characters explains:

as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard: he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous.  If I sent him word again ’it was not well cut,’ he would send me word, he cut it to please himself: this is called the Quip Modest.  If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he disabled my judgment: this is called the Reply Churlish.  If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof Valiant.  If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he would say I lied: this is called the Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.

–As You Like It V.4

Alas, we’ve mostly lost that art, especially in the blogosphere.  Disagreements proceed pretty quickly to the Lie Direct.  That’s dull!  Let’s review the wisdom of Touchstone the Fool to recover more sophisticated practices.

Avoiding the Lie Direct

Imagine that some has just indicated that they spurn your position, e.g. on the soundness of the IPCC report.  How can you reply?

Retort Courteous:  Well, my view differs.  (Note:  then you have to stop.  Really.)

Quip Modest:  I’ve considered the evidence, and have come to my own conclusion on this matter.

Reply Churlish:  As your judgment on this subject seems to me impaired, I don’t think it worthwhile to pursue this with you further.

Reproof Valiant:  Your statement is wrong, for this reason…. (Note:  this reproof is indeed valiant, because you have now undertaken responsibility to provide a full defense of your view.)

Counter-cheque Quarrelsome:  How dare you speak to me like that!

Lie Circumstantial:  If you said so, you would be lying.

Lie Direct:  You lie!

In praise of indirectness

We may think of  communication about climate change or other issues largely as exchanges of claims together evidence to back those claims up.  The importance of science for these debates may reinforce the impression that what’s really at stake are the facts, just the facts. But when we actually examine arguers’ language choices in detail, we can observe that a lot more is happening.  Arguers (and speakers in general) are not only conveying information to each other, they are also carrying forward an interpersonal relationship.

The Lie Direct is indeed direct–it directly frames the relationship as hostile.  One person attacks the other (“you”), and in particular attacks the basic legitimacy of their contributions to the conversation.  By contrast, the other strategies use various techniques of indirectness:

• speaking only of one’s own point of view, not expressly characterizing the other (“it seems to me…”)
• focusing on what is said, not on the sayer
• shifting from assertions to possibilities (“if”)

Why indirectness?  ”You lie” does not leave much wiggle room;  accused of lying, the honorable person must draw his/her weapon.  Indirectness, by contrast, leaves each some degree of plausible deniability.  The speaker can point out that he did not actually say that the other person was a liar, however much that was insinuated.  Both parties can continue to pretend that they respect each other.  Everyone is keeping up appearances, and something like a conversation, as opposed to a duel, can continue.

For more:  see Stephen Pinker’s a nice explanation of the way indirectness allows us to maintain relationships, part of the RSA Animate series.

A final plea

If you are going to insult, at least use some verbal dexterity.  That way you’ll demonstrate your intellectual superiority even as you use your verbal weapons to slaughter your opponent.  You can get some help from the Bard with this, too.

Judith Curry in 1688?

Still, it’s not like the online world is completely separate from the world of face-to-face communication, and the blogosphere can draw from communication skills already well-developed and understood in “meat-space” contexts.  I’ve done a series of posts, for example, on how debate can work online (here and here).

Similarly, in a very interesting post, Judith Curry has identified her objective on her own blog as translating an old communication activity into a new setting:

I am striving for something different, sort of an e-salon where we discuss interesting topics at the knowledge frontier.

Three hundred plus years ago, another prominent woman wrote extensively about salon communication;  let’s see what we can learn from her.

Madeleine de Scudéry is often credited with organizing one of the first salons, bringing together men and women across at least some class boundaries to share a pleasant conversation of the topics of the day.  Her novels centered around long conversational set-pieces, which she also collected and extended in multiple volumes of Conversations.  These works not only provided models for salon wannabes;  some of the Conversations conversations were about conversation, and can serve as instructional manuals of a sort.

Warning:  I am no Scudéry expert. Students in an overview of rhetorical theory class persuaded me that she was worth teaching, so I did.  Take the following only as what I learned from reading a bit of Scudéry, largely with an eye towards contemporary theory and applications.

Being mixed up

There is one thing that all the characters in Scudery’s dialogues agree on:  Conversations must include both men and women.  All-female and all-male conversations are deadly dull.  Difference drives interest–but only if it repressed. Sex is thus a constant subtext in every conversation.  Never openly discussed, nor even often openly acknowledged (flirting would be self-indulgent), but adding a bit of spice or tension to the talk about other topics.

Maybe policy/ideological/etc. differences should be treated in the same way in the e-salon?  No humping on the tea-table, but still everyone is looking each other over out of the corners of their eyes?

Madeleine de Scudéry in 2011?

Irresoluteness

The primary aim of conversationalists should be to keep the conversation going in a way that’s enjoyable to all.  This requires some suppression of individuality:  no long lectures on one’s own children or merchant ventures;  no insistence on one’s own views of some novel.  At the same time, everyone has to have a unique perspective to contribute to move the conversation forward. And Bizell & Herzberg (The Rhetorical Tradition, 2nd Ed.) provide a nice summary of where conversations are supposed to end up:

Harmony among conflicting viewpoints, not the victory of one of them, should be the ultimate goal (and the topics discussed in Scudéry’s conversations are usually left unresolved for that reason).

Note that “harmony,” unlike “consensus” requires diversity.  We do in fact have to live with irresolution in the blogosphere.  But can we come to like it?

Wit

One can’t openly “win” a conversation without breaking it.  But there is still plenty of room for competitive self-display, in the manner one expresses one’s points.  Getting the right word (we still stay it in French–le mot juste);  constructing prose that is clear, flexible and maybe even a bit fancy;  managing interpersonal relations in a subtle way:  the conversationalist can win on style points where outright victory is denied.

Achieving this on the spur of the moment in the course of conversation was a high art;  it had to look mannered, but not labored.

Now this would certainly be a nice thing to see more of in the blogosphere!

What does a formal debate offer that the ordinary disorderly flow of arguing in the blogosphere doesn’t?  To pick up on a theme from my last post:  a formal debate allows the participants to control  what they are taking responsibility for–and to force others to take responsibility, too.  Roger Pielke, Jr. is a masterful debater, and his recent challenge to critics of “climate pragmatism” shows this strategy at its finest.

The assignment–and enforcement–of responsibilities

There’s nothing much to stop people from selecting the strongest arguments to defend their valid point of view–or from cherry-picking evidence to support a blatant mischaracterization–on their own blogs.  How to stop such loose talk?  By making it expensive.  Pielke opens his post with an “invitation” to his critics to come to his blog and “to explain what is wrong with the math and logic presented below.”  As he frames it, those who take up this challenge accept a burden of proof (a/k/a probative obligation) to clearly “identify where they disagree” with his case for climate pragmatism, and then to “provide evidence” why he is wrong.  Presumably, once a critic does so, Pielke himself will have a probative obligation to further defend his views.  No more cheap talk; let the debate begin!

Pielke’s opening paragraphs set up the debaters’ responsibilities; a good deal of the resulting debate is spent not in making arguments, but in enforcing those responsibilities.  Consider these moves in the debate that are made possible by the initial assignment of responsibilities:

Demand clarity:  One of the critics’ responsibilities to identify their points of disagreement.  Pielke is thus licensed to refuse to respond until his critics answer a “simple question, do you contest any of the 10 statements above?”

Refuse to acknowledge a comment:  The critics’ other responsibility is to offer some kind of a defense.  Again, Pielke can refuse to respond until his critic follows his ”Advice: if you want to make a claim that ‘X is false’ then you need to provide evidence and an argument.”

Critique the arguer for an inadequate argument:  Even when the critic puts some kind of argument forward, Pielke can refuse to reply in detail if that argument does not fulfill the critic’s probative responsibilities.  While at the beginning of the debate, it looks like the critic is only responsible for responding to the ten listed points, by the middle, Pielke has insisted that the ten points are just stand-ins for the longer arguments made in the just-released Climate Pragmatism report (30 pages), last year’s Hartwell Paper (42 pages) or Pielke’s own Climate Fix (288 pages). When critics don’t show adequate knowledge of these works, Pielke responds with an escalating level of personal criticism for their failure to live up to the ground rules of the debate.  Watch this progression:  from a slightly condescending question and referral (to an article by Pielke):

which I assume you are familiar with?…If you are unfamiliar with [it] you can get up to speed quickly here on it…

To a request (i.e., demand) for the critic to prepare himself:

“I haven’t read it yet” And yet you feel qualified to trash it and critique it? … Please come back after you’ve informed yourself, makes for a much better conversation. Thanks!

And finally to an open shaming–a bit softened by indirect expression and a smiley:

Once again, your strong and certain critiques will be much more informed if you actually read the arguments that you are critiquing, rather than parroting what you think Romm might be on about. I’d suggest starting with TCF then reading THP then CP. You will then be in a position to avoid the embarrassment of publicly commenting on materials that you have no yet engaged

By the middle of the debate, the critics’ responsibility to be well-informed has been established enough that commenters apologize in advance for their likely failure to live up to it, prefacing their point with “blushingly confess[ion]” of their inadequacies.

In sum:  about half the debate consists not of arguments pro and con, but of Pielke’s reasoned refusals to respond–refusals justified by his critics’ failures to meet the probative obligations set up at the opening of the debate.

What can a critic do?

One possibility is obvious:  Meet the announced burden of proof!  Of course, that may be hard to do in the fast-moving blog world–the first critic in this debate, for example, came in only an hour after the challenge was issued.

A second strategy is to attempt to redefine the burden of proof.  One critic tries this midway by demanding that Pielke take responsibility himself, for producing and defending a solution to AGW.  Pielke of course refuses to make a case until his critic has offered an adequate counterargument under the responsibilities set up at the beginning of the debate, and refers the critic back to all his previous works.

A final strategy for the critic:  Refuse to engage, at least on the terms Pielke has set.  This strategy has a downside;  it allows Pielke to make (slightly indirect again) accusations of cowardice and sophistry:

The “climate hawks” have usually been pretty loathe to engage in open intellectual debate, preferring instead to lob ad homs and mischaracterizations.  (Maybe they should be called “climate chickens” — that is a joke;-)

These charges are pretty easy to brush off, however.  The critic in refusing to debate can respond that he has dealt with the matter sufficiently on his own blog;  that he has other responsibilities to meet (like the need to craft his next multipage blog post);  that Pielke is unlikely to play fair;  and so on.  As the poet said, “the wise cats never appeared.”

This is why despite the many challenges to Climate Smackdowns, few have actually come off.  We in the audience would enjoy the drama of a definitive climate debate, we would relish the victory (at least, if our side won), and we would all benefit from the higher quality arguments participants would be responsible for offering.  But the debaters themselves seldom have incentives to take responsibility for what they are saying;  and so in the Gresham’s law of argument, cheap talk drives out expensive argument.

Managing interpersonal tensions

It’s long been recognized that in online discourse, the “cues” we rely on in face-to-face talk get “filtered out.”  In a conversational debate, we have signals of intonation and body language that indicate how upset or angry our opponent is getting.  Online, without these cues, it is easier for speakers to lose track of their audience’s possible feelings, and for audiences to misjudge a speaker’s intention to insult.  One result:  ”flame wars.”

Climate Audit manages this problem through what could be called an aggressive insistence on mutual respect, at least at the beginnings of posts.  After my comment, I was repeatedly greeted by name and “welcomed in.” For example:

Jean, thank you for joining the discussion,

jeangoodwin, Glad to see you join the CA discussion.

Jean: First it is great to have you engage directly on this site.

Less consistently but still noticeably, participants in the comment threads made an effort to avoid ad hominem attacks, identifying the target of their critiques as my work, as opposed to me.  For example:

I would be more intrigued with your taxonomies if your research… [NB:  not "you"]

That’s not really true.  [NB:  not "You are saying something false."]

all of your good ideas so far are totally worthless. I hate to be blunt… [NB:  not "You are worthless";  also note the hedge "I hate to be blunt"]

Both these are good strategies for maintaining a basic level of mutual respect and awareness of each other as living, breathing human beings behind the pixels. As McIntyre said during the discussion,

I try pretty hard to be polite and I think that it pays off over the long run. I know that I occasionally do not live up to this policy, but I also understand departures from this policy are counter-productive and self-indulgent and still try to adhere to the policy.

Managing misunderstandings

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that many disputes–online and in person–are driven more by misunderstandings than by actual disagreement.  In face-to-face conversations, misunderstandings can be managed by a variety of means.  Participants often know each other, reducing the frequency of misunderstandings.  Further, possible misunderstandings can be detected through body language, and repairs can be sought quickly and easily.  And in oral discourse at least the misunderstanding can disappear quickly as the talk flows on to another topic.

None of these conditions hold in the blogosophere.  People may not share much common knowledge, the comment threads lack interpersonal cues, and the statements at the center of a misunderstanding just hang there, perpetuating the problem.

The desire or even demand to be understood–perhaps characteristically American?–can lead to problems in the blogosphere.  Speakers, diagnosing their audience’s lack of agreement as a misunderstanding, can begin to repeat their points over and over again, cluttering the comment thread and eventually irritating their fellow commenters.

Climate Audit appears to be managing this problem well by a general culture of patience;  commenters just let things go.  One indication of this is the relatively short thread “depth”;  only occasionally does a comment thread go beyond 3 levels of responses, and there isn’t a conspicuous jockeying to have the last word.  It’s my impression (at this point, undocumented) that several of the commenters are blog regulars, and resolve possible misunderstandings by listening to each other over a relatively extended period.

So this, too, is a good strategy for comments in the blogosphere:  let it go, try again next time.

Managing argumentative responsibilities

Key to any successful debate is managing the basic responsibilities:  who is obligated to defend what.  If responsibilities aren’t limited, a debate e.g. over some immediate political issue can easily devolve back into a debate on how we know anything at all–philosophically interesting, perhaps, but far from the original topic.  And if the responsibilities aren’t clearly defined, participants can find the debate slipping from one issue to another in what may be an unproductive fashion.

The extended abstract of an as-yet unpublished conference paper by myself and a colleague had been brought into the conversation at Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre.  I entered the discussion understanding that I’m responsible for defending what my colleague and I said in that paper, and for clearly indicating areas where we remained uncertain/where the draft is under development, and for changing what we said if it turns out to be indefensible.

Other participants in the debate appeared to think that we had much, much broader responsibilities, however.  For example:

Many commenters complained that our paper was “irrelevant” to the topic at hand, and asked me to “address the main point made by Willis and Steve,” even though our paper had made no claims on that point.   Remember, the link between the paper and Steve McIntyre’s point had been made by Steve McIntyre.

Several commentators asked me to defend our claims with sources of evidence and methodologies other than the one we had chosen in the paper (conceptual analysis), and in particular to undertake specific case studies.  While that kind of work would certainly be valuable, I didn’t think that by submitting one conference paper we had undertaken responsibility to do all the work of an entire interdisciplinary field.

We had relied on one set of results from a very large poll;  one commenter asked for a response about a possible problem in an unrelated part of the poll analysis.

Finally, one commenter replied:  ”I don’t know why Jean and other concerned parties don’t simply write to Briffa and tell them their data obstruction is hurting their cause”–apparently imposing on me an obligation to get the CRU to change its conduct.

Of course, sometimes participants in a blog discussion do attempt to evade their argumentative responsibilities, and in that case it is legitimate to call them out and demand that they defend what they said.  But in this case I believe we are seeing an un-helpful communicative strategy at play:  an attempt to insist that a commenter has a much, much larger burden of proof than she has actually undertaken.

My sense was that my audience at Climate Audit had placed me on “one side” of what they saw as a “two sided debate,” and held me responsible for everything “my side” had ever said.  That kind of refusal to allow a conversation partner to define the responsibilities she is willing to undertake is unlikely to lead to a productive discussion.  In this particular case, I think the demands for to defend things we hadn’t said occluded possible areas of agreement about what we did say.

McIntyre himself recognized a better communication strategy when he commented:

Most negotiations between suspicious parties work on trying to reach agreement on small issues as a start. … My own approach to a difficult negotiation would be try to see if you can reach agreement on about 2/3 of the problems and then just split the difference on the balance.

In the face of deep disagreement, in other words, small can be beautiful.  Allowing other commenters to limit their responsibilities, and not forcing them to defend things they haven’t said:  that’s a third communicative strategy for fostering online debates worth reading.

This raises the hope that some of our bitter public disputes over science might be resolved, if only we could find the right messenger;  a scientist whose conspicuous dignity, integrity and authority would make him (or her) trusted by all sides in the dispute.

Alas, even if we could locate such a scientist-saint, this communication strategy would be unlikely to work.  Read on to see how my own recent blogospheric experiences suggest why.

Will the real “JG” please stand up?

Over the weekend , Judith Curry generously featured a pair of articles by myself and Michael Dahlstrom on her blog (here and here), as part of her general effort to grapple with the challenges of communicating climate change.  This first article in particular was picked up on several other climate blogs (here, here, here, here and here).   I’m  neither a scientist nor a saint, but the construction of the ethos of “JG” in the course of these discussions reveals a consistent pattern:

Those who thought they agreed with “JG” describe her in this way:

• she teaches top-notch courses…This sounds like one Prof. who realizes that critical thinking is not the same thing as critical theory, and she makes her students tackle real problems
• Dr.
• professor of rhetoric
• BSc wiskunde, later advocaat en inmiddels PhD in classical rhetorical theory and contemporary public address (BSc mathematics and later become a lawyer and PhD in classical rhetorical theory and contemporary public address)
• her main areas of expertise are argumentation theory and rhetoric
• A math major who ends up studying english.
• a scholar of science communication and principles of ethical communication.

Although one sounded a note of caution:

• She is a rhetorician and that makes one fear that she might tend toward “post modern” views of science.

Those who thought they disagreed with “JG” characterized her as follows:

• designed to keep the author in the main shoal of self-congratulatory fish
• shallow
• she teaches English somewhere in Iowa
• Ms.
• She doesn’t appear to be what I would call a “deep thinker”.
• one of the players whose self-righteousness leaves no room for self examination

So on one hand we see a stress on the subject’s official credentials, and on the other an emphasis on motives and intellectual vices apparent in the subject’s prose.  (The bit about “somewhere in Iowa” is especially fine, since Iowa of course isn’t anywhere to begin with).  All of these points are substantially true–well, at least they have some plausibility.  But they construct two very different images of “JG.”

The limits of expertise

This anecdote provides a good illustration of Kahan et al.’s ideas on “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus.”  We expect arguers with different value positions to at least share a common set of factual starting points from which to explore or even resolve their dispute–in this case, an agreement about who counts as an expert.  But no.  Controversy spills over (or “goes meta”);  disagreement about the course we should adopt in the future is associated with disagreement over assessments of expertise.

When asked to evaluate whether an individual of elite academic credentials, including membership in the NAS, was a “knowledgeable and trustworthy expert,” subjects’ answers proved conditional on the fit between the position the putative expert was depicted as adopting (on climate change, on nuclear waste disposal, or on handgun regulation) and the position associated with the subjects’ cultural outlooks.

Basic value orientations are reinforced by cognitive heuristics like “my side bias” to produce a result that can be summarized:  ”If he disagrees with me, he is no expert.”

Which of these fake scientists do YOU trust?

Kahan suggests that one strategy for overcoming this tendency is to make sure that audiences receive scientific messages in contexts that “affirm their cultural values.”  (Note to self:  remember this for next time.)  One such context is the debate, where the presence of competing experts associated with a variety of value frames paradoxically allows audiences to be more open to those they disagree with.  (Note to self:  that’s worth remembering, too.)

To the extent that Virginia citizens are concerned about public money being misappropriated, Cuccinelli’s own expenditures on this adventure should be under equal scrutiny. There will be no value for dollar in this enterprise….

To the extent that there are issues with Mann or Jones or any of these guys, they are at most academic misconduct and should be dealt with under those regimes. It is unfortunate that the inquiries at Penn State and UEA have not been even minimally diligent, but complaints on that account rest with the universities or their supervising institutions and the substitution of inappropriate investigations by zealots like Cuccinelli are not an alternative….

I intend to write Cuccinelli expressing my disdain for his actions.

Read on to learn how this relates to the previous post.

Why is so much political talk so dull?

Hannah Arendt commented that surprise is central to real politics.  Someone stands up in front of his or her fellow citizens, and makes a start at something–a beginning, a first thing, a principium.  Something “startlingly unexpected” appears, and the rest of us are also called on to act in some new way.

I remember as a kid getting to stay up late to watch the roll call of the states at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. It was exciting, because once or twice it was “startlingly unexpected.”  None of the adults around seemed sure what would happen. Now these events resemble a superbowl halftime show, or perhaps a Disney theme park.  They appear scripted; down to the last delegate from Wyoming, everyone is on message.

Presidential debates could have the same interest.  Put these two guys together, let them be challenged and challenge each other.  Maybe in the course of the interaction one of them will show us something we hadn’t seen before. Of course, behind the scenes the candidates’ handlers and advisors are trying to clamp down on what they have to consider dangerous uncertainties, crafting sound-bite replies on every predicted topic.  Unfortunately, they’ve largely succeeded.

That’s one of the big downsides of being a rhetorical analyst.  Very much of what is out there is so very predictable.  It could have been composed by a computer, and a computer would do well enough in “analyzing” it–say by counting up the number of times some slogan appears, perhaps.  No human brain needs to intervene.

Mark Morano, for example, doesn’t surprise us when he takes the enemy of his enemy as his friend.  He cranks up his partisan discourse machine.  Interviewed, he says:

I have no problem with what Cuccinelli is doing. Scientists are not above the law. It is quite refreshing to see a novel legal avenue pursued in going after publicly funded professors. Michael Mann deserves every bit of hassle this investigation will entail. When you accept taxpayer funds, let’s not pretend to be shocked when government officials come asking questions.

Morano at least lives up to his ordinary frankness by admitting that it’s not so much that Mann deserves to be investigated under a particular Virginia statute, but that, having caused Morano’s side so much hassle, he deserves to be hassled in return, by any means necessary. Politics-as-usual is overriding any deeper principles Morano might otherwise profess, e.g., about the rights of citizens to be free of governmental intrusions.

McIntyre, by contrast, doesn’t let in even a bit of  ”Mann got what he deserved.”  He appears to be following a principle–a principle that stands athwart politics-as-usual and leads him to a temporary alliance with a man he otherwise batters vigorously.  He has even surprised some among his blog’s community, who complained about being “confused” by the “cognitive dissonance” he was showing in his defense of Mann. Several even make a sort of inverse Golden Rule argument:

I’m sure that if the situation was reversed, and you were under investigation for the actions you took in order to expose the fraud of Mann et al, Michael Mann would encourage such an investigation and complain that it is not harsh enough. So let’s all wait and see what comes out of this and then comment based on facts not speculation (“Gad Levin“)

To which McIntyre replies:

I’ve taken a consistent position that the ends don’t justify the means. I don’t agree that you can justify withholding adverse verification r2 because you think that your cause is righteous or that you should exercise executive power capriciously or vindictively because you think that your cause is righteous. Both are slippery slopes. This is bedrock in our civil society.

It is nice to see “a program that is said to be shaped by a specifically scientific vision” not “parallel entirely the program of a single political party.”

Edited 7/26 to correct SM’s name;  my bad!

The New York Times is only one recent source for speculations on the intersection of religion and the climate science controversies. To me, analogies along the lines of “belief in climate change is like a religious faith” are unlikely to enlighten.  Both science and religion are sprawling enterprises–putting them together is just sprawl squared.

Science and religion do share one characteristic, though:  they both stand athwart politics.  So people interested in the relationship between science and politics might learn something from those who have written about the religion/politics interface.  Richard John Neuhaus, for example.

Here’s a bit from his 1984 classic, The Naked Public Square:

Unless, in sectarian fashion, one pits Christianity against culture, agreement between Christians and non-Christians on social and political issues is cause for celebration rather than suspicion. Suspicion may be justified, however, when a program that is said to be shaped by a specifically Christian vision parallels tout cort the programs of secular parties that are at least indifferent to that vision.  That is a degree of happy convergence that one might have thought is reserved for the kingdom of God.

Neuhaus’ own adopted church shows how a religion can pass his pragmatic test of suspicion.  Holding fast to life as a central principle leads to opposition both to policies that allow abortion and policies that allow the death penalty.

One might transfer the pragmatic test to science, saying that agreement–or even sustained conversation–between scientists and citizens on social and political issues is indeed a cause for celebration.  But suspicion may be justified when a program that is said to be shaped by a specifically scientific vision parallels entirely the program of a single political party.  That is a degree of happy convergence that one might have thought is reserved for a Union somewhat more perfect than our own.