The War on Science. Shawn Lawrence Otto
or that knowledge is now too inaccessible to normal citizens to make good decisions—decisions in their own best interest? In a world dominated by science that requires extensive education to fully grasp, can democracy still prosper, or will the invisible hand finally fall idle? Are the people still sufficiently well informed to be trusted with their own government?
Judging from the US Congress, or recent Canadian or Australian parliaments, or a number of other governments particularly in the developed world, the answer seems to be no. In an age when most major public-policy challenges revolve around science, fewer than 1 percent of US congresspersons have professional backgrounds in it. The membership of the 114th Congress, which ran from January 2015 to January 2017, included just three scientists: one physicist, one chemist, and one microbiologist. If one counts the eight engineers, it’s a total of eleven out of 535 members, or 2 percent. Similarly low ratios are present in Canada’s parliament, where the combined number is about 4 percent; Australia’s, where it’s 4 percent; and in many of the world’s other major governments.
In contrast, how many representatives and senators might one suppose have law degrees—and often avoided college science classes in favor one of the top four prelaw majors: business, English, history, and political science? In the United States, it’s 213, or roughly 40 percent. So it’s little wonder we see more rhetoric than facts in global policymaking. In an age when most major policy issues have large inputs from science, this disparity can be a problem. Scientists and lawyers approach arguments very differently. Lawyers are trained to start with a conclusion, discover evidence to support that conclusion, and craft it into a compelling narrative to win the argument. They rely on the opposing counsel to do the same, and on an impartial third party—the judge, jury, or in government, Congress or Parliament as a whole—to determine who has made the more compelling case. But as any trial lawyer will tell people, such an approach uses facts selectively and only for the purposes of winning the argument, not for establishing the truth. That is the opposite of the approach of science, which starts with observation, accumulates evidence from studying nature, and forms a conclusion based on what the preponderance of the evidence as a whole suggests.
This disconnect creates opportunities for our policies to be led away from evidence by compelling propagandists. The problem is even more pronounced in presidential politics and among the journalists who cover it. Consider the disruption of Earth’s climate system, arguably the greatest public-policy challenge facing the planet. In late 2007, the League of Conservation Voters analyzed the questions asked of the candidates for US president by the five top prime-time TV journalists: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC’s Tim Russert, Fox News’s Chris Wallace, and CBS’s Bob Schieffer. By January 25, 2008, these journalists had conducted 171 interviews with the candidates. Of the 2,975 questions they asked, how many might one reasonably suppose mentioned the words “climate change” or “global warming”?
In fact it was six. To put that in perspective, three questions mentioned UFOs.
By 2015, political journalists had shown little improvement. In December, 195 countries had reached an historic and unanimous accord in Paris to begin to find ways to limit greenhouse gases. The non-binding agreement involved re-envisioning the global economy and paying hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer countries. Just a few days later, both the Republicans and Democrats running for US president held primary debates. Despite the profound potential implications of both action and inaction and the strong differences between the parties on the topic of climate change, the journalists moderating the two debates didn’t ask a single question about it.
Similar things could be said of any one of several major topics surrounding science, each of them with vast policy implications. Not a single candidate for president spoke about them, and humanities-trained political journalists did not ask about them. It was as if they didn’t exist. But in a world increasingly dominated by complex science, the answers to such questions will determine the future. Certainly they should be contemplated by voters when making electoral decisions. What could have happened to the media, to make it so derelict in its duties in this regard?
Let’s Have a Science Debate
In the fall of 2007, this divergence was noticed by a British expat: Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson Matthew Chapman, who wondered what could be going on. A science writer, film director, and the screenwriter of films including 2003’s Runaway Jury, Chapman picked up the phone and began calling friends to see if they, too, had noticed this. He reached physicist Lawrence Krauss, science journalist Chris Mooney, energy scientist and science blogger Sheril Kirshenbaum, science philosopher Austin Dacey, and me. We all agreed that the silence on science issues was astounding. As a group, we founded ScienceDebate 2008 (later ScienceDebate.org), an effort to get the candidates for president to debate the major science policy issues.
We put up a website, placed op-eds in national publications, and reached out to contacts and leading science bloggers. The effort went viral. One of those bloggers, Darlene Cavalier of ScienceCheerleader.com, connected us with the US National Academies and became part of our core team, as did Michael Halpern, a senior staffer in the Scientific Integrity program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Within weeks, thirty-nine thousand people from across the political spectrum had signed on, including Nobel laureates, prominent scientists, the presidents of most major American universities, the CEOs of several large corporations, and political movers ranging from John Podesta, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, on the left, to former house speaker Newt Gingrich on the right. Feeling affirmed, we reached out to the campaigns.
They ignored us. This is, of course, a classic campaign tactic. You never give energy to anything that you wish would go away. You simply do not engage, because the moment you do there is a story, the thing gets legs, and if you don’t have your message already developed, you can lose control of your narrative. The question was why they wouldn’t want to engage.
I went on Ira Flatow’s US National Public Radio program Talk of the Nation: Science Friday. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); the US National Academies (of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine); and the nonprofit Council on Competitiveness signed on as cosponsors. Soon we represented more than 125 million people through our signatory organizations. It was the largest political initiative in the history of science.
Presidential Candidates Debate Religion, Not Science
Still, the candidates refused to even return phone calls and e-mails. So we decided to organize a presidential debate ourselves, and turned to the national media outlets for help. We brought on PBS’s flagship science series Nova and its then-news program Now on PBS as broadcast partners. David Brancaccio, Now’s host, would moderate. We set a date shortly before the crucial Pennsylvania primaries and teamed up with the venerable Franklin Institute in Center City Philadelphia to host.
But despite the urging of advisors like EMILY’s List founder Ellen Malcolm, who was involved with Senator Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) campaign, and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, who was supporting Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), both of those candidates refused invitations to a debate that would center on the US economy and science and technology issues. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) ignored the invitation entirely. Instead, Clinton and Obama chose to debate religion at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—where, ironically, they answered questions about science.
An old joke tells of the three things one never discusses in polite company: sex, politics, and religion. How has political culture come to a point where science is more taboo to discuss than religion? What little news coverage there was of this stunning development didn’t seem to affect the campaigns at all. The candidates continued their policies of non-engagement. It wasn’t because they felt inhibited about opining on issues outside their expertise. They waxed on about foreign policy and military affairs even though none were diplomats or generals. They offered economic plans even though they had little knowledge of economics. They talked about morality and religion even though they were not rabbis or priests. But they refused to debate the many crucial issues presented by science.
Marveling at this odd situation,