{"id":25975,"date":"2020-06-13T09:15:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T16:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25975"},"modified":"2020-06-13T09:15:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T16:15:53","slug":"sowing-doubt-and-undermining-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25975","title":{"rendered":"Sowing Doubt and Undermining Science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published on erb.umich.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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People want to rely on scientific evidence in countless different contexts. As\u00a0one professor put it<\/a>, \u201cScience has \u2018epistemic authority,\u2019 meaning it is the best method humans have available to understand what is true about the world.\u201d\u00a0So science should be able to speak for itself. But people with a vested interest in undermining science are working behind the scenes to obscure it.<\/p>\n

Scientific findings about climate change are a common target. To diminish the urgency of responding to climate change, government, corporate and other actors have found ways to discredit and silence scientists and their findings.<\/p>\n

For example, the New York Times\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in March that an official at the Interior Department, Indur Goklany, inserted misleading language into at least nine of the agency\u2019s scientific reports. This language asserted that there is a lack of consensus among scientists that the Earth is warming, and that increasing carbon dioxide offers benefits: \u201cWarming and increased carbon dioxide may increase plant water use efficiency, lengthen the agricultural growing season. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

As the New York Times explained,\u00a0\u201cBoth assertions misrepresent the scientific consensus that, overall, climate change will result in severe disruptions to global agriculture and significant reductions in crop yields.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has distorted or hidden science in other contexts, from removing information about climate change from several government reports and websites, to\u00a0rejecting EPA scientists\u2019 work linking trichloroethylene to fetal heart defects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By diminishing the scientific findings of these government agencies\u2019 own scientists, the people manipulating the science manage to craft an alternative narrative.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that corporate\u00a0 interests often want to promote such alternative narratives. It\u2019s common for corporations to affect public policy through campaign contributions and lobbying. But they also do so through an approach that has been largely overlooked: intentionally creating doubt among policy-makers and the public about the need for policy action. Recent research from Thomas Lyon and Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline sheds light on the ways companies deploy strategies to create doubt. (See \u201cMerchants of Doubt: Corporate Political Action When NGO Credibility Is Uncertain<\/a>,\u201d published in the\u00a0Journal of Economics & Management Strategy.)<\/p>\n

Policy-makers often rely on information from science-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to help them make decisions. One way companies create doubt is by directly questioning the credibility of scientists and science-based NGOs, accusing them of a political bias that makes them untrustworthy. Another way is by funding think tanks to sow confusion, argue Lyon and Chiroleu-Assouline.<\/p>\n

Think tanks have proliferated in the past 20 years, but their impact on policy has not received the study it deserves, Lyon and Chiroleu-Assouline say. Although some think tanks are serious research-based organizations staffed by scholars with strong credentials, others put forth a hazy mixture of facts and ideology. They present their own \u201cexperts,\u201d often with weak credentials, who provide a set of alternative assertions that can easily confuse citizens and policy-makers.<\/p>\n

In one particularly egregious example, ExxonMobil funded a TV ad created by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that presented gauzy scenes of nature and ended with the punch line: \u201cCO2: they call it pollution, we call it life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goklany, the DOI official, contributed to a Competitive Enterprise Institute film called\u00a0\u201cPolicy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself.\u201d The New York Times report noted that Goklany has also written papers for and participated in events hosted by other think tanks, including the Heartland Institute, that have spread doubt about climate change.<\/p>\n

In 2017, the Heartland Institute\u00a0reportedly sent<\/a>\u00a0more than 25,000 copies of its book\u00a0\u201cWhy Scientists Disagree About Climate Change,\u201d along with an accompanying DVD, to science teachers across the country. It planned to send more than 200,000 copies.<\/p>\n

Such think tanks aim to influence people\u2019s perceptions of climate change\u2014from third graders to members of Congress.\u00a0And a think tank\u2019s political bias might be unclear.<\/p>\n

Even though a think tank may be well known to lean in a certain political direction, the extent of that political bias may be difficult for policy-makers to discern, Lyon and Chiroleu-Assouline say. A think tank can obscure its political bias, in part through employing a mix of \u201cfellows\u201d and other employees that span the spectrum from moderate to extreme.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorical research has begun to reveal the concerted efforts of groups such as the Mont Pelerin Society, funded by wealthy corporate backers, to create a world-wide family of \u2018free-market\u2019 think tanks,\u201d Lyon said. These groups conclude that government action is undesirable, \u201cand they have real impact: Many politicians propose bills that come word-for-word from such groups,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The public can find out about this behind-the-scenes manipulation only when someone exposes it. With heightened scrutiny of the ways government officials are downplaying and erasing scientific findings, will think tanks be able to keep operating under the radar? If they come under closer scrutiny, corporations might think twice about exerting influence through them.<\/p>\n

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