Climate Science in the Courts
Human Vanity on Trial in the Michael Mann Case
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
So said Isaac Newton in correspondence with Hooke in 1676. Science is a process where scientists push discoveries and technologies further. For 500 years, this leading western cultural institution has been massing empirical information, continually challenging hypotheses to prepare the next generation for greater knowledge and discovery. As science advances, the giants of today become the midgets of tomorrow.
Science as a future-driven institution and process is often distracted by the vain ambitions of present-obsessed scientists. Some may argue that Newton also saw further than contemporaries like Leibniz and Hooke by chopping them off at the knees (he even stole this quote from John of Salisbury from some 500 years earlier). Today’s giants of science have social media and larger publics upon which to extend their egos and distract others from the scientific endeavor. Such is the case of vain climate scientists like Michael Mann who put themselves before the scientific process.
Science on Trial
Michael Mann recently won a court settlement of more than $1 million for personal damages following an online exchange that belittled him and his hockey stick theory. What started as a response to personal insults became a trial where the climate skeptics were rounded up and rounded off. Disturbingly, the skeptics were depicted by Mann and his allies as climate deniers. In reality, a scientist should always be skeptical, should challenge hypotheses and should be driven to have more robust scientific theories. More disturbingly, his opponents were depicted as right wing. Is this science or politics?
But is a courtroom an appropriate place to settle a scientific dispute? A jury of peers is certainly not a peer review. As the countless glyphosate verdicts can attest, a courtroom is perhaps the worst place for scientific facts to have a fair hearing. So what was going on here?
Courts are places of combat and many climate scientists are combative by nature. By portraying climate skeptics as deniers, it is clear that people like Michael Mann feel that they are at war with those who dare to disagree with them. Rather than listening to other theories and developing a stronger scientific position, climate scientists like Mann are continually fighting to silence contrary views. Besides a cash settlement (which could be held up in appeal for another decade) Mann wanted the court to award him an affirmation that he was right.
That is not science.
Consensus Mongers
Where the scientific method requires a skeptical mind to continuously challenge hypotheses (Karl Popper framed it as the ability of a theory to resist falsification), today scientists spend too much of their energy defending the consensus view. A consensus is a political view and distorts emerging facts or evidence that closes minds rather than opening up opportunities for discovery. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, new evidence kept challenging the consensus on how to manage the health crisis, and those seeking to defend the consensus view and silence their critics were costing lives.
Technically a consensus is 50% plus one but in order to be politically persuasive, it needs to be as close to 100% as possible. So the “97% of scientists who believe climate change is a fact”, should have ended any discussion. Their views were right, case closed. Then again, shortly before Newton’s time, surely 97% of the scientists believed the earth was flat. The only thing consensus mongers do, when silencing their contrarians, is interfere with the scientific process of discovery.
So Mann’s court case became a show trial where those defending the consensus aimed to silence the heretics whom they wanted to see punished. Such spite. Political interests collided with jurisprudence with the scientific method buried deep beneath the puerile human interests of vengeance and vain glory.
Sue all of the Bastards
On the day after the verdict, one of my more distasteful shills crowed on social media that I was next. I wasn’t the only one receiving such vindictive threats. Anyone who challenges a widely-held political consensus, from COVID-19 origins, to biotechnology safety to promoting a diversified energy mix should now consider the litigious consequences of speaking up. The consensus mongers are emboldened to silence those who have tried to obstruct their progress to conviction.
Some might argue that certain disagreements, based on misinformation, are dangerous to the general public (like claims of uncertainty made by anti-vaxxers). Scientists, if their theories are robust enough, should be able to refute bogus claims and if they cannot, then taking their opponents to court would certainly not strengthen their position. Mann’s court case did not strengthen the cause for climate scientists but rather diminished their stature and strength of argument.
But what if what scientists are saying is wrong? Shouldn’t they be held accountable? In Italy in 2009, seismologists advised the public that the series of light tremors implied a lower likelihood of a serious earthquake. This was based on their experience and best available knowledge but after the L'Aquila earthquake struck, and over 300 people sheltering in place had died, seven of these scientists were convicted in the courts (with six later acquitted on appeal).
The Italian court assumed that scientists should not speak or advise the public unless they are certain. This is not science and the idea of demanding such certainty from scientists flies in the face of the scientific method. Predicting earthquakes is not an exact science and the courts had no place in this matter. Risk communications involves advising on scenarios that may not be certain. Holding scientists liable in court for consequences from other scenarios goes completely against what scientists do.
When Michael Mann went to court to challenge his opponents, he was not acting as a scientist. When he attempted to show that the climate consensus proved him right, he was not acting as a scientist. When he assembled a cast of characters to criticize his adversaries, he was not acting as a scientist. Mann was not standing on the shoulders of giants; his vain ego was chopping them off at the knees.