Defining Activist Science
Defining Activist Science
How it is driving our policy arena and destroying trust in science
This year marks the tenth anniversary of my coining of the term “activist science”. At the time I was frustrated to see industry science denigrated and excluded from policy debates leaving policymakers, the media and the public struggling to find credible independent science they could trust in their assessments and every-day decisions. Activist groups and NGOs were starting to commission academics to produce their own scientific reports or promoting citizen science initiatives, often of a very low quality, usually fear infused, biased and reverse-engineered to present data that would justify the conclusions of their campaigns.
Back then it was also called: “parallel science” but I felt the name needed to reflect the tactics the activists themselves were employing. If industry science could not be trusted, then we certainly could not trust activist science.
So in defining an activist scientist, it would be useful to draw some distinctions between credible scientists and activist scientists.
The Difference between an Activist Scientist and a Credible Scientist
Motivation
A credible scientist starts with the evidence and adapts the conclusions.
An activist scientist starts with the conclusions and adapts the evidence.
Engagement
A credible scientist presents the evidence to policymakers and returns to the lab, leaving others to make decisions and communicate to the public.
An activist scientist goes directly to the public or a PR manager, telling them where the policymakers need to change. The lab is frequently used for their documentary film crew or media interviews.
Evidence
A credible scientist continually challenges the paradigms and presuppositions with new evidence in order to test the foundations of the body of knowledge. To be skeptical is to be scientific.
An activist scientist seeks to form a consensus around a political view they push forward and considers any challenges to this contrived consensus as malicious and unwanted.
In the past, the scientific community has been critical of creationists, who pre-define their perspective from Biblical scripture and seek to find the evidence to prove the scriptures and dispel that which does not support their religion. Today’s religion is the Church of Nature, and many scientists are only accepting facts that promote ecological principles and beliefs. The scientific community needs to be more critical of such neo-creationists who claim to be representing “the science”.
The Dominance of Activist Science
When I had coined this term in 2014, there were some well-known cases of activist science abuse.
I was working on my Bee-Gate exposé, showing how a group of scientists wrote a strategy document of how they would influence EU policy to ban a group of neonicotinoid pesticides. It was only an afterthought that they would produce and publish a few papers to anchor their strategy.
Climategate and the leaked University of East Anglia emails were still reverberating. It showed how a closed circle of climate scientists were more concerned with defending their consensus position and attacking their challengers than developing a robust science. Now they just file lawsuits against their detractors.
A decade ago, the master activist scientist had to be Gilles-Eric Séralini. His GMO and pesticide-fed rat experiment is perhaps the most celebrated example of white-coated political abuse. As an activist scientist, he does not even pretend to be objective in his approach to GMOs – his campaign website is virulently anti-GMO. Séralini designed his rat experiment to reach the consequences his campaign needed. He chose a particular type of rat that needed a balanced diet, fed them nothing but chemicals and GMOs for an extended period (with an inadequate control group) and watched the tumors grow, providing emotional photos for the media. Once his article was accepted for publication (since retracted), he called a press conference to reveal the shocking news and evidence (plus the trailer for his anti-GMO film showing researchers in hazmat suits risking contamination). Journalists were forced to sign an embargo agreement before being given access to the research which they were not allowed to share with other experts.
Emerging Opportunities for the Opportunists
Ten years on, activist science has become more widespread, lucrative and widely accepted and trusted in the media. There is no stigma; rather it is celebrated as “independent science”. Social media and political evolutions have advanced the interests behind activist scientists, with increased funding opportunities for those using science for political objectives.
Climate science has become more campaign-based than research-oriented with characters like Michael Mann spending more time in a courthouse suing his critics than in a lab strengthening his research. The media, policymakers and activist groups regularly pronounce the end of days with catastrophic climate change leading to the extinction of humanity … and the climate consensus group rarely speaks up and corrects their absurd political declarations.
Groups like the Ramazzini Institute or the Heartland Health Research Alliance pretend that they are doing independent research, but they are funded by interest groups, often via dark, donor-advised funds within foundations. The research they produce are campaign-oriented and biased but there is very little scrutiny by the media. NGOs like the Environmental Working Group or US Right to Know are paying researchers to publish their campaign literature in predatory journals, upon which time they then run campaigns claiming the scientific community has performed some important research.
But the worst evolution in the corruption and expansion of activist science has got to be the explosion of opportunities for litigation consultants within the tort law industry. Certain under-utilized scientists have been attracted to obscene consulting fees (averaging around $500 per hour) to prepare papers and testify for tort law firms suing industry. The lawyers need a conclusion they can use in a courtroom and they employ scientists to manufacture the necessary data to convince a jury. When I exposed Christopher Portier for running campaigns against glyphosate that were secretly underwritten by his tort law firm paymasters, many accused me of trying to destroy his legacy. I believe his greed and complicitness in the tort lawyers’ objectives did that for him. Recently I showed how Martin Well’s shapeshifting methodological contortions and cherry-picking on the paraquat multidistrict litigations was devoid of scientific integrity (this was the judge’s conclusion).
It needs to be qualified that there are many different types of scientists, many with motivations that are not driven by activist ideology of insatiable greed. The Firebreak recently considered these different scientists, their objectives and opportunities. There are those scientists dedicated to learning, attracted by the wonders of science and discovery and committed to preparing the next generation of researchers. Unfortunately, as the university business model is adapting to a self-paying model for scientists (a type of venture science), the best teachers find themselves having to scramble to finance themselves.
But What About Industry Scientists?
Industry scientists don’t matter in this equation, since, due to intense lobbying by anti-capitalist NGOs like Friends of the Earth, US Right to Know and Corporate Europe Observatory, they are not allowed to offer their expertise or be involved in evidence sharing in the policy process. This has become absurd on so many levels, but the denormalization of industry hysteria has meant that if you have used your talents to develop innovative products benefitting society via industry, you are no longer welcome to share your knowledge and experience in the decision-making process. Don’t even bother coming to the table, you won’t get a chair.
Industry scientists, like all industry employees, are obliged to follow strict ethical codes of conduct, including correct lab practices and research procedures. This does not imply that the management in their companies necessarily use their findings, but if you take the best scientists, in the best lab conditions with the best budgets, companies with sustainable business plans would be foolhardy to not treat their scientists’ findings with priority.
Most NGOs don’t have ethical codes of conduct … rather they celebrate activism that breaks the law.
But none of this is seen in the media where the activist/foundation/tort law firm/interest groups control the media, policy and consumer debates. Our present Western narrative says industry, capitalism and innovation is unwelcome. Industry science cannot be trusted. But this does not mean that, as a consequence, we can trust activist science. The media and policymakers need to be able to discern credible science from all interest-driven data and evidence. The term “activist science” needs to be stigmatized. It needs to have a warning label.
But how?
That is a challenge for the science communications community.
That is a challenge for the writers in The Firebreak.