The Post-Normal Times

ok, so George Deutsch is now history, and will from now on be known as “a Brownie” – the difference being that Mike Brown, aka, Fashion God, was more worried about making himself (rather than the president) look good – if Brownie (the 1st) was a woman, his preoccupation with fashion – over response to Katrina, would still be news. Both of these characters are relevant, even if only to focus attention on more important questions – so moving on to those… Kevin Vranes raises another good one – about why it is scientific information doesn’t change any minds – or policies. Or in his words:

The real issue here is not that the American public is misinformed or uninformed. The real issue is that the American public is well informed and still doesn’t care.

He also throws in some academickese from a paper by Myanna Lahsen (blogged and posted in its entirety here by Pielke Jr.) that is sitting half read on top of my reading pile. I used to write papers like that in graduate school – (the citations are all too familiar) but, outside of academia, that style of writing isn’t conducive to employment. Since Kevin was once one of those Congressional Science Fellows that the AAAS sends to Washington every year to get policy experience, he knows exactly what I’m talking about. One of his predecessors once started a bulletin called “I used to be a scientist” – (blogs didn’t exist yet). The last I heard he was painting pictures. Others I know are in some science-related agency playing bureaucratic games with the Brownies at OMB… A few, like Kevin, made it back into academia. It would be an interesting survey to find out where the rest of them went.

Inside academia, that kind of writing can also be trouble – my one quibble with Chris Mooney’s book The Republican War on Science (which I otherwise like because it coherently brings together in one place information about attacks on science from many different fronts) is the opening quote in the very front, that says that a graduate student can criticize a tenured professor. yeah well, right… ok, ideally yes – we can all criticize Bush too. If my first graduate advisor’s desk were made of wood, it would have cracked under my fist, and if there were a law against arbitrary and capricious behavior and abuse of tenure, I would have surely made use of it. Instead, I moved on to another program and exited as a freelance geographer. Truth tends to come out eventually, but… I digress. (If you really want to hear that one you will have to corner me over a beer) The point is, lets not put science on a pedestal and act like those true believers who are trying to do away with it altogether. Scientists, according to Socrates, “are those who know about their ignorance.” And power plays a role in science agendas too, particularly when it comes to policy – recommended reading is the Story of Vajont which illustrates the role that negligent experts played in a dam disaster that occurred in Italy in 1963. This post is dedicated to someone who was also a student in that first graduate program with me, who dismissed anthropology, and what people believe, as irrelevant to science. And to another one who didn’t think public opinion mattered because the “budget for scientific research comes from the National Science Foundation.”

To get back to Kevin’s question – here is an excerpt from one of my old papers about information needed for decision-making about land use in the context of uncertainty and global change (which I have not put online because it contains way too much information – the purpose was to fulfill graduation requirements):

…just providing information about risks themselves, is often counterproductive and reduces public participation to a public relations exercise, to convey a decision that has already been made. The implication conveyed, that there is an optimum or correct response to environmental conditions, leaves no space for meaningful participation and debate, and also suppresses social conflicts, which create the need for decisions to be made. According to a study produced by the Public Agenda Foundation with the American Geophysical Union, the public is not skeptical about the existence of problems but about whether we have the ability to solve them. The study also found that it may simply “increase the sense of hopelessness rather than lead to productive debate and dialogue.” Options instead facilitate public debate and dialogue (Immerwahr 1999).

But that does not diminish the importance of good and proper communication of what science can tell us – which should include the reasons for coming to certain conclusions, and the known ranges of uncertainty. Models should really be called plausible scenarios. Some day I’ll pull out some of my academickese about substantive vs procedural rationality that explains why “It’s the decision model….”

[the promised link - then click Eureka!]

Colbert talked about science this evening and really nailed it – it is better watched, (if you have access to cable it reruns several times the next day) – if the video segment gets posted online at the show site, I will update this post with a link. In the meantime – I recorded it and made the following transcript of “The Word” segment:

The word: Eureka – as in you reek et science America! That why the president is really pushing his competitiveness initiative, which will double the number of science teachers in the next 5 years (Bush hot for teachers) so, if you are a high school student who is crazy about science, you are in luck (for a change) because the whole world is opening up to you like a blossom (but girls still won’t), because the president is putting his money where his mouth is (Buttcheek of the Saudi Royal Family). He… he is cutting the education budget by 3.2 billion dollars, (that’ll learn ya) but… but the truth is, you don’t need to buy books to learn (Gideon gives bibles for free). You can still get the fundamentals (from fundamentalists). So, take the president’s challenge, be a scientist – whatever fires your curiosity: biology (but not evolution), genetics (but no stem cells), climatology (but no global warming), geology (nothing before 5000 years ago), astronomy (ditto). There are so many choices it can be confusing. But, you know, there is a new science out there. It is the science of studying what science is worth studying (scientology?). Now… now if the president’s contradictions between saying and doing don’t make logical sense to you, do what all great scientists do, and just take it on faith and, if you are already a scientist, just tow the administration’s line, and then you will get federal funding (Eureka). And that’s the word.

Digby raises the issue that scientific agencies are undoubtedly infested with pests like George Deutsch, “not only in pr but in positions that require serious decision-making.” He calls them mosquitos. I think of it more as a hydra-infested swamp – that will require a Herculean effort to eradicate (DC was built on a wetland…) Just a hunch but, somebody who has time or gets paid to investigate such things might take start by taking a look at the qualifications of political appointees at the Office of Management and Budget – which has an awful lot of power over what the science agencies do. As Digby also says:

Let’s be clear about this. This is the kind of incompetent behavior that right wing ideologues, obsessed with ideology and appearance over reality, repeat again and again and again. And it has consequences…. Bush’s wholesale trashing of US science policy -climate change research is just one area- has the potential to lead to serious threats to our national security.

Addendum: On second thought – lest we forget New Orleans, it already has. As I have blogged in earlier posts – both before and after Katrina, there was no lack of scientific early warnings – or even plans for coastal restoration or proposals for funding mechanisms – years in advance. I saw Mary Landrieu on CSPAN last week – still asking for a share of revenue from offshore oil and gas receipts to fund the restoration plan – as she did long before Katrina. How about we hear it from some non-Louisiana senators and representatives? Maybe we need a Mardi Gras parade through the halls of congress or something….
[Correction: I think the above was not from Digby but from "Tristero" posting on Digby's blog, Hullabaloo.]

Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M, finds out that George Deutsch did not. He did attend, and was an opinion editor for the student newspaper The Battalion, but left without graduating. Apparently the offer of a position with the Bush campaign was just too good of an opportunity to turn down. I wonder what his resume says – surely, he had a background check before being confirmed as a politically appointed public affairs officer at NASA? The power must have really gone to his head. I’ll bet he swaggers too.
Update 1/8/06: Andy Revkin/NYT confirms, Deutsch lied on his resumé and has also now resigned from NASA. Perhaps he will follow in Brownie’s footsteps and start a consulting firm – to counsel public affairs officers on what not to do or say when communicating science… As with Brownie, the real issue is, who put him up to this? As Dr. Hansen said, he is only a bit player – important only as an indicator of a bigger problem, of the political control of scientific information, which is a threat to what is left of our democracy.