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29 Regulation 28 (2006-2007)
When Scientists Politicize Science

handle is hein.journals/rcatorbg29 and id is 30 raw text is: Instead of claiming there is just one policy response to a given issue, scientists should provide a range of options for policymakers. When Scientists Politicize Science ROGER A. PIELKE, JR. University of Colorado N RECENT YEARS AND IN DIFFERENT COUN- tries, combatants on opposing sides of highly con- tentious debates related to the environment, medi- cine, and even national security have frequently asserted that science compels their favored political perspective. Whether the subject is global warming, genetically modified organisms, or even the exis- tence of weapons of mass destruction, it is not surprising to observe advocates selectively using and misusing science to advance their firmly held positions. What perhaps is surpris- ing, at least to some observers of the scientific enterprise, is that scientists increasingly seem to be joining the political fray by equating particular scientific findings with political and ideo- logical perspectives. For example, when a 2003 paper in the journal Climate Research argued that twentieth century climate variations were unexceptional in millennial perspective, advocacy groups opposed to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change hailed the research as sound science, while advocacy groups in support of the Protocol called the paper junk science. In this case, more troubling than the selective use of scientific results by advocates is that many scientists' evaluations of the paper's sci- entific merit correlated perfectly with their public expressions of support or opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. Acceptance of the paper's conclusions was equated with opposition to Kyoto and, correspondingly, rejection of the paper's findings was equated with support for Kyoto. For example, one prominent climate scientist (on record supporting Kyoto) suggested in testimony before the U.S. Congress that the paper must be bad Roger A. Pielke, Jr. is a professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado and a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He may be contacted by e-mail at pielke@cires.colorado.edu. science because the editor who oversaw its publication had been critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. And the editor (a social scientist who is on record opposing Kyoto) of a different journal that pub- lished a second version of the controversial paper comment- ed, I'm following my political agenda-a bit, anyway, but isn't that the right of the editor? If scientists evaluate the research findings of their peers on the basis of their political perspectives, then scientific debate among academics risks simply becoming political debate in the guise of science. From the perspective of the public or policy- makers, scientific debate and political debate on many envi- ronmental issues already have become indistinguishable. Such cases of conflation limit the role of science in the develop- ment of creative and feasible policy options. In many instances, science-particularly environmental science-has become little more than a mechanism of marketing competing politi- cal agendas, and scientists have become leading members of the advertising campaigns. One example of this dynamic that received considerable media attention was the controversy over the 2001 Bjorn Lom- borg book The Skeptical Environmentalist, published by Cam- bridge University Press. Heated debate and controversy are the norm insofar as environmental issues are concerned, but reaction to this book spilled over from the environmental community onto pages of leading newspapers and magazines around the world, and has thus come to occupy the attention of scholars who study science in its broader societal setting. SCIENCE AS POLITICAL BATTLEFIELD A focus on the intersection of politics and science is not new and has been studied for decades. What may be new, or at least 28 REGULATION SPRING 2006 E ENVIRONMENT

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