Thread by @HeatherEHeying

Why don’t you condemn A, given that you condemned B?

This time-worn accusation is common. That doesn't make it smart.

Despite that, I’ve got some thoughts on this particular instantiation. A thread.

https://twitter.com/Sammallahti/status/1122590965083136005

Suppression and spinning of scientific results—as outlined in the link posted above and here—is an illegitimate use of govt power. There are many ways that politically untenable or unprofitable conclusions can be minimized, some of them outlined here:
grist.org/article/8-ways…

What I don’t see (in this article) is the free speech issue.

Your question, @Sammallahti appears to be: Does the fate of Sargon of Akkad, or that of the Earth, matter more? Given that we can all agree on the latter, you would seem to imply, then nobody should publicly voice concern about the first unless they also speak to the second.

I would hope that everyone can see that this is a facile comparison; a set-up, even.

There was a clear breach in the case of Sargon of Akkad and Patreon, which speaks to larger issues of corporate (rather than government) censorship, net neutrality, the future of the internet.

Has the current administration made policy decisions that benefit corporate interests while externalizing costs to the rest of us, our planet, and our descendants? Absolutely. It’s egregious. The fact that it is also business as usual makes it no less egregious.

In this era of the inane & gameable “believe all X”, we are instructed to believe all women (although it opens the door to bad actors who are women), & also to believe all scientists (although scientists are people too, & the quality of scientific research is highly variable).

Furthermore, while it is true that an overwhelming majority of climate models strongly suggest that we are experiencing rapid anthropogenic climate change, it is also true that, being models, we are talking about probabilities of extremely complex systems.

Also, our planet’s situation seems dire to many people—myself included. I differ from many activists, however, in that I do not conclude that the ends justify the means. I believe that we need policy change that is both sober, and radical, regarding environmental protections.

We do not, however, need to pretend that all climate science is good science, or that all climate scientists are good scientists. It isn’t, & they aren’t. Pretending otherwise hurts everyone *except * the bad scientists (and whomever they’re in bed with, metaphorically speaking).

Anecdote: I was once on a faculty hiring committee where one finalist was a climate modeler. In one of his papers, he had described putting his data through several models, which he named in the Methods section. But then he only reported the results of one of those models.

So I asked him, this candidate for a faculty position, during a part of the multi-day interview when he and I were alone (not with the entire committee), how and why he chose to report the results of the model that he did, and not the others.

He literally changed the subject. Pretended to want to talk about parenting, asked me about my (then infant) son. I asked him again about his choice of models, and he laughed, mumbled something incomprehensible, changed the subject again.

The dude could not answer a basic question about why he had used the models that he had used.

He did not get the job. (I reported this lack-of-conversation to the committee during our decision-making process.) But he did get hired later, somewhere else.

Would I defend the right of that climate scientist to speak? Absolutely. Would I go out of my way to give him a platform? I would not. Maybe the results that he reported were accurate, maybe not, but he was a crappy scientist.

In the grist.org piece above, we see, for instance, that those scientists who had received EPA grants were no longer, under Pruitt’s leadership, able to be on the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.

This is presented as if it is patently bad, the erasure of scientists to fill seats with a cabal of industry insiders. My guess is that that’s the correct net assessment. Certainly, having the EPA run by a cabal of industry insiders isn’t good for science, or the environment.

But maybe the scientists who get EPA grants are themselves also a cabal, doing each other solids, peer reviewing each other’s work, making sure that they all keep earning the grants that they need to do their research.

What if the research stinks, but peer review is corrupt so nobody can call it out? How do new or non-party-line scientists break into the party? What if some of the models being used are flawed, but when the question is asked, the modelers deflect the question?

It is human nature to defend that which we have created, that on which we have built reputation.

The scientific method is one antidote to that part of human nature.

It would be grand to be able to simply trust all scientists, but some of them, crazy as this sounds, are too busy protecting their careers to be doing good science.

So: Aren’t I demonstrating my lack of concern about the environment if I speak about deplatforming on social media, but not about Scott Pruitt’s failings? No, in fact I am not. Nobody is obliged to speak on any topic, whether or not they have a clear opinion on it.

Furthermore: Such accusations are in service of the game of pigeonholing, of finding the right ideological box to put people in, so that you can imagine that you know—and perhaps could own—them.

Guess what? Ideology is the problem. Not the answer. /end