Ok, at first glance, the paper seems to bank on a single premise - climate change science is currently weaker than political measures seem to imply. With that assumption left blank and unchallenged, the rest of the paper proceeds to find examples where politics has misrepresented, changed, lied and exploited this alleged misassumption.
I have no doubt that politics is tightly woven into the practice of science. None at all. Scientists require money, and those resources come through political exchange. It's by no means a new thing, and has been discussed in science philosophy ad nauseum for the past century. Nobody would disagree.
Yet the strengths of climate science are flippantly reduced to a dismissive statement,
The situation is particularly acute for a small weak field like
climatology.
The paper's point of remaining aware of the exploitation of the public's literacy regarding certain fields of science is significant, yet also rather misleading. Politics is rarely ever a homogenous, unified field. Funding and support comes from many sources and interests, and the politics involved are often conflicting and diverse. The paper oversimplifies this issue and cherry picks appropriately.
Furthermore, while political influence cannot be dismissed, too little credit is given to the fact that scientific practice is often anti-political. In my own organisation, we've had a lot of individuals who have spoken against the political grain regarding many decisions, and the science communication industry has made significant gains in making debate transparent within and between organisations and individuals within.
The change in media in recent years has also seen to large changes in the influence politics has on the practice of science. With more available channels there is less pressure for maintaining the status quo of one's organisation or government. The result is more debate.
What we're seeing in the sci-com industry, therefore, is not a stifling of dissent, but rather an inability for the dissenters to present adequate arguments or present them in a cohesive fashion that makes any sense. The floor is all theirs, and yet they have nothing to say other than the same old rhetoric that has been addressed.
Politics and science will always go hand in hand. And yes, we always need to remain aware of the potential for exploitation of half-baked ideas and unsupported hypotheses. Yet while science literacy is still woefully inadequate amongst the general population, the diversity of political opinion and of communication channels means the idea of debate being stifled is quite simply ignorant.
Athon
