When Science Looks Like Religion
Science needs to fix climate change and FAST warns Astronomer Royal after IPCC report
BRITAIN’S Astronomer Royal has called for a worldwide redoubling of research and development into renewable energy to avert ecological catastrophe
The battle for the claim to which tribe is truly “scientific” has again heated up. Fueled by a prickly exchange between Michael Shermer, assuming the liberals-are-anti-science corner in Scientific American, and Mother Jones‘ Chris Mooney, who literally wrote the book on how bad conservatives are at science, writers for different blogs and magazines put forth their best pitches for their own team. This is hardly the first time this debate has occurred. After all, no intelligent person of any worldview wants to be told that they are actually the ones who have been wasting time admiring the shadows on the cave wall. However, as Stan wrote on Friday, most sides in political discussions have moral inclinations that align with scientific evidence at least part of the time. This means that there is a high likelihood that different political groups will be “right” on certain issues, although not for the right reasons. In rushing to claim the mantle of scientific backing, political groups merely seek and publicize scientific findings that reinforce their priors.
Humanity has a bad track record of selectively appealing to authority to justify our biases. For much of human history, public figures would defend their positions by demonstrating how they coincided with their god’s will or expectations. The respective gods’ wills and expectations of the world’s major religions have consistently changed according to the new needs and developments of their more modern adherents (save for a tiny minority of orthodox groups). This could either suggest that all of their gods happened to be hip, understandable deities that conveniently mellowed over time (humorous, but unlikely) or that the spiritual leadership of these religions simply lowered the moral standard that modern living was expected to meet. Like our modern tendency to cover our personal biases with the veneer of science, God’s will became less of an end and more of a means.
As this recent episode demonstrates, today, intellectual opinions and policy proposals are defended by appealing to a new higher authority: science. This is, of course, a significant improvement. The scientific method is the best approach that we have developed to remove human bias in empirical inquiry to date. It’s nice to live in a world where assertions are expected to be backed by evidence and weighed against alternative explanations, despite the fact that some people use it to reinforce, rather than challenge, their priors. However, the tendency for laypeople to blindly embrace whatever is described to them as “science” as a moral truth is no more comforting a standard than the one that preceded it. In replacing gods with the scientific method, might we run the risk of mistaking the scientific method for a god, free of error and human bias
Even practitioners of science from time to time fall prey to a religious preference for dogmatism over detached truth-seeking. During last week’s discussion on which political group is “better” at science, one of my friends posted an interview of psychologist Jonathan Haidt from last year. In it, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson poses the question de rigueur, to which Haidt delivers an even-handed response: conservatives and liberals are both “bad” at the science that offends their moral sensibilities. In Europe, for instance, it is the left that is generally regarded as anti-science because much of the research conducted in those countries-on nuclear power and genetically-modified foods-tends to push the left’s buttons and invokes their public ire. In the US, it is the religious right who doles scorn and obstruction upon scientists who conduct taboo research on, say, biotechnology or climate change. So far, so good.
Former Royal Society President Lord Rees made the appeal as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues the most extensive-ever climate change warning over the risks of rising global temperatures.
The influential report reveals that only by keeping the temperature rise under 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” be prevented.
The report was published this week after it was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea.
More than 91 authors and editors from 40 countries cited 6,000 scientific references to draw the report's conclusions.
In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Cambridge University’s Professor Rees outlined what he viewed as the only viable “win-win solution” to controlling climate change.
He said: “Only by accelerating research and development will we develop better and cheaper carbon-free sources of energy.
“It’s only when clean energy gets as cheap as that from coal-fired power stations, will India, for instance – which clearly needs more power – leapfrog to clean energy.
“Otherwise India will build more coal-fired power stations – and that will hamper hitting these targets in time.”
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The IPCC report states that exceeding the 1.5C rise will cause a catastrophe in as little as 12 years.
Cosmologist and astrophysicist Professor Rees agrees the only option is to take immediate action.
The climate expert said: “Although the report’s estimations are slightly fuzzy, you have to accept to actually meet the target of 1.5 Celsius is very tough and will require very rapid action.
“The world’s best hope are solar and wind, and you will additionally need batteries for storage and a smart grid to carry electricity across continents – all those things need to be developed.
“But it has not been very easy to get support for carbon taxation and things like that because it is asking people in counties like ours to pay now for the benefit of those 50 years in the future as well as other parts of the world.
“That’s a hard sell for politicians to make.
“But high-tech nations will gain by advancing technology while the other nations will also benefit by receiving clean energy quicker.”
The acclaimed scientist’s clarion call is made as his latest book “On the Future: Prospects for Humanity” is published, which details his theory on why the 21st century is unique in earth’s history.
According to Professor Rees, the future of the planet and of humanity rests in our hands.
He said: “This century is the first when one species – man – is sufficiently dominant that it can affect the future of the entire planet.
“This change can happen in two ways: in our collected effect on the climate and biodiversity, and the runaway effect of powerful new technologies, such bio, cyber and artificial intelligence.
“This is something new this century – it’s going to be a challenge to big governance and is going to determine whether governments are effective enough to give us a not too-bumpy ride for the rest of the century.
“The stakes are higher this century than they ever were before.“
The Norwegian documentary Hjernevask created by comedian Harald Eia provides one good example of how adherence to the standard social science model has taken a turn towards the canonical in the narrator’s home country. Throughout the seven part series, Eia first visits his old sociology professors that taught him everything he knew about gender, race, and class differences; namely, that they are almost completely culturally determined and it is unthinkable to suggest otherwise. Next, Eia travels to globe to consult big name international experts-luminaries like Steven Pinker, Simon Baron-Cohen, and David Buss-on their differing opinions on the matter. Needless to say, these gentleman found several problems with the hard cultural determinism of the Norwegian sociologists, particularly concerning the sociologists’ ambivalence towards twin study research that suggests that significant portions of our personality are biologically, not culturally, determined.