Thank you boy I was really kind of even know half of that stuff myself so those was great. All right technology seems to be working so I'm going to try to answer the question in the title very explicitly and then we can have a discussion. I'm a professor and you know how we professors are I got like six hours worth of material that I'll go through some of the jump right into it and the goal that I have today is to provoke you all right I want to provoke some thinking maybe outside some of the thinking you've done before if I do that I'll be successful My goal is not to get you to agree with me ideally you'll disagree with me we can have a nice conversation afterwards so here's a here's if you want to check out surf the internet here's what I want to talk about and then you can you know the siren song of political conflict is compelling even for us experts us in the academy. Scientists have choices in how they engage policy in politics and I'll talk about what some of those choices are these choices can can shape whether science and policy are possible and allat splaying what I mean by that phrase. Or alternatively if our politics are pathological. And ultimately science is too important to allow it to become just another arena of partisan conflict we can't control what politicians do. Scientists are but a tiny fraction of people in society we're not always or often or ever listened to but one thing we can control with a lot of certainty is how we act and how we behave so my focus is really going to be on what we as experts and scientists do in broader society must start with an analogy this is not science. Taking a knee. As everyone in here knows the National Football League has been highly politicized lately. My talk in an alternative universe might be titled What's a football player to do when football gets political right raise a fist. And on your heart outside the locker room lock arms take a needy. We could have a very interesting debate and discussion about which one of these options as best we could discuss whether Donald Trump is right or the football players are right. Here's Donald Trump but I'm going to I'm going to go deeper right we could I mean it's the nature of politics is about conflict it's divisive we take sides and it's fun and it's interesting we have passions and we feel strongly about it but what I want to do is go deeper when it comes to science and talk about where does politicization come from when is it a good thing when is it a bad thing and what can we do about it. So you may or may not be aware but the N.F.L. created the conditions for the politicization of football. Before two thousand and nine and F.L. football players didn't come out for the national anthem there was no possibility of taking a knee or raising a fist to put your hand on your heart or the president tweeting about it because it didn't exist what happened was the U.S. military paid the N.F.L. and to a lesser extent the N.B.A. and major league baseball and soccer and so on to display the imagery associated with patriotism in the military this was part of post two thousand and one nine eleven efforts to boost up the military. What happened was the N.F.L. created the possibility for conflict to take place. A few years ago the senator John McCain Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona did a report. Cleverly titled tackling paid patriotism about the role the military had in paying the N.F.L. to display symbols of the military and the result of this was about a little less than a million dollars was returned from the N.F.L. to the military but the point here the bigger point is. If I was having this talk not about science but about football I would say to you I don't care what you think about Collin cap or Nick and I don't care what you think about Donald Trump my question would be what's the bigger picture here what's the role of the N.F.L. and our military in creating the conditions for this object. Professional football to become exploited as a tool of politics so I'm going to do the same thing. I don't care what your politics are I don't care what you think about this or that scientific issue what I want to do is dig deeper and ask the question What is it about the nature of science today that when certain issues to become hyper politicized others not to and what role and responsibility do we have as experts in fostering that politicization and what can we do about it right so that's the analogy and that's that's where I'm going. So basic definitions. So what science science I mean by science is the systematic pursuit of knowledge ready to work for intelligence agencies that work for social science works for physical science policy a decision just a commitment to a course of action politics politics is bargaining negotiation and compromise in pursuit of a desired end put all these words together and you get the politicization of science is the use of the systematic pursuit of knowledge as a means of bargaining to go shooting and compromising in pursuit of a desired end the politicization of science is not a bad thing in fact I'm going to say thank goodness for politics. Politics is what allows us to live together in a diverse complex society get things done do so peacefully and ideally in a way that makes the world better. For everyone Walter Lippmann had this statement in his book Public opinion one hundred sixteen that I always paraphrase because I think we lose sight of it particularly in science the goal of politics is not to get everyone to think alike but rather to get people who think differently to act like. It's all politics is about living and working together so we want science to become politicized we want science in the political process because all of you are universities so you probably think that a commitment to knowledge is a good thing and that if we make decisions using knowledge we're going to make better decisions so thank goodness for politics but politics can be pathological right so effective politicization supports science and policy when you go too far with the politicization becomes pathological pathological politicization works against the possibility of science and policy but politics becomes an end in itself I have two examples here there's a ton of pick one from the left one from the right. Republicans. In the one nine hundred ninety S. put a writer on the Center for Disease Control appropriations saying in effect another language doesn't say this but in effect the result is they can't do gun violence research because it might lead to gun control and Republicans proposed it Democrats supported it it survived through multiple iterations of Democratic Republican presidents Democrat Republican Congresses so everybody has blood on their hands here but we have said as a nation don't give us any knowledge about possible strategies that might make a difference in gun control we want to hear it but argue that's pathological that works against the possibility of science another example from the Obama administration. They. Stayed apart and put out a human trafficking report every year and it turns out when this report was put out in two thousand and sixteen it was offensive to some of our allies who we were negotiating with so the Obama administration went from the top down and asked the analysts to change their report not to reflect facts on the ground but what our allies wanted to hear again that works against the possibility of science that's catering data to fit a preconception in both those cases I would say the politics became pathological it's something that we as experts as academics should try to work against happening. So my focus. Is going to be here on scientists in society what can we do a scientist to better support science and policy all of us have images expectations associations in our head about how that process actually works so I like to dig a little deeper and try to try to provoke you to think about how it works before I get into a framework for how we think about it I'm going to I'm going to highlight just a few key points from what we might call the Social Science of expertise and I don't have a lot of time I'm not going to go into a huge detail but these are the take home points I'd like you to get from this number one all communication is political even scientific communication when you interact with one other human being there's politics going on there right. Where they admit it or not it's their. Science the American science community lacks political diversity I'll show you some data on that experts we experts are prone to bias arguably more so than the average person group think is the real thing. Science by itself in the determines nor dictates policy and science often has an excess of objectivity and I'll define what that means so I'm not going to jump into this too deep at all communication engagement is political right the act of communicating with another human being is a political act in the sense of politics as I defined it before bargaining negotiation and compromise in pursuit of the desired end maybe you're talking about where to go to dinner maybe you're talking about how should I interpret this data point that I just observed would I think Mary and Jim were doing when they were talking to each other. Once we get past that fact and we can get past the science as a value free ideal it makes it a lot easier to talk about science and the rest of society scientists or people our interactions are just like other people and that's OK. Science lacks political diversity so this is data from a survey that was done a few years back. As summarized by met Ms bit professor of communication at Northeastern It's a survey of AAA S members so first thing not all scientists are represented by AAA Yes yes focuses mainly on government and university scientists as a lot of industry science science is not in there but AAA S. is a big important voice in the scientific community and what I want to highlight and encourage you to take a look at that among AAA S. members they are nine the ratio is nine to one self described Democrats and Republicans and society writ large in the general public that ratio is one point five to one. That's a huge difference the scientific community is not politically representative of the American public and then we probably shouldn't expect that it would be the American military is probably not representative of the milk industry is probably not representative but what this says is we have to be cautious when we speak of scientists as experts to the public especially telling the public what we think they should do. Because we have a political bias in our own ranks and it's would be very easy as I'll show for the political views of the scientific community to be at odds with those of the broader public this is from that same data set you probably can't read those little. Itty bitty words I told you guys this is a front I did so here's to play as members this is a measure of percent whether they identify conservative or liberal This is a party idea Republican or Democrat so the more you go up the scale the more like minded the groups are. So if you had to put AAA S. members in a category the category that they belong to are Mormon church members Tea Party members Fox News viewers evangelical church members. All right so on a scale of like mindedness the AAA Yes it's pretty far out there it's not good nor bad it's just a fact it's just data it's a reality but it's something we have to be aware of as we in the scientific community seek to interact with policymakers. Now this is another social science a graph of the time to explain but what it says basically this dark line is experts and this is the strength of their bias This is from a Ph D. dissertation has published twenty thirteen and I guess there's a paper working its way through peer review but what it shows is that the more someone. At a test to being an expert the stronger their biases either against something or for something so the argument in this paper is that confidence in one's convictions and knowledge is incompatible with critical self reflection and being open minded about alternative perspectives thus increasing the tendency for biased judgments so the fact that US eggheads know so much stuff about stuff leads us sometimes to be overly confident in our judgments and I'm sure none of you are like that but if you look to your left or your right you might see somebody who is like that in this room. So groupthink So there's a number a really fascinating social science studies that what they do is they take a group of people who self identify with a particular political view and they take people similar to each other they put them in a room and they say we want you to do deliberate about this topic. So what happens when people with similar political perspectives deliberate amongst themselves. They leave the room more confident more strident in the view they came up with. So the more we are exposed to people with a like minded view the the stronger we're going to hold those views. Now add that together with that nine to one ratio of Democrats or Republicans inside the academy. And if the people you talk to every single day share your views there's a likelihood that your views are going to get amplified. Right so that's a problem so here's what they say one of the effects of deliberation about political issues by like minded people an experimental investigation involving two deliberative exercises one among self identified liberals another among self identified a conservative show that participants views became more extreme after deliberation deliberation also increased consensus and significantly reduced diversity of opinion within the two groups even anonymous statements of personal opinion became more extreme and homogeneous after deliberation. So if your like me you come from Boulder Colorado. Boulder Colorado voted eighty seven percent for Hillary Clinton. I don't know a single faculty member on my campus who admit to going for Donald Trump. When we get in a room and we talk about things together we are at risk. We are at risk of becoming overly certain overly strident overly consensual consensual that what we believe is absolutely of course it's right you believe it I believe it you believe it those fools out there don't believe it so in the academy to the extent we create insular groups which can happen in an academic setting forget about politics you know why I believe this theory who are those fools who believe that other theory there's a risk there so Group think is real. Amok it's been a lot of time on this either it's something that's been discussed it ad nauseum in social science literature but there's this idea of what's called the deficit model of science there's this idea out there and all over simplify it that if you knew what I knew if you came to understand the facts as I understand the facts you would share my values and my policy preferences so really what I have to do is sit your ass down and tell you what the facts are and you have to understand them and then you'll understand what I understand a lot of what goes as science communication these days is an effort to convince people of facts so they understand how the world works so they'll come around to share your policy preferences. It doesn't work that way. But this is how battles over facts become proxy political battles most obvious one of return to this later is climate change it's those damn deniers that are out there only we could get rid of them get their minds right then they come to understand the need for the policies that I support. This is from the work of Dan Kahan who I'd encourage you to look up and read that Yale University. You don't have to understand these graphs there are different issues global warming gun ownership fracking X. ray technology fluoridation raw milk before Mons G.M. foods nanotechnologies red is Republican blues Democrat going from left to right on this graph is knowing less to knowing more about science. The vertical axis is polarization. What you'll notice here as they look at this there are some issues where Democrats and Republicans move in tandem the more they know the the the less they get polarized and they do it together. But there's a special class of issues in this case it's global warming gun ownership and fracking for which the more people learn the more polarized they get. Some issues that we debate in society are pathologically politicized right the more we engage with science the bigger our differences become. So. X. ray technology there's not a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats global warming a return to that there is and it's important for us as experts to be understand what the context is where we're engaging these issues because guess what if I say hey I want you to know more about fluoridation and water. Right then we can have a nice conversation about that's the technology in the science of fluoridation it's not likely to lead to any political cleavage is. Global warming if we sit down and say hey here's the science this is what I believe and likely to create a situation where the more you know the bigger the political split now this is frustrating this is angry this makes us angry because we have this idea that if we educate people and people come to understand issues we can come together and support to recognize that's not always the case. The bottom line here is some issues that we would say are about science are really about politics. An excess of objectivity this is fascinating this is this is helps to explain why so many issues become politicized. What these researchers did a few years ago is they wanted to do an experiment what they did was they wanted to ask the question does the race of a soccer player have any impact on whether they get more or less red cards red cards when they get kicked out of a soccer game and what they did is they got I forgot the exact number twenty eight teams of researchers. And they asked the twenty eight teams to answer this question. Independently from each other so here's what happened you can read this but the this is a list of variables. This is each of the different teams the different teams chose different variables to include in their statistical exploration of this question. Right so some used the position of the player some use the the country the referees country. The victories of the team in and created a simple linear regression multiple regression to see if there is a relationship between red cards and race. So dancer which has argued science is sufficiently risk diverse balkanized product comfort and support for a range of subjective political positions on complex issues and we see this how this works here is the result of these twenty eight different teams so. If. You're uncertainty bars across this dotted line then yes race was a factor in getting red cards. If you're uncertain a bar does not cross this dotted line race was statistically insignificant. So you tell me what answer you want and I can tell you what study you want to look at. Right. The overall answer based on all these studies is the way it's complicated and we're not exactly sure but maybe there's a relationship there right that's not very satisfying but if you came to this issue with strong preconceptions one way or another I can satisfy your desire for science to support your view right so dancer what's who's at Arizona State you know the causes of excess of objectivity we have too much science out there because you can go and pick and choose and support whatever you want. And and the problem is we still don't know what the truth is on this question and if you think the issue of red cards and race is complicated boy I can give you a few other issues that are much more complicated. So there are a number of incentives out there that we should be aware of that lend themselves towards pathological politics so this is the summary of what I was. Now I'll talk a little bit personally about some of my own observations of how this plays out and unfortunately our time quickly in contested political issues is characterized by efforts if you don't like someone's research you've got to get them silenced discredited associated with industry so she is with environmentalists because guess what we can. And have all those studies that say red cards and race aren't connected or they are connected and if you can't resolve it scientifically we've got some other tools we can use. So this plays out to be a bunch of examples So Bret Stephens. Was at the Wall Street Journal News hired by The New York Times. Box which is a popular news organizations The New York Times should not have hired climate change bullshit or Bret Stephens All right so this is journalist on journalist crime all right they argue with each other all the time I'll tell you my experiences I won't go into details I have a whole talk on this but I'm lucky to be here. When my book the climate fix came out I learned of this was just reported this year during a University speaking tour for the climate fix he lets me learn that some climate scientists were pressuring administrators to cancel those talks some climate scientists resolve to constrain and muddy his public profile some of them lashed out at reporters privately sometimes publicly and chastise editors and reporters for using Pilkey as a source so you don't if you're brave to bring me here I won't I won't talk in any detail about how I was investigated by a member of Congress how there was an online campaign to have me fired from Nate Silver's website which succeeded or how the Obama administration wrote a six page screed about my research and put it on the White House website that would get people's attention but I'm luckier than some people so this is Kenneth FALTA or Kevin FALTA sorry who's a researcher at the University of Florida who studies G.M.O. foods. He appeared above the fold of the New York Times and can't read this but the heading called him an aggressive biotech proponent with financial ties to Monsanto. Am I sounds like a bad dude. I don't I don't want anything to do with an aggressive biotech guy with financial ties to Monsanto. And it's actually pretty sad says that this newspaper story effectively ended his career Nature Biotechnology which is not a slouch. Said that a number of of interest groups did. Request for his e-mails leaked his e-mails to three journalists. One wrote a front page New York Times news story highlighting a twenty five thousand dollar donation from Monsanto to Fulton's institution not to him the reporters cherry pick sentences from several thousand e-mails highlighting for his communications with Monsanto often out of context to insinuate he isn't industries. And thus presumably unfit to talk to the public if we get into a situation where it's a professor versus the New York Times I'll tell you who will win every single time Nature Biotechnology went on and we get there writing about the New York Times this is how demagogues and anti-science zealots succeed they extract a high cost for free speech they coerce the informed into silence they create hostile environments the threatened vibrant rare species with extinction in this case you have an university professor willing to talk to industry and the public about G.M.O. foods even at Georgia Tech this is happening so this is Professor Judy Curie who no longer at Georgia Tech who cites the incessant pressures and character assassination she received as a reason for her retirement and this is a newspaper story about her leaving Georgia Tech this is another professor at Penn State Michael Mansell climate science would be stronger without Judy Curry she's played a particularly pernicious role in the climate change denial campaign laundering standard denial talking points but appearing to grant them greater authority courtesy of the academic positions she has held and the meager but none the less legitimate scientific work she has published in the past and damn I don't want anything to do with her either. This is how science gets pathologically politicized when instead of debating science we debate people's right to even speak now Alice Dreger is another example I could go on all day she resigned from Northwestern University after her Dean censored one of her papers because he was worried about the brand of Northwestern she studies human sexuality. And she's documented of this book it's an excellent book called Galileo's middle finger ironically enough about other researchers who've been attacked from the political left in the political right she wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education last week if we allow the scope of academic research to continue to be narrowed to fit the wants of industries and politicians what we will have as a nation built on narrowly focused relatively unsustainable wasteful even dangerous policy in education criminal justice climate health care and many other areas that shape our lives and deaths. So she's arguing that look all these political battles that manifest themselves in science they're not good for how we think and how we act can we move beyond that. I'm not going to read this to you I'm going to post this online it's from each at Snyder's a political scientists who writes about what democracy is I'm going to read the end of it the whole quote is worth reading but he says democracy democracy is a political system for people who are not sure they're right. Democracy is a political system of humility right the world's a complicated place what actions are going to decarbonise the economy how do we get a gun control under control how do we feed a planet of a level that I am not sure and it's OK to say that and it's also OK to say well I want to hear from you you you you and you and all your perspective because we're in need everybody's views and I can't say well I don't like the article you publish so you're fired and you talk to Monsanto you're fired. That seems like like the definition of being pretty dumb. So what can we do differently so I wrote a book a while ago called the honest broker which was based on my experience working in a physical science universe research facility the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a social scientist seeing all this wonderful social science research being published by academics who said physical scientists need to engage more with stakeholders with users and a social scientist would publish that in the Journal of obscure studies and put it on the shelf behind a paywall and nobody could see it. So I thought why don't I write a field guide. For experts scientists and other experts about the different roles you can play as a scientist in society and there's these four roles in the book has some theory in it goes into it. But I'm going to try to explain it through an analogy to make have it make more sense. So I'm going to do is I'm going to ask the question Where should we have dinner Yeah I guess. This is already sorted out but that's just just go with me here. So imagine that I've come to Atlanta far fetched as it may be and I need to have dinner I'm the decision maker I'll decide your the expert. One of the different ways we could have a discussion so you're the scientist on the decision maker how does this go forward so the first thing to understand is of these four categories I have one category which I talk about quite a bit the pure scientist if we said the pure scientist the scientist motivated only by curiosity has no interest in social applications just advancing knowledge then you're of no use to me now it's like I make a decision I'm going to dinner so you can say yeah publish my work and in the journal food science go read it and see if it helps you go to dinner so so let's let's dismiss the pure scientists and talk about the other three. Right so here you are sending me to the dietary guidelines advisory committee. I have a longer argument about why pure science doesn't exist from a skip over the science arbiters like the concierge at my hotel. So the science arbiter is someone you come up to and you ask questions that can be answered in peer Italy what are the three closest Thai restaurants to my hotel. You can answer that question you use serve as a resource for the decision maker we do this really well in society we have advisory committees. National Academy of Sciences we put together groups of experts to answer thorny questions in climate science the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even there we have to go to some lengths to ensure that these groups aren't captured by political interests Sheila Jackson offered a book about science advisers called the fifth branch it's a while back but it's a it's a classic The notion that scientific advisors can or do limit themselves to addressing purely scientific issue in particular seems fundamentally misconceived the advisory process is increasingly important as a locus for negotiating scientific differences that have political weight so even science advisory processes are complicated. So after the science arbiter there's another category the issue advocate the designing the finding characteristic of the issue advocate is you want me to make a particular choice you are advocating for a solution so you may want me to go to McDonald's. So you might give me this map of all the McDonald's in Atlanta. You're not lying to me you're not misrepresenting information but maybe you have stock in the company or whatever but advocacy it's a noble part of democracy you want someone to elect somebody or pass a particular policy. But advocacy advocacy is the route that most scientists find their way into interacting with policymakers I have a policy preference you should do this I'm the expert go on do it. There's a problem this isn't recognized for a long time this is from one hundred seventy six we've learned that the scientists advocate on either side of the political debate is likely to be more advocate than scientists and thus has unfavorably altered the public view both the nature of the scientific endeavor and the personal attributes of scientists. I'm not sure how much this holds up because there are certain parts of our scientific community where advocacy is rewarded and expected in fact there are some views that you express on a topic that are really necessary to participate whether you're an ecologist he's against Monsanto or climate research or who's against Exxon Mobil. So advocacy is complicated. The category that are you that we're most often missing is the honest broker so the honest broker of policy alternatives so instead of answering my questions about restaurants or telling me where to go you might say I want to empower your decision so I'm going to give you this Atlanta restaurant guide which is going to tell you what your choices are. How much it costs where they're located and I want to empower you to make your decision where to eat now. Sometimes I hear back from scientists that Well be careful that honest broker thing. Because the decision maker might make the wrong decision if you empower them. And this is where we as experts have to make some sort of peace with the notion of democracy right so does democracy mean that it's acceptable for the public through their elected representatives to make a decision that the experts maybe collectively are opposed to. Or are there some issues that are so important that the expert view should supersede democratic process so this is my graduate class we spent two weeks discussing it. On the one hand we have strict what you would call scientific authoritarianism. And on the other hand we have. Pure popular democracy reality somewhere the middle is going to depend on the issue right do we want a public vote on whether we should launch nuclear missiles at somebody or do you want experts in charge you're going to make that decision. Uses example launched we want people to be allowed to eat brownies at lunch even have a bunch of corn oil and chocolate in them or do we want to have experts say what you can or can it your question of food like that to be different than nuclear weapons right it is not I don't have a glib or simple answer for this I would simply say this is something that we need to discuss openly and we're not all going to agree but scientists get themselves in trouble when they neglect the possibility of and powering decision makers by giving them choices. You're all familiar with honest brokers are some travel websites you go to Expedia to tell you what your possibilities are. If you went to Expedia and you opened it up and it said You're going to Dallas Texas on February sixth for three days and you staying at the Hilton It wouldn't be of much use to you right you go there to know what your options are options are empowering they help you to make a better decision we don't do that particularly well and there I do have some good examples of honest brokers but one of the questions I have zero really possible can we actually do that as a community. Under a lot of this in the market to get into more detail and run short on time in my book the honest brokers this idea of wicked versus tame problems. When there's a thing an event like an approaching tornado. Our value is a tornado approaching this building. This is one of the places in the country I can talk about this and guess what that means if there's a tornado approaching this building we have similar values right want to save our lives and what we want to know is what's the radar signature say is it coming this way and that information will probably help us make a collective decision. Now I will tell you when I worked at any car and Boulder had one of its little wimpy Boulder tornadoes everybody went up on the roof. But there are issues where values are are in conflict so abortion is an example. Issues where everybody agrees we like economic growth but we're not sure at how it happens and issues like climate change that have a lot of conflicting values and a lot of uncertainties which are going to the name of wicked problems and where we decide to wind up as issue advocate science arbiter honest broker really needs to be a function of the context of the problem that we find ourselves in. Now there's a fifth category I haven't talked about and this is one that I think is one of the most. Risky for the scientific community it's what I call stealth issue advocacy it's when we present ourselves as unbiased. Arbiters of truth and I'm a peer scientist you know I don't have any I mean I don't know anything about climate change but I can tell you about the science I don't any values or science arbiter and what you really want to do is put your thumb on the scale right you're an advocate you have preferences you're a human being and you use your position as an authority because people trust science to try to push for something so if you find out your doctor has prescribed you a medicine because he says you need it and then you find out the next day that doctor has a drug rep who comes in and pays them for every patient that gets this you're not going to think a lot of the doctor that's that because see right there have a conflict of interest there we see this in science quite a bit. All right so what I want to do. And then move towards winding up here in the next five to seven minutes is try to illustrate some of what I've said with a few examples from the climate debate go fast maybe it's fodder for a discussion. Donald Trump with a tweet the best thing about tweets is I can take them making pictures and showmen talks and he's saying. Global warming was created by the Chinese to make the U.S. noncompetitive. All right so one of the things that we hear and I hear this a lot from my colleagues in the scientific community here's Barack Obama with his tweet ninety seven percent of scientists agree climate change is real manmade and dangerous. So when the American public hears this statement coming from a politician or from scientists what do they actually hear well that's a research poll question and people have researched it so again Dan Kahan all the social marketing of scientific consensus does is augment the toxic Indians of contempt that are poisoning our science communication environment the unmistakable social meaning of the material featuring this message is that you and people who share your identity are morons it's not science committed communication it's a clownish bumper sticker that says F You. So this is what people hear when. They hear the ninety seven percent consensus is a bunch people yell at him tell him they're stupid right so Deccan is a nice paper they empirically document this. And it's important thing for scientists to understand the message you're sending or think you're sending isn't always the message that people are receiving and if the message you're sending antagonizes people or causes a deeper cultural conflict are you doing that because you want to do that. Or what. So this is from an advocacy campaign this is Lamar Smith he's the Republican chair of the House Science Committee and they sent out this campaign American scientists just all climate change deniers in Congress to S T F U. Right so if you're trying to convince this guy that he should adopt the policy persons you have is that that's the message you want to send This is Donald Trump with some coal miners having a ceremony for coal miners there's a lot made about this one of these I want emphasize So coal miners are those about sixty thousand coal miners in our economy of about one hundred seventy five million workers it's a it's a rounding error on a rounding error so anyone who thinks President Trump talking about coal money has anything to do with coal or coal jobs is missing the point this is Donald Trump showing respect to a group of Americans who for a long time have not been shown respect When's the last time a president brought coal miners this isn't though White House but brought coal miners to the office of the presidency and celebrated them and said Your American heroes. That is and it is what everything about Donald Trump It is a brilliant act of symbolic politics it is saying to the working class people across the United States we value. My colleagues who are scientists respond by saying well they don't understand that coal is very carbon dense and if we burn it emits C O two in the atmosphere that is to miss the point symbolic politics matters. Here what I did is I made two word clouds so on the left is Obama's twenty sixteen Rose Garden speech when we entered. The Paris climate agreement. The three most used terms after Paris and agreement world carbon climate. President Trump when withdrawing the the United States from the same agreement Here's his word clout the three words that appeared most in his long lengthy comments United States America. So if I go to. A group of my colleagues in Boulder and I say what speaks more to you world carbon climate United States of America. I might get a mix there but I'm pretty sure a lot of folks will say world carbon climate is really important if you go to anywhere USA and you asked which of these terms speak more to you. I'm pretty sure most people are going to say United States of America we're back to common Caprona can kneeling in the national anthem climate change has become part of the pun a political football but Donald Trump has used his platform to turn the issue of climate change into a ref referendum on America first and if we don't understand that as scientists and we go out and argue ninety seven percent warming hurricanes temperature we are completely missed and we are feeding into the ability of politicians to turn issues that have a science to fit component to and has absolutely no scientific company this is difficult for I know for experts to hear because if a politician takes an issue that has a lot of scientific content and takes that scientific content away it takes away our expertise and our ability to speak to that topic the climate red team so you're this idea that came in the Trump administration to create this Red Team Blue team approach to evaluating climate science. It's a great model for a reality T.V. show but is a horrible model for science it's a little bit like saying do you favor the N.F.L. players who are dealing or do you favor Mike Pence who walked out of the N.F.L. school and people say I like him I like that it's my team that's my team I'm on the side of that's a and people will love this including scientists bring it on let's have let's have the battle. And it probably will do absolutely nothing but further politicize. The climate science issue so what should we be doing. There's a lot to be said here there's not a lot of time but research has shown that if you debate policies through causal pathways so that means how does a policy how do you get from point A to Point B. What's the mechanisms for a policy to work that lends people to be less polarized that if you say here's the reasons why I support a policy so this research asking people to explain how policies work decrease the reported understanding of those policies and lead them to report more moderate attitudes toward those policies we observe these effects both within and between participants So normally when we argue about policy issues will give reasons why do we need to act on climate change while the oceans are rising weather is more extreme fossil fuels produce pollution reasons against action Well I don't believe the science of cost too much is not fair to the poor. What this research suggests is. Don't go there. Don't give reasons. Instead of political debate might be more productive partisans first engage in a substantive and mechanistic discussion of policies before engaging in the more customary discussion of preference and preferences and positions. Now this also is uncomfortable because what we're taught to do in academia is to argue through preferences in positions. I just did it in this talk let me tell you my starting point here's the background here's information I could have here's my position and argue through it but what they're saying is instead argue through the column mechanisms see what you know what you don't know where there are points of agreement and disagreement and I have a quick example on that I'm going to end up going on too long and I'll use the climate change issue again. So. I'm a fly through this apologize this is the proportion of the global energy consumption that comes from carbon free sources one hundred sixty six is about six percent last year about sixteen percent. If we want to stabilize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then it has to go from sixty percent to well above ninety percent say by the end of the century All right so how do we get from here to here. So we can have an argument about reasons why we need to go here but I'm to go through a causal argument and show you what that might look like the first thing I'm going to show you is what I'm going to do I'm going to mock as conventional wisdom on the climate issue it may be a little unfair but that's all right. So here's how it starts this is the mechanics win public opinion by closing the science deficit get everyone to believe in climate science defeat the skeptics and deniers. The now scientifically informed public will pressure politicians for action politicians respond by passing laws international treaties are signed. Dirty fossil fuel becomes more expensive. People consequently feel economic pain what economists like to call incentives. Not liking economic pain people change their behavior in the market responds with more energy efficiency in fossil fuel alternatives such market demand stimulates innovation the public and private sectors will civil society the resulting innovation delivers low carbon alternatives greenhouse gas emissions go down to zero extreme weather and other problems are solved boom. Here's where conventional wisdom fails. Right through this mechanism people feel economic pain people like to feel economic pain if people feel economic pain they're not going to say I need to change my light bulbs they're going to say who's the jerk that voted for higher priced energy because I'm going to vote for his opponent or her opponent in the next election. This is where climate policy has failed not just in the United States but in Germany and Japan and China and elsewhere people are willing to pay a price for higher price energy but not too much. So here's what really happens people feel economic pain. Not liking economic pain people change the behavior and vote for politicians who promised cheaper energy. Climate policy becomes an economic issue framed along partisan lines. The result is gridlock rancor and myopia greenhouse emissions respond economics and legacy innovation policies extreme weather becomes a symbol in the rest of world moves ahead on pragmatic energy policies so I and colleagues have worked for a long time twenty plus years on an alternative so I'll give you another causal mechanism and this is the sort of thing we could debate focus on innovation with the goal of making clean energy cheap pay for this with a low carbon tax successful energy innovation lowers the cost of energy production and consumption the price of carbon is ratcheted higher as a political context allows. Dirty fossil energy becomes more expensive low cost alternatives fill the gap. Energy Access is expanded economic growth continues people are generally better off because of energy innovation policies energy innovation policies create a virtuous cycle where public support is reinforced by the felt short term benefits the resulting innovation delivers low carbon alternatives greenhouse emissions go down unlikely to zero but innovation focus on backstop technologies and a hurdle blot about carbon capture and direct air capture today going on here help to finish the job so these are two cars will mechanisms for policies that I would submit make for a much better basis for a debate about climate change then do you believe in that with the ninety seven percent belief. So here's my recommendations as I close for scientists first understand that experts have choices in how we relate the policy and politics of this is that honest broker framework think carefully about what role you are playing in a particular context. Understand the political fights over facts do less to bring facts into politics than to bring politics into facts. This is a hard one for us because we deal in the currency of facts and truth but guess what truth is no match for politics. Number three make peace with democracy. Figure out where you stand is it OK for people to hold views that are contrary to yours if they are from. The results of a democratic system I can tell you I have some red lines I'll give you one vaccination. And I think there should be laws for vaccination. I think a little scientific authoritarianism is OK in that context. There's other places where I wouldn't draw lines but that's something we should discuss understand the symbols matter and politics and science can become a symbol we like to think about science as truth in apart from politics but guess what if Donald Trump wants to politicize N.F.L. football he can. If you want to politicize climate change he can politicians have enormous power to turn any issue into a political issue and it's much more than our power to turn it into an issue of truth finally discuss policy proposals in terms of causal pathways not in terms of reasons. Here's where you can find me Pelkey Colorado to do you love to hear from you I have three more or less active blogs I write on and these make great gifts for that special someone. And I'm happy to chat with you for a bit as long as we have time thank you thank you. Were discussed or discuss discussion OK discussion. At. Last Yes So the question is for those who couldn't hear it how do we get how we support good and healthy discussions. Well I guess the first thing which I would say is don't try to get your colleagues fired is a starting point and the second point is we want to be open to hearing views and then we don't agree with. I can tell you this is another personal story. Long time ago maybe twelve years ago I was invited by James Inhofe senator from Oklahoma arch climate denier on the floor of the house just to testify before the Senate and I thought younger version of myself forgive me my colleagues the environmental community there are they're going to give me an award because I'm the first person who's written about a carbon tax and James Inhofe is invited to testify. And it was the exact opposite. Because you have associated with a Republican climate denier you must be on his team we want nothing to do with you so I guess the first thing I would say is reach out to those people you disagree with most. Politically scientifically and have a conversation and listen and if they say you know what I think climate change the hoax was invented by the Chinese to aid their manufacturing So that's interesting I have a different view we're not really good at that on these hyper politicized issues it's really easy to have a discussion of pasteurized milk or something. Just technical right get together with experts we talk about it. And I think this is something we can teach in our classes. Universities these days are hotbeds of dissent and opposition to speakers whether they're from the left or the right disinviting graduation speakers and so on. So I think we need to do a much better job of leading by example and figuring out how do we have these hard conversations I teach complicated conflicted political issues in my classroom and I've done so for seventeen years at Berber and I've taught climate change I've taught race in football I've taught everything in between and I never had a single problem with students and others. In the class so how we act I think shapes how we have conversations and we have to lead by example. Right. Right. I mean. I. Think. I. Get. It but I think people are like. Yeah I hear. You Yes the comment is a paraphrase survey is you know maybe there's really some people we don't want to invite and I agree with that one percent and I'm sure you and I could talk to both friends or people we'd agree that wouldn't be good too but the problem is though it's a slippery slope right you say well I'm not going to invite this Nazi to come talk but then what do you do when you say well I'm going to try to get Roger Pelkey disinvited from speaking because he advocates a carbon tax that's five dollars and everybody knows it needs to be at least fifty dollars right so so having that discussion as to you know what's over that red line what's not and realizing that people aren't going to agree on that I do think I mean see what's happening Berkeley lately and some of the things in sometimes the best strategy would be let these guys the really guys but guys and gals come and speak and have an empty room. Don't don't burn down buildings and make it big so we have to figure out what are the best strategies to deal with those issues. So yeah it's complicated but I guess I'll go back to discussions talk about it and figure out what makes the most sense. Yeah. How do you have a discussion with someone who's dishonest you know what sometimes you don't have that discussion so I some of you may be on the Internet and there's things like Twitter and Facebook and I can every single day every single day I encounter people who are rude dishonest and we have to make decision in real life and online I'm going to Mutu I'm going to I'm going to block you weren't. Can have a conversation. If someone isn't willing to engage with you at a level that is like I'm coming into your living room when we're having a conversation then you know that's not a violation of substance that's a violation of just basic human decency to. Say. Yeah. Right so this is rare I mean this is where it was structured environment this is where the university so great right the university in this but I was director says in her piece is one of the last places in society we can have structured discussions among people who disagree people who may hate each other who have to use that just don't match up so if we have that situation you know it's not you and I go into the side room and yell at each other the two AM front and public let everybody see that Joe Schmoe is being dishonest and he'll be dishonest and let the court of public opinion decide that's I mean this is where it gets to what's the rare open free speech in a democracy and. For better or worse people who are allowed to lie be dishonest and we have to come up with better ways than try to silence or not allow people to show you know this guy's full of full crap and hate everybody look so far wrong time when I was. Being attacked in the climate I challenge people to public debates No it was gone public and you want to say that about me say it let's let's do it in front of one hundred fifty people not one person took me up on so you know those aren't the they're not answers they're just different ways forward to how to deal with these things but I'm. Quite empathy that situation or question. Yes I mean the question is do I see differences in generations and the answer is absolutely one hundred percent yes so. So when I first started I wrote a dissertation on the role of climate science in policy in the early one thousand nine hundred things the first one and at that time the general view among faculty that were my mentors people came of age in the sixty's and seventy's was you know what we do basic research we put it out there and whatever posts make a deal with it that's their problem we don't have any connection. To the two thousands every Ph D. student I got an Environmental Studies Program every single one said that I'm here not because I'm curious about this I'm here because I want to make the world a better place I want to be very applied so I do see over time there has been this tendency. Among students to want to be more engaged in decision making and policy the other trend I see is that in a part of this is how we write grant applications part of this is just the nature of politics is that there's this immediate pressure on us to take sides right so if I started out my talk with the column Kaepernick Donald Trump thing and I said all right who's on which side let's have a brawl I'm pretty sure I could do that in here and we do that in the science community to argue for or against the pairs agreement right we can have a we've got a big discussion instead of sitting back and say well how do we get to it is a good idea is it going to get you where you want to go so. I think we have to do a better job as faculty and students and saying on it I get it I can join the political fray. I've got a big microphone I can fire up my blog get on Twitter and tell people what I really think that we get smart first about the policy questions. So I applaud the engagement but I think we've got to resist the. Seductive urge to just get in and start brawling. Back. Yet.