This weekend I took my son to see the movie Oppenheimer. Our car-ride discussion centered around the process the scientists went through and how vicious their disagreements turned. My son was floored by how ‘teammates’ were so ‘adversarial.’ I said welcome to ‘science.’
Unless you have served on a local committee to name a new church pastor, you haven’t seen petty fights until you observe the academic arena. But here is the thing, the “fight” is the process of science.
Science is never settled; doubt and skepticism are always part of the process. When a new paper comes out, even if it challenges conventional wisdom only slightly, scientists tend to tear it apart. They rejoice in dissecting the methodologies, assumptions, and conclusions.
The uncertainty is especially pronounced in the social sciences because human behavior is so messy and difficult to replicate.
Recently, I listened to a podcast ironically entitled “Not Another Politics Podcast” produced by the University of Chicago. It was an interview with the authors, David E. Broockman and Joshua Kalla about their paper “Consuming cross-cutting media causes learning and moderates attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers”
The hosts had an insightful interview with the lead author and in fairness discussed the caveats and potential additional research needed. After the interview ended, the three hosts spent the next half or so of the podcast expanding on the criticisms of the paper’s findings.
If you don’t understand the process, one would think the hosts were jerks. Rather than being jerks, the hosts were attempting to understand where this experiment fit into the body of literature, what questions are unanswered, and what additional research should / needs to be done to add nuance and enrich the body of knowledge.
And yes, this process is messy, and yet it is normal and expected in the academic world.
The scientific process
- Make Observations
- Ask Questions / Develop Hypotheses
- Test Hypotheses (experiments, surveys, case studies, observational studies, meta-studies)
- Analyze Data
- Draw Conclusions
- Communicate findings
- Start all over
For academics, this is the process: Nerd fights, and I appreciate it. In fact, I love it. Over time, it is this process that leads to a richer understanding, nullification of errors, and scientific advances.
At times, the search for knowledge turns personal and petty, but most of the time it is a good-faith effort to advance the entire body of knowledge or at least win a debate.
However, the scientific process allows charlatans, hucksters, and scoundrels to feed the public or their tribe bullshit.
These hacks use the uncertainty inherent in the process to disparage the knowledge, the process, and the participants. And frustratingly, they often know better.
It is this exact process that allows bad-faith actors like the good ol tobacco companies to operate.
COVID and Scientific Process
COVID is an example. When COVID was new, there was a lot of uncertainty. When COVID vaccines were being developed and new, there was a lot more uncertainty. And as COVID matures and mutates, we start the entire process over again….and again….and again.
Green Energy and Scientific Process
It is also one of the larger mistakes advocates make when discussing green energy and climate change: “The science is settled!” is absolutely a strategic communication mistake. By definition, the science is never settled.
Anyone can point to any number of esoteric debates about climate models, data, and study methodologies that demonstrate “doubt” about climate science. And each time one does, they can rightfully mock those that exclaim the “science is settled!”
An interesting example is a deeper dive into researcher Roger Pielke’s career.
It’s the Intent
While questioning science is critical to the process, the intent matters.
Is one trying to suggest additional lines of inquiry, or write a clickbait article to serve a political purpose, or enrage you on cable news?
Admittedly, communicating about science is difficult. However, one thing is certain – the scientific process is never settled.
Conclusion
I learned a lot in grad school, nothing more important than how to be a healthy skeptic and that studies are not to be accepted at face value AND yet that doesn’t mean they are false. Because the other critical question I learned in grad school “When faced with two seemingly contradictory findings, ask yourself, under what conditions can both findings be true?”
Welcome to science son. It is vicious and works…eventually.
Additional Reading
For political nerds see Alan Abramowitz versus Morris Fiorina on polarization. Essentially, Fiorina argues that polarization is largely limited to the political elite, while Abramowitz argues that it has spread to the mass public. They have spent years sniping at each other over data sources, measurement, interpretation of data, the unit of analysis, and seemingly the color yellow.
