THE IMPLICATIONS OF DISTORTED SCIENCE: CASE STUDY OF CLIMATE CHANGE

by HAZAL KARA

Hazal Kara is a first year at the University of Chicago and originally from Istanbul. She is considering double majoring in Physics and Environmental Studies. Her interests include astrophysics, climate science, environmental history, ethics, and honestly any niche topic she happens to come across. In her free time, you can find her writing short fiction, reading, agonizing over a problem set, and looking at pictures of her cats (whom she misses dearly).

Does science lead us towards objective truth? Historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse does not believe so. He claims that, while many people view science as “just the facts,” it is in fact more than that.1 Explicitly, science offers us descriptions of reality—of what we sense, perceive, and experience. Furthermore, science has the potential to make predictions about the future. For instance, science can help us determine the possibility of rain in the future based on weather patterns. Science is interpretable and highly contingent on the social systems it serves. The science behind climate change carries these attributes as well; climate science has a long history of denialism and distortion, with ramifications that impact climate and environmental policy today.

For more than a century, scientists have known that certain gasses can trap heat in the atmosphere, ultimately altering our climate. Indeed, there are reports of climate change dating back to the mid-20th century. Throughout the 20th century, even the oil industry’s own scientists came to this conclusion.2 Yet why did it take so long to act—and why are current policies still not sufficient? While there are numerous factors influencing the answers to these questions, much of the delay has to do with climate change denial, which has recently taken on a new form: climate misinformation.

First of all, it is crucial to understand the impact of conflicts of interest (particularly financial ones) in scientific research, as well as the power dynamics in scientific research processes. Conflicts of interest can impact a scientist’s research conclusions, from how they phrase their results to the nature of the results themselves. Government institutions and corporations often have substantial authority over research, particularly in the environmental fields.3

One famous case is the work of Dr. Wei-Hock Soon, who was a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Following outcry from the scientific community after Dr. Soon released a paper claiming climate change was a result of ‘solar variability’ (changes in the Sun’s activity), the Smithsonian Institute conducted an internal investigation. “As the contracts, proposals, reports, letters, and other documents reveal, Soon relied exclusively on grants from the fossil fuel industry for his entire salary and research budget”.2 This is a clear example of how cash can distort scientific research and upend scientists’ intentions.

In order to evaluate scientific research we must ask ourselves the following questions:

• What is being researched, and what isn’t?

• What information is being included, and what is left out?

• Who is funding the research?

• How is this research being communicated to the public?

An instance of external manipulation in the climate research sphere can be observed in a 2008 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on federal climate scientists. The study found that 73 percent of respondents “perceived” inappropriate interference with climate science research in the five years within the span of the survey. Forty-six percent of the respondents either “perceived” or “personally experienced” pressure to remove terms such as ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ from any content pertaining to climate communication. In a more recent UCS survey from 2015, 56 percent of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists claimed too much weight was being given to political interests. On a more positive note, the survey shows improvement when it comes to the freedom to express ‘controversial’ scientific opinions in media and journals.4

Does it matter which phrases and words we use to describe the phenomena? A study by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes from the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University certainly seems to indicate that our word choice is important. The study found that oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil’s “rhetoric of climate ‘risk’ downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change”.5 Posing climate change as a risk—rather than a reality—undermined the credibility of climate scientists and created uncertainty surrounding the idea of anthropogenic global warming. Exxon has been spreading climate misinformation and denialism since at least the 1970s. Furthermore, Exxon’s emphasis on meeting the demands of customers placed blame onto the general individuals, rather than the companies and countries that are causing the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Supran and Oreskes also noted that ExxonMobil’s rhetorical choices mirror tactics used by the tobacco industry in response to the scientific consensus regarding the health consequences of tobacco use.

In addition to the linguistic aspects of climate misinformation and misleading narratives, statistics, data visualization, and graphs also play a role in undermining scientific consensus or distorting scientific results. The 1954 book How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff (who, ironically, worked for tobacco lobbyists in the 1950s and 60s) highlights some key ways in which statistics (which are commonly considered to be objective—“the hard cold facts”) can be distorted. He delves into how a sample can be biased, how which “average” being discussed matters, how important it is to look at what figures are and aren’t shown, and more. 6 The first graph to the right shows a simple example of a misleading climate data graph.

First Global Land and Ocean Temperature Graph.

Second Global Land and Ocean Temperature Graph.

Third Global Land and Ocean Temperature Graph.

This graph was created using data from NOAA, showing the annual global average temperature anomalies (land and ocean combined). A first look at this graph and one would think that rather than global warming, we have global cooling. After all, the graph is showing a downward trend. Upon further inspection, it’s clear that some cherry picking is involved. The graph does reflect actual data, but only data from 2016 to 2021. However, a climate is determined based on long-term weather patterns, on the scale of multiple decades, not merely a few years. This is why scientists study the climate trend over a range of 30 years or more, rather than looking at temperature and climatic changes within the past half a decade.

Throughout this article, we have looked at climate change denialism, the impact of rhetoric on climate change perception, and data manipulation or distortion in communication. Without the relevant background, it can be difficult to differentiate between what is true, and what isn’t. So how can one identify and evaluate misinformation, even without scientific expertise? With the amount of information that exists online, which can oftentimes be overwhelming, making sense of scientific claims becomes even more difficult. Moreover, many individuals are stuck in digital echo chambers, meaning they only come across content that reinforces their preexisting beliefs. While there isn’t a magical fix to determining whether a piece of information is false or misleading, there are certain steps any individual can take. In the view of psychologists Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer, a push for increased digital and media literacy can mitigate confirmation bias and susceptibility to misinformation and other fallacies. Furthermore, individuals can (1) learn to prioritize “scientific consensus and empirical research over anecdotal accounts,” (2) expand their information literacy (e.g. by looking at multiple websites about one topic rather than a single one), (3) investigate the motives of a source, and (4) inform themselves about the role of algorithms in social media feed.7

Science is not esoteric. Rather, it is influenced by a myriad of factors, including financial and political motivations. Such motivations can also impact how science is presented to the public, and subsequently how it is perceived. The public perception of scientific matters has a role in determining policy and societal changes. Climate denialism, for instance, fuels political inaction. It prevents the necessary steps from being taken towards climate change solutions. This is evident in the aftermath of the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27), the 27th in a series of yearly conferences held by the United Nations, which have been widely regarded as unsuccessful. The same goes for other similar social issues, such as the distrust of vaccines, which has led to many preventable outbreaks and has serious public health repercussions. Thus, scientists, science communicators, educators, and policymakers have a responsibility to present scientific research in an accurate (at least, as accurately as possible) and transparent manner. Without intending to sound too dramatic, perhaps the fate of the planet depends on their ability to do so.

References

1. Boudry, Maarten, and Massimo Pigliucci. Science Unlimited? The Challenges of Scientism. University of Chicago Press, 2018.

2. Mulvey, Kathy, and Seth Shulman. “The Climate Deception Dossiers.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015, https://www.ucsusa.org/ resources/climate-deception-dossiers.

3. Morgenthau, Hans. “Modern Science and Political Power .” JSTOR, Columbia Law Review, 1964, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1120764.

4. “Climate at a Glance: Global Time Series.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 2022, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series.

5. Supran, Geoffrey, and Naomi Oreskes. “Rhetoric and Frame Analysis of ExxonMobil’s Climate Change Communications.” One Earth, Cell Press, 13 May 2021, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332221002335#.

6. Huff, Darrell, and Irving Geis. How to Lie with Statistics. W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.

7. Sinatra, Gale M., and Barbara K. Hofer. “How Do We Make Sense of Science Claims Online?” Science Denial, 2021, pp. 23–49., https:// doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190944681.003.0002.

8. “Progress and Problems.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 28 Sept. 2015, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/progress-and-problems.

9. “Voices of Federal Climate Scientists.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/voices-federal-climatescientists.