Science and Politics: View from the other side

A logical series is a sequence of symbols constructed according to a certain rule. For instance, the series 1,2,3,4, where each number exceeds the preceding one by unity, has a simple and easily recognizable structure. One can also design series according to more complex and not so easily discernible rules. Logical series are very popular among creators of standardized tests and were even used in the plot of movie plot ( Oxford Murders ).

What does it all have to do with our discussion? In his previous posts, Nathan proposed his own logical series: history, evolution, climate change. The rule used to construct this series is not very complex: these are the fields of inquiry being attacked by "right wingers". While at first glance it seems that there is some logic in this series, a deeper analysis reveals its fallacious nature. The moniker “right wing” is so broad and covers such a multitude of opposing political positions that its use does not seem to serve any useful purpose in general and even less so in this particular discussion. Indeed, while the belief in creationism strongly correlates with political affiliation of the faithful, the skepticism with regard to global warming by itself is a scientific and not a political position. I do not deny, of course, that it is often used to promote particular political interests, but it does not define the political views of scientists supporting this position. For instance, one of the most prominent “skeptics” Freeman Dyson , is quite liberal in his political views. After all, “alarmist” views on the global warming issue are also used to advance a clearly defined political agenda, but I would stop short of prescribing liberal views to all scientists holding the alarmist position.

Nathan also puts forward the idea that evolution and global warming have a shared property of being “normal sciences” in the terminology of Kuhn. In other words, both evolution theory and global warming are “mature” scientific fields with established consensus regarding their respective basic principles. I think, however, that if someone scratches below the surface of the obvious, some significant peculiarities of the climate science would emerge. It is interesting, for instance, that while in biological community no one has been paying any attention to creationism as a serious alternative to evolution for many years, the supporters of global warming theory are still in bitter fight with their opponents. It is even more peculiar that this fight has taken the form very different from what is generally accepted as normal scientific discussion. Normally, scientific consensus is not supposed to be established with the help of governmental and even intergovernmental bodies. It is also very uncharacteristic for “normal” science to carry out “scientific” discussions by either smearing opponents as somebody’s (in this case oil/gas/coal industry’s) puppets or dismissing them as incompetents. This happened in the past, of course, with rather detrimental results for science. Something rather similar occurred in the Middle Ages in Europe, when Christian Church was preventing any deviation from “consensus” on Aristotelian -Ptolemaic systems, and in Soviet Union, when the Communist Party forced the “theory” of Academician Lysenko to be accepted as “consensus” of Soviet biologists.

The “non-traditional” methods of scientific discussion are justified by the need to respond to political intrigues of the “right wingers”. While it is true that scientific nature of skeptics’ arguments is to some extent discredited by the political campaign organized by the fossil fuel industry and supporting it politicians, there are several points to be considered when discussing this issue. First, it should be understood that the political resistance to the immediate actions based on alarmist’s views reflects enormous economical and political consequences of these actions. At stakes are not just lavish lifestyles of a few CEOS, but hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world, the pace of world economic development, and ultimately the amount of wealth in the world. Without this wealth, none of the programs designed to help poor and developing nations can be possible. It seems that world “left-wing movement”, which almost universally supports the alarmist views on global warming and the redistributive programs of international assistance, is actually shooting itself in the foot, causing one doubt their sincerity.

This brings me to the second important point. To talk about political “intrigues” of the right while ignoring the influence of political left on the issue of global warming is, mildly speaking, hypocritical. While I do not subscribe to the theory of centrally organized conspiracy beyond the global warming problem, it is impossible not to see the complex network of interests of various groups benefiting from and exploiting the “threat” of global warming. Some of these interests have been exposed in a number of publications and films presented in this Wikipedia article . While I do not endorse or agree with some of the claims cited in this article, it gives a comprehensive overview of various groups benefiting from the global warming scare. I will mention only some of them whose influence is, in my view, most important. Climate scientists, who were once seen by many as providers of the material to TV weather anchors, suddenly found themselves at the forefront of public attention. It is very tempting to keep it this way because it is just nice to feel yourself important and besides along with attention usually come the money in the form of governmental grants. I am not saying that all climate scientists behave this way, but being a scientist itself and seeing similar behavior, while on much smaller scale, in my own scientific community, I understand that this kind of temptation is very difficult to resist. In additional global warming issue is a golden goose for UN bureaucracy, which finally found a way to extend its power over economic activity of most of industrialized world. National governments can use this issue in a variety of ways from distracting population from other problems, acquiring means for even larger control over their societies, etc. Finally, for the socialists of all kinds , organizing anti-globalization and other protests, the global warming scare is “once in a life-time” opportunity to finally crush the spinal chord of so much hated capitalism, which will undoubtedly result in massive unrest with a lucrative power grabbing opportunities. All these interests are converging at one point: global warming is a very real opportunity to replace free market economy with central planning, which is a dream of all bureaucracies and professional socialists.

This deep interconnection between the global warming science and world economics and politics drastically distinguishes it from other “normal sciences” and thus, the so-called “consensus” in climate discussion should be considered with a great suspicion. It is interesting that Mike Hulme of University of East Anglia, who is one the leading alarmists, after being caught with red hands (climatgate scandal) admits this much in his article in Wall Street Journal : “Yes, science has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so, but we don't know the full scale of the risks involved, nor how rapidly they will evolve, nor indeed—with clear insight—the relative roles of all the forcing agents involved at different scales”. So much for the alarmist consensus. In the same article Hulme openly admits that the debate over the global warming is not over scientific but moral differences: “Too often, when we think we are arguing over scientific evidence for climate change, we are in fact disagreeing about our different political preferences, ethical principles and value systems.” I rest my case.

Tea Party history and "Big Picture"

In one of his comments in the thread on all the things wrong with the Tea Party version of history (see here ) Nathan accused Dr. McClanahan of the Tenthers movement, and by extension all other authors sharing this ideological platform, in methodologically wrong approach to history. Two main points of Nathan's indictment were: 1. McClanahan cherry picks historical facts and quotes of historical figures that suite his political agenda, and 2. He uses a "welter of detail" (thanks, Nathan I learned a new word!), without showing the place of these details in a bigger picture. Well, Nathan, in my opinion, this criticism is not entirely fair, and is based on misinterpretation of objectives of McClanahan's article. If McClanahan tried to argue that the ideas of the compact theory and of strictly limited federal government with enumerated powers in early American history was the singular or at least a prevailing point of view, I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. However, his objective, at least the way I saw it, was very different and much narrower. All what he tried to do was to repudiate the notion that these ideas, which were the basis of the Tenthers movement, never played an important role in earlier American political discourse or as Mr. Millhiser (McClanahan's liberal opponent) put it "tentherism has no basis in the Constitution or its history. President George Washington himself rejected tentherism early in American history, and this radical view of the Constitution gained no traction at all until fairly late in American history." With this limited goal in mind, I think that McClanahan's use of quotes from Hamilton or Marshall is justified. Dr. McClanahan is obviously well aware of political positions of both these men and of devastating effect on the "compact theory" of the Marshall's ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland . This circumstance, however, makes these quotes all more important because they essentially confirm the point that the ideas supported by the Tenthers were pretty much on the mind of the leading politicians of the time including those who eventually accepted the opposite point of view. I am not arrogant enough to think that I can say anything new about Marshall's ruling in this case, which is probably one of the most studied and written about Supreme Court cases in US history, but I would like to bring to attention the opening phrase of his arguments, which says: "This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted." This statement is in direct contradiction with Millhiser's assertions, and even though Marshall continues to establish the idea of implied powers and to negate the compact theory, this opening confirms than the notion of enumerated powers is not the figment of Tenthers' imagination, but played an important part in establishing American Constitutional order.

These quotes also play an important role in understanding the "Big Picture", which you, Nathan, are so concerned about. I agree with you that the key members of the Founding generation were complex people, who constantly debated the ideas that laid the foundation of American Constitution, revising and developing them and their own views on various principles of organization of American republic. They were not a uniform group of people, there were fractions and counter-fractions and political maneuvering sometimes of the worst kind. One thing, however, united them all, and this is my understanding of the Big Picture. They participated in the birth of a new political order, which was a product of the rebellion of people against the King. This idea of the King, understood in a broad metaphorical sense as any arbitrary rule with unlimited powers over men, was pretty much on the minds of everybody in the Revolutionary generation. The new order, which they created, was supposed to eliminate the King, make it impossible for any person or institution to become the King. Thus, the idea of limiting the power of government, particularly, federal government was the central theme of all the debates that seek to find the right compromise between the form of government that could actually govern without becoming the King. In this context, the quotes from leading proponents of stronger government, which were cited by McClanahan, are very important. They allow to suggest that when Hamilton, or Marshall, or Madison talked about strong central government they actually meant something different from what present days supporters of the strong government have in mind. This is a frequently occurring but not too often acknowledged linguistic and gnoseological phenomenon - the substitution of the meaning. The phrase "strong central government" is just a "meaning holder", an empty frame, which is being filled with different meanings in different cultural and political contexts. I do not think that Hamilton in his wildest dreams envisioned that his views of strong government would be taken to give the government the power to establish the Department of Education, to control the minimum wage or hiring practices of private businesses, or to establish the system of public welfare. All these things might or might not be justified on various grounds, but to use the position of Hamilton to justify them is historically and logically wrong. Take the case of Madison, for instance, who is said to be flip-flopping on the issue of the strong federal - versus state governments. You mentioned that Madison became a supporter of the former, but the context of this flip-flop is very telling. He just lost a humiliating war against Britain and realized that one cannot fight a war with state militias, without a centrally commanded standing army and without centralized means to finance it. Thus, he became a supporter of the "strong federal power", but for him it meant just two things: to have an army and to be able to issue federal currency. This is a far cry from "implied powers" of today's federal government.
This is essentially the "Big Picture" how I see it. And in my mind this picture only proves how right was Jefferson, when he warned against the dangers of federal government without explicitly specified limits on its power. The history demonstrates that governments behave like gases: just as a gas expands to occupy all available to it volume, governments expand to grab all the power, which is not explicitly denied to them. It is sadly ironic, of course, that Jefferson himself contributed to the demise of his concept of limited government through his Louisiana Purchase. This story, however, is more complex than your, Nathan, comment suggests (see its nice recapitulation here . Jefferson understood very well that this act was unconstitutional and wanted to pass a Constitutional amendment to remedy this situation, but he fell the victim to the political expediency as so many other great men after him. Unfortunately, his weakness opened the flood gates of federal activism and expansion of federal powers, which sometimes, indeed, have been used for good, but most often, were detrimental to the development of the country.