The Unpersuadables: When Facts Are Not Enough

There is one question that no
one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it
take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No
level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is
a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and
control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this view.

The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner
dismissed scientists as "white-coated prima donnas and narcissists ...
pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks ...
The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling
evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many
schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more."

Views
like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities
students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media
company - and precious few journalists - with a science degree, yet
everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the
problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke
remarked that "any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic". He might have added that any
sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook.
Scientific specialisation is now so extreme that even people studying
neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer
understand each other. The detail of modern science is incomprehensible
to almost everyone, which means that we have to take what scientists
say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing, to believe only
what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public
confidence.

Distrust has been multiplied by the publishers of
scientific journals, whose monopolistic practices make the supermarkets
look like angels, and which are long overdue for a referral to the Competition Commission.
They pay nothing for most of the material they publish, yet, unless you
are attached to an academic institute, they'll charge you PS20 or more
for access to a single article. In some cases they charge libraries
tens of thousands for an annual subscription. If scientists want people
at least to try to understand their work, they should raise a
full-scale revolt against the journals that publish them. It is no
longer acceptable for the guardians of knowledge to behave like
19th-century gamekeepers, chasing the proles out of the grand estates.

But
there's a deeper suspicion here as well. Popular mythology - from Faust
through Frankenstein to Dr No - casts scientists as sinister schemers,
harnessing the dark arts to further their diabolical powers. Sometimes
this isn't far from the truth. Some use their genius to weaponise
anthrax for the US and Russian governments. Some isolate terminator
genes for biotech companies, to prevent farmers from saving their own
seed. Some lend their names to articles ghostwritten by pharmaceutical
companies, which mislead doctors about the drugs they sell. Until there
is a global code of practice or a Hippocratic oath binding scientists
to do no harm, the reputation of science will be dragged through the
dirt by researchers who devise new means of hurting us.

Yesterday in the Guardian Peter Preston called for a prophet
to lead us out of the wilderness. "We need one passionate, persuasive
scientist who can connect and convince ... We need to be taught to
believe by a true believer." Would it work? No. Look at the hatred and
derision the passionate and persuasive Al Gore attracts. The problem is
not only that most climate scientists can speak no recognisable human
language, but also the expectation that people are amenable to
persuasion.

In 2008 the Washington Post summarised recent psychological research on misinformation.
This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can increase the
number of people who believe it. In one study, 34% of conservatives who
were told about the Bush government's claims that Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction were inclined to believe them. But among those who
were shown that the government's claims were later comprehensively
refuted by the Duelfer report, 64% ended up believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

There's a possible explanation in an article published by Nature
in January. It shows that people tend to "take their cue about what
they should feel, and hence believe, from the cheers and boos of the
home crowd". Those who see themselves as individualists and those who
respect authority, for instance, "tend to dismiss evidence of
environmental risks, because the widespread acceptance of such evidence
would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities they
admire". Those with more egalitarian values are "more inclined to
believe that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be
restricted".

These divisions, researchers have found, are better
at explaining different responses to information than any other factor.
Our ideological filters encourage us to interpret new evidence in ways
that reinforce our beliefs. "As a result, groups with opposing values
often become more polarised, not less, when exposed to scientifically
sound information." The conservatives in the Iraq experiment might have
reacted against something they associated with the Duelfer report,
rather than the information it contained.

While this analysis
rings true, the description of where the dividing line lies isn't quite
right. It doesn't describe the odd position in which I find myself.
Despite my iconoclastic, anti-corporate instincts, I spend much of my
time defending the scientific establishment from attacks by the kind of
rabble-rousers with whom I usually associate. My heart rebels against
this project: I would rather be pelting scientists with eggs than
trying to understand their datasets. But my beliefs oblige me to try to
make sense of the science and to explain its implications. This turns
out to be the most divisive project I've ever engaged in. The more I
stick to the facts, the more virulent the abuse becomes.

This doesn't bother me - I have a hide like a glyptodon
- but it reinforces the disturbing possibility that nothing works. The
research discussed in the Nature paper shows that when scientists dress
soberly, shave off their beards and give their papers conservative
titles, they can reach to the other side. But in doing so they will
surely alienate people who would otherwise be inclined to trust them.
As the MMR saga shows, people who mistrust authority are just as likely to kick against science as those who respect it.

Perhaps
we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief
in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more
clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If
they don't want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes
my life's work.