Thoughts on the dream of science without politics

Thoughts on the dream of science without politics
Torrey Orton
Feb.27, 2009

I wrote the following in response to the policy draft mentioned below. I blog it now because it captures the outlines of my understanding of the world we are in and some challenges for science and public decision making arising from it (and recursively, contributing to it!). My intent was to add context understanding to the deliberations of the summit. I am not hopeful of immediate impact but I am certain of the need for my effort. These sketches will be explored in two larger pieces on (1) blame and responsibility in the Victorian fires review, and (2) is politics possible now? The Policy Position Draft is in re-write now by participants in the Summit.

Re: Australian Climate Action Summit – Policy Position Draft #2 Jan. 23, 2009

I’m concerned at the hope implicit in the segment extracted below.

“ … an Independent Science Committee that:
… identifies policies, measures and targets required to tackle climate change underpinned by sound science not political convenience.” (pg. 53, Sec. 8 Keeping Australians Informed; Australian Climate Action Summit – Policy Position Draft #2 23 Jan. 2009)

There is no human organisation that does not have ‘politics’, including scientific and religious ones. The ‘politics’ of life is about purposes and the distribution of resources to achieve them – a task all organisations have to handle. To distribute by any political system requires negotiation about the priorities, ends and such – even if a kingdom or a dictatorship. Failure to adequately and appropriately resource our priorities leads to their under-fulfillment. We have a lot of evidence of that now. In order to establish support for particular priorities and ends, we argue for them with facts and values and beliefs seeking to attract people to our preferred objectives.

So, for these among other reasons, the hope of separating “sound science” from “political convenience” is a dangerous fantasy about the world we are in. Getting to a world in which this is not the case will have to pass through this one, the denial of which will produce its own confusing problems on top of the current ones… and so…

What is this ‘political’ world now?

1) At the moment, public confidence in most sources of information is flagging, most notably in science or ‘evidence’ based sources. As well, we are all swamped with pithy data and summary generalisations from positioned commentators through which we can seldom see a common thread other than the domain name – health, education, etc. – or the attracting dog whistle. This leaves us wondering if they are talking about the same world even if the headline says transport, or education or health. How can we tell the truth rather than just lean towards our natural political or social comfort zone?

2) Back to our calamitous times. The world of material certainties is fading around us as a (perfect) storm of personally uncontrollable forces assail us. Not merely is it the economy stupid. It’s also the climate and the fluids (fuels and waters), the food and the pervasive speed of movement of them all, plus a gathering of insights and innovations which mark the growing edges of the sciences.

Second, we are engaging these forces from a weakened position in our fragmented relationships. And these weaknesses will be enhanced by the times which are the reasons for our worries in the first place. Making the effort for the longer term will be even more important as each day of its decline passes.

3) In addition, underlying these things are damaged components of our core adaptation systems. Let’s call them deep institutions:
· Everyday language is so debased that truthful speaking about almost anything in public life is impossible – all things are commoditised, some fetishized as a result, and reduced to potential calculables in short term ROI projections. This is the language of business speak and its associates celebrity speak and greed speak.
· The public deliberative process is now conducted almost wholly in adversarial terms – demonising the others as the first move; every public issue is now a “debate” (a secondary school exercise for verbal bullies – see Parliament at work) to be settled by point scoring, not truth making. This derives in part from the first point – the only common denominator is feelings: fear, loneliness, etc.
· As the tangible and intangible pressures on daily lives increase, relationships fragment and thought fundamentalises , and the two aggravate each other. These affects are visible across any political spectra you prefer – but, most obviously the ‘Right’ and ‘Left’.
· Our systems and tools of political representation are damaged. In other Anglo countries the participation rates in major elections – national and regional / state – yield results based on victory by less than half of less than half of the possible electorates (and politicians are reviled almost without exception across the electorates). So, only with the greatest bi-partisan care are decisions prevented from being illegitimate in the eyes of their populaces. Similar patterns can be found across the EU, especially about the EU itself.
· Add the above together and you have the basis for the no accountability processes and discourses which dominate public space – it’s all spun.
So what to do now?

First, at the internal level within peak climate groups (and local ones!!) one approach is to build workable truth relationships through which to share the ‘facts’ as we discover and articulate them. These would be existing relationships at work or in personal associations of various kinds (sports, religious, community groups). We should add a focus on linguistic reform to their everyday activities – for example you could work on a few weasels by:

countering expressions of personal unaccountability – e.g. ‘whatever ‘ replaced with an explicit expression of feeling about the relationship at that moment; ‘It’s all about…’ replaced with statements of the actual undertaking or intentions, etc.;
making assertions about matters of public concern – especially environmental, health and educational – which present the whole picture of the issues, or the reliability / validity constraints of the unknown features of the evidence about them;
challenging uses of business-speak which obscure real differences – e.g. ‘customer’ for patient, student, etc.; ‘assets’ for human capabilities, relationships, etc.; ‘business’ or ‘industry’ for activities which are certainly not businesses or industries (education, health, law); ‘market’ for relationships which are not transactional (student, patient, parishioner, plaintiff, etc.…); and,
interrupting premature closures in discussions and meetings – e.g. ‘at the end of the day…’, ‘the reality is…’, ‘the truth is…’, ‘the fact is..’, etc. - by presenting the discussed and unresolved content as dilemmas or uncertainties which pre-mature closure denies.
Second, at the external influencing levels:
1- keeping the perspectives in view on major issues – starting with acknowledging one’s own in every influencing initiative;
2- identifying where the specific issue being discussed borders, depends on or has interdependencies with other issues;
3- sponsoring face-offs between different positions focussing on what facts they could agree on in their domains of struggle – and which are emotional argument for the hidden paradigm;
4- providing key issues development scorecard(s) for (a) major life need domains – education, health, economy; and (b) daily life quality indicator domains – crime, cost of living, transport performance ….;
5- having an articulated cultural / historical differentiated models of well-being within which the target issue(s) can be interpreted;
6- the contexts considered should include local, regional and global comparisons or applications of the points argued; and,
7- an assertion of possible common ground across all discussants should be made as part of each contribution to the discussion (these might include shared facts, beliefs values and standards).