Conundrum of Scientific Authority

7/27/2019 Conundrum of Scientific Authority

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Climate Change, Alzheimers Disease and the Conundrum of Scientific Authority.

There is perhaps no greater source of authority in modern society than science. As a result, scientific

claims are nearly ubiquitous, and often controversial. How do we decide when to trust and when to

doubt ostensibly authoritative science?

This question was brought home to me in a couple of exchanges Ive been part of this year concerning

climate change and Alzheimers disease. When Peter Whitehouse recently wrotea post on the Myth of

Alzheimers blogasserting that extreme weather events associated with climate change pose a

significant threat to elders, particularly those with cognitive impairment, a climate change denier

thanked him for exposing the myth of Alzheimers but took him to task for falling for the myth of global

warming.

Going in the opposite direction, back in March someone took great offense at a talk I gave questioning

the ostensibly authoritative claims ofAlzheimers researchers and accused me of engaging in theequivalent of climate denial: making specious arguments that are dismissive of the very real problem

Alzheimers disease presents to individuals and society, and thus reducing the global commitment

needed to recognize and respond to it. (This exchange happened to take place as I was preparing fora

four day bicycle trip with my 12-year-old daughter from central PA to Washington DCto raise awareness

about the need for climate action, so it did get under my skin.)

Its tempting to dismiss these criticisms as simple ignorance. After all, as I pointed out in replyto the

same climate deniers30-link torrent in response toa subsequent post by Whitehouseon climate

change, a very strong scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is in the realm of objective

fact: A survey of nearly 12,000 relevant peer-reviewed scientific articles published from 1991-2011 showthat97% of them support the basic consensus on climate change, andvirtually every prestigious

scientific society in the United States and around the worldhas issued or signed on to statements

supporting the consensus that climate change is being driven by emissions from the burning of fossil

fuels and poses a serious threat to human society. And my criticism of the emphasis over the past thirty

years in the Alzheimers field on cure and prevention rather than support for creative, stable caregiving

hardly amounts to a denial that dementia is real, and causes real suffering and loss to society.

But a legitimate question remains. It seems that on the one hand, I am pleased to accept the claims of a

majority of climate scientists as authoritative. On the other, I seem equally pleased to criticize the claims

of a majority of scientists and practitioners in the Alzheimers field. How can I justify this apparent

inconsistency? Perhaps I have enough direct familiarity with the content of the relevant branches of

science in both of these broad fields to make an informed judgment? Absurd. Im very knowledgeable

about Alzheimers for a non-scientist, and probably better read than the average person on climate

science. But the volume and degree of specialization in modern scientific research makes it a challenge

for scientists to keep up with research even in their own narrow fields. Directly assessing the volume of

work in broad fields like dementia or climate research is simple impossible. At some point, no matter
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how broad or thorough your scientific education and competency may be, you will need to trust (or not)

the claims of others about science. But how to decide who and what to trust?

Here I think the academic fields that have formed me as a scholar the history of medicine and STS

(Science, Technology and Society) have much to offer. The implicit idea of these fields is that

understanding some of the science itself is necessary but far from sufficient. To understand sciencedeeply enough to reach sound judgments about when to trust and when to question scientific claims,

one must learn and think more aboutscience and the way it is actually practiced in the world. One must

understand the social and cultural contexts that shape scientific interest and help determine what kind

of scientific questions are pursued. One must consider the social, economic and political factors that

inevitably influence scientists. One must be able to recognize the way that social and cultural values are

embedded in seemingly mundane questions of scientific method and analysis. The point of these sorts

of questions is not to dismiss or diminish science, but to understand its real power, and in so doing reach

better judgments about how it should be used to better serve human flourishing.

Its the consideration of these sorts of questions that lead to my different stances toward climate

science and Alzheimers research. As I mentioned above, in simple numerical terms the consensus on

climate change is very strong. But in socio-historical terms, the breadth and resilience of the consensus

is even more impressive. As shown by physicist and historian ofscience Spencer Wearts comprehensive

research, the consensus around the theory of anthropogenic climate change is not supported by

evidence generated from the work of a single scientific field, but emerged with the convergence of

many lines of research from a broad range of scientific fields ranging from geology, chemistry,

atmospheric physics, meteorology, oceanography, computer modeling and many more. Practitioners in

these fields use different methods and approaches to what counts as evidence, so that the theory has

been challenged and tested from multiple directions. Scientists in different fields also get research

funding from different sources within the federal government and the private sector, so thepotentialfunding biasis less than when funding comes from a more narrow range of sources. Moreover, since the

theory of anthropogenic climate change implicates the energy industry, it is profoundly threatening to

some of the most powerful political interests, who have responded by spending vast sums to discredit it.

Historians Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have shownthat this involve funding the activities of a

handful of scientists with an anti-regulatory bent who had been involved in earlier attacks on scientific

research showing the harmful effects of DDT, CFCs, and tobacco. Journalists have also begun to trace

the donations of hundreds of millions of dollars from conservative billionaires with fossil fuel industry

ties topublic relations and lobbying campaigns aimed at attacking the climate change consensus in the

media and on Capitol Hill. That a strong consensus supporting the theory of anthropogenic climate

change remains despite decades of well-funded, systematic attack enhances its credibility.

While I in no way intend to dismiss research in the Alzheimers field over the past several decades that

has produced much important knowledge about some of the likely pathological mechanism that lead to

dementia, a consideration of socio-historical factors raises questions that are not often enough asked,

especially in media coverage. First, while there is no credible denial that age-associated progressive

dementia exists as a significant individual and social problem, there are many different theories

regarding what causes it among respected researchers in the field, and debate within the field about
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whether it can truly be disentangled from usually more benign processes of systemic brain aging.

Second, while researchers from diverse fields certainly conduct Alzheimers research, the dominant

approach emphasizing the drive to pharmacological treatment and prevention is the product mostly of

psychiatrists and neurologists, and this group is largely supported by a narrow funding stream from the

pharmaceutical industry. Critics likeDavid Healy,Carl Elliott,John Abramson and others have

documented the distorting effects of pharma money on medical research in general, and several authors

ina book on dementia treatment I co-editedshow that this happens in the Alzheimers field as well.

Finally, unlike climate change, the dominant approach to Alzheimers disease is in sync with the interests

of the pharmaceutical industry, which has accordingly spent vast sums to persuade the public and

lawmakers of its importance to society so that there has been relatively little public debate about it.

None of this amounts to a reason to dismiss mainstream Alzheimers research outright, but it does

suggest there is a need to ask some critical questions.

Both climate change and Alzheimers disease are complicated problems, and much will no doubt

continue to change in the scientific understandings of both of them. But the persistence of such a strong

scientific consensus around the fundamental of climate change despite factors that we would normallyexcept to weaken that consensus, especially the strong resistance of powerful economic interests,

convinces me that it is time to take strong steps as a society to lower carbon emissions. While we must

also continue to take the challenge of Alzheimers disease very seriously, I see a need for a broader

debate about whether the emphasis on developing a pharmaceutical solution which has been

promoted by powerful economic interests has led us to pay too little attention to other ways of

effectively responding.

And beyond both of these issues, we need to move beyond ubiquitous claims of scientific authority and

superficial controversy to a more thoughtful public discourse aboutscience and its place in society.
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Conundrum of Scientific Authority