I think that's basically right, and indeed that it's even worse than you suggest: if it becomes known that you put forward a position for money, _even if you take yourself to have believed it sincerely_, you will have utterly shredded your own reputation. For this to be economically rational, you need to ask not just for a little lagniappe, but for the replacement cost of your entire career.

First, I definitely suspect there is some spin in this article from the Guardian. They directly quote several phrases from the AEI letters, but not the part that allegedly offers $10,000 in cash. Why? (But bonus points for accompanying the article with a picture of a cute polar bear whose habitat "is under threat as climate change causes ice to melt"!)

Secondly, while global warming proponents in general like to point out that skeptics get funding from industry groups, it is equally true that the proponents themselves receive funding from environmental groups.

Now, before I get flamed let me point out that I fully agree that if the AEI is actually doing what the Guardian insinuates, it is absolutely wrong. Furthermore, I believe it is absolutely certain that at some point human production of greenhouse gas will affect the climate, and we should take prudent steps to reduce fossil fuel consumption (because they're non-renewable, anyway). Whether we already have changed the climate is a bit of a moot point in my opinion.

I do think that AEI can legitimately fund scientific research ; what is odious is that they are putting a bounty on getting a specific _result_. (If they were smarter, they would just pay a number of different people to evaluate the report in question -- and then only release the evaluations that they like.)

How did Exxon-Mobil farm out the dough before this? The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says Exxon-Mobil spread $16 million around to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 to purchase a global warming disinformation campaign. The Royal Society actually came right out and asked the oil giant to cut out thie efforts to "misrepresent the science of climate change."

But at least nobody was going to the Guardian to report bribery attempts. 10 grand a head sounds like about the going rate for disinfo based on what the UCS claims, but I wonder why the AEI didn't go to all the usual suspects from Exxon-Mobil's already established network instead of taking risks by trolling for new blood?

I guess that's what happens when you send a think tank to do an oil company's job!

How was the research confirming anthropogenic global warming paid for?

Rewarding people for supporting your viewpoint is hardly as odious as overtly trying to silence dissent, as the Royal Society did.

"Rewarding people for supporting your viewpoint?"

You mean like how the Bush administration "rewarded" columnist Armstrong Williams $240,000 for "supporting" No Child Left Behind?

The Royal Society "silenced dissent?" Not exactly.

They sent a letter to Exxon-Mobil asking them to stop "rewarding" people for misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific findings which are then used by Exxon-Mobil astroturf groups to, as Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists put it, "mislead the media and public into thinking there is vigorous debate in the mainstream scientific community about global warming, when in fact there is none."

I fervently hope you live on a small island nation, J.

J seems to have completely missed the point of my last comment: that there's an important difference between paying for research, and paying for a specific result.

(It's also worth noting that the vast majority of the research supporting the claim of anthropogenic global warming is not, in fact, paid for at all by environmental groups. Those groups just don't have the kind of moola to support the amount of science that goes on. Much more of it is from the governmental science agencies & the like.)

The idea that human activity contributes to changing the atmosphere is indisputable.

Gas measurements from ice caps show that CO2 and warming trends are correlated.

Does this mean that human activity causes the temperatures to rise and the glaciers to melt?

I think the most responsible answer science can come up with is "we don't know yet, we'll let you know how it worked out after it happens".

However, such an answer lies in no one's best interest. The scientists look stupid, the politicians become indifferent, and the people become confused.

"I fervently hope you live on a small island nation, J"

Why?

The Royal Society didn't merely ask Exxon Mobil to stop funding research refuting AGW - they demanded a list of entities that had recieved funding too (http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329580967-110373,00.html). Attempting to silence dissent is exactly what they did. In addition to that, there have been calls in the US to professionally sanction scientists who dare to question the idea the GW is caused by human activity. When AGW proponents are so afraid their case won't stand up to scrutiny, it looks a lot like it might not.

J, perhaps you should try coming back and making an argument after you've learned a bit about how to read; you seem, for starters, to have utterly failed to comprehend the meaning of words like "misrepresent" and "inaccurate", which play a key role in the Guardian article that you linked to.

Here, I'll help you out, by using them in a complete sentence: to say that the Royal Society is squelching debate, when what they are really doing is rooting out patently false accounts of the state of the relevant science, is to _misrepresent_ their actions in a manner of someone whose willingness to trade in _inaccurate_ claims reveals them as a fool, a moron, or both.

"perhaps you should try coming back and making an argument"

If the best response you can come up with basically boils down to "well...you're just stupid", perhaps you should reconsider the validity of your argument.

I'll try to help you out: it's entirely legitimate for the Royal Society to note that opinions they disagree with were paid for by entities with an interest in the status quo - given some of David Miliband's remarks, it might be a stretch for them to argue that "governmental science agencies & the like" are any more objective on this subject than an oil company, but it's OK to use the interested party argument. But to demand that expression of those opinions be stopped is, ipso facto, an attempt to silence dissent. I guess John was hoping I lived on a small island nation so there would be water nearby when people like you start burning heretics at the stake.

Well, you probably _are_ just stupid, if you didn't notice the argument in my last post. (Hint: it was the part where pointed out the aspect of the Guardian article -- and the situation more generally -- that you apparently still fail to understand. "You're stupid" isn't an argument; but "You missed a glaringly important piece of information in the very text that you referenced, and therefore, you're stupid" is an argument, and a perfectly fine one.)

No one, and certainly not the Royal Society, is trying to squash any part of any actual scientific debate. And it isn't about _where the money is coming from_ -- if Exxon or anyone wants to fund actual climate science, they can & should do so. (That you think it is an 'interested party' argument further reveals your own misunderstanding). It's about _what the money is being used to buy_, namely, patent falsehoods about the state of the science. Doing more science is fine, but what Exxon has been funding is (as quoted in the Guardian article) "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

It's not about burning people at stakes, especially since the Royal Society has zero capacity to actually shut anyone down or have anyone arrested. It's about calling a lie a lie, and using the prestige of their reputation to shame those who would lie into ceasing to do so.

J

The impacts of global warming, (rising sea level and increasingly severe storms and hurricanes) could completely wipe out small island nations.

So JohnS is "fervently" wishing drowning upon someone who disagrees with him. Classy, as always.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of the research supporting the claim of anthropogenic global warming is not, in fact, paid for at all by environmental groups. Much more of it is from the governmental science agencies & the like.

Of course, the EPA has nearly as much vested interest in global warming as an environmental advocacy group. But even if it were true that pro-global warming research was only 10% funded by interested parties, while dissenting research was 50% funded by interested parties, that alone does not prove anything. The proof is in the pudding--if the research funded by industry is biased, it should be easily disproven. Instead of saying "this research was funded mostly by industry," proponents should be saying "this research has been disproven by so-and-so."

God, you can be a creep. I don't fervently wish drowning on anyone, Seymour. The unfortunate people on those island nations could likely become homeless refugees as a result of our inaction.

I actually find this claim that the EPA has anything like a material interest in the results of global warming research rather odd. One hears it a lot from the right, but the relevant disanalogies between the EPA's rather abstract 'interests' and Exxon's rather material ones are very stark.

Anyhow, Eric, I agree with your basic claim here, which is that in general, good science is good science and bad is bad, regardless of who did the funding. But when nearly all the work in one direction are from industry-sponsored sources, and no one in the rest of the scientific community at large finds that work to be any good, then it does speak to the credibility of anyone who takes the corporation's silver and mouths the corporation's words. Under such circumstances, it's not illegitimate to point out that the funding has ceased to go towards legitimate scientific work; and it thus becomes relevant to point out that there's no easy 'well, your side has partisan funding, too!' response, because in fact that response is just not true.

This is all the more so when one considers these debates in a political, and not a purely scientific, context. A bad study that gets published in a good journal can lose its standing in the scientific world, in that the people in the relevant field will come to know that it was a bad study (as it fails to get replicated & its data turn out inconsistent with everyone else's; as its subtly-disguised methodological failures come out; and so on). That's all as it should be. But in the public discourse, the political friends of the corporate interest will continue to say, 'see, even the reputable Journal of Suchandsuch says...', carefully ignoring the fact that a dozen other papers in that journal impeached the one reported finding. And then you're back at he said/she said science reporting, and the powers-that-be can put off making decisions indefinitely, with cover for their false claims that there's a lack of scientific consensus.

phil,

I agree with most of what you're saying here, however...

I actually find this claim that the EPA has anything like a material interest in the results of global warming research rather odd.

Actually, it makes sense on at least two levels. From a more cynical point of view, the EPA may want anthropogenic global warming to exist so that it gains power to regulate greenhouse gases as it does pollutants such as sulfur dioxides. Expanded responsibilities would result in more job positions and better job security. To put it simply, when your job is to solve a certain type of problem, it's a good thing for you when more of that type of problem is identified.

From a more charitable point of view, it's reasonable to suppose that the people working in the EPA are, by and large, environmentalists. Just like their peers in the Sierra Club, they already believe in anthropogenic global warming, so they are inclined to support research that would confirm their beliefs.

But when nearly all the work in one direction are from industry-sponsored sources, and no one in the rest of the scientific community at large finds that work to be any good...

I think that's a slight overstatement. Regardless, given the obvious political baggage attached to climate research, it's reasonable to suppose that supporters of a minority hypothesis may have a harder time getting funding from "mainstream" sources than people in the minority in other fields, and thus they accept industry funding.

I don't think this should automatically impugn these researchers' credibility or sincerity. It's legitimate to suppose they may be biased, but with the unusually high peer pressure to be part of the consensus view, there should also be some caution about bias from those in the majority on climate research.

You make a valid point about the non-scientific community's inability to recognize publications which subsequently were disproven. However, this does not justify using the shortcut of dismissing any work by industry-funded researchers. The vast majority of those researchers are just as sincere about their work as those who support the consensus view. (Yes, they can be sincerely wrong, but your implication that they are intentionally trying to decieve is unjustified.)

"From a more cynical point of view, the EPA may want anthropogenic global warming to exist so that it gains power to regulate greenhouse gases as it does pollutants such as sulfur dioxides. Expanded responsibilities would result in more job positions and better job security. To put it simply, when your job is to solve a certain type of problem, it's a good thing for you when more of that type of problem is identified." Yes, that's the line that I'm used to hearing. But it really doesn't make a lot of sense, because this only works if you can manipulate things towards getting something near a consensus; while there still is a real scientific dispute (as opposed to the totally fictional one that Exxon et al. are trying to gin up), you're just not going to get Congress to pass a bill to expand your authority in the relevant way. Heck, even when the relevant facts are totally established, you might not be able to do so -- cf. the FDA's attempt to regulate tobacco products as the nicotine-delivery systems that they patently are. But you can't buy consensus; the scientific community is just too big & unruly, and the incentives to make scientifically legitimate (i.e., actually backed up by successful scientific work) breaks with an existing consensus are just too great. But you _can_ buy disagreement, or at least the appearance of it, and as noted above that's all that industry needs. Also, if we just assume that most people are mostly just trying to succeed at their jobs, then the government agencies don't have it as part of their job to try to expand their power; some may of course try to do so somewhat, as a matter of human nature, but it's not really what their focus will be on. (And, obviously, almost no scientists go into science because they crave power, since it's a pretty lousy way to do so!) Executives in a business, however, have as their primary job doing what they can for their business to make money. And their own compensation for doing so is very direct and frequently ample. So, as I said above, when you compare the incentives for the businesses to buy their bad science, they are different by several orders of magnitude in both size and kind from whatever abstract and diffuse incentives might exist for bureaucrats in a science agency to do so.

As for your claim about EPA scientists being environmentalists, I don't see why that's obvious at all. I mean, almost all of them now believe in anthropogenic global warming, because that's the state of the science. But it's not like most breast cancer researchers are members of NOW, or anything like that. Scientists' primary values for their research tend overwhelmingly to be scientific, not political.

There's also something rather absurd on its face in this argument that says, 'well, they're environmentalists, so they'll tend to do/fund scientific work that....' Namely, what makes the most sense to fill in that blank? The most obvious answer is not 'poorly-evidenced views of political extremists'. Rather, the most obvious answer is 'best figures out what the real environmental situation is, in order to best pursue their real goal of protecting the environment.' If the evidence doesn't suggest that there's really a problem with global warming, then there's no reason whatsoever for a scientific environmentalist to claim otherwise. Their motives and actions are really rather unintelligible, on your account.

"...given the obvious political baggage attached to climate research, it's reasonable to suppose that supporters of a minority hypothesis may have a harder time getting funding from "mainstream" sources than people in the minority in other fields, and thus they accept industry funding." Not really. The legitimate scientific incentives to produce real work that breaks with consensus are very significant -- researchers who do such are greatly celebrated within the scientific community, and tend to gather a large share of research funding to their efforts -- and there are plenty of legitimate funds out there for that, & politics of the left/right sort play almost no role in their disbursement.

"your implication that they are intentionally trying to decieve is unjustified" At this point, I'm really not sure of that. It should be obvious to any halfway-awake scientist that the entities in question (Exxon, etc.) _are_ intentionally trying to deceive. To take their money to say what they want said is thus to consciously participate in an act of deception. I should be clear that I don't think, at this point, that it's a 'short-cut' to reason in this way: it's based on the rather ample evidence about these entities, and about the incredibly shoddy work that they've tended to puff up as defending their views. So, at this point in this particular issue, the default view of someone taking Exxon's shilling should be: they're most likely lying, and if they aren't, then the next most likely hypothesis is that they are a fool about both the science and the politics. (Well-meaning fools aren't _that_ hard to come by in academia, alas; cf. Steve Fuller in the Dover trial.)

But I should add that it's at least a potentially _overridable_ default, and if a person with real standing in the climate science community decides to take the cash, I'm sure that the paper they produce would receive plenty of honest scrutiny; and, if their arguments hold up scientifically, their reputations will only be burnished.

phil,

There seem to be two assumptions underlying your last argument: 1) Government agencies are entirely altruistic, and only care about doing their job well (i.e. serving the public), and are not concerned with power, and 2) Corporations are entirely nefarious, and will cheat and lie whenever they can if it will make them a buck or gain them power.

I think both of these assumptions are incorrect. Government agencies are made up of human beings, not androids programmed acording to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. As anyone who has spent any amount of time in D.C. knows, ambition is not solely concentrated on Capitol Hill. Directors of regulatory agencies are absolutely interested in expanding their power.

Conversely, corporations are made up of people who live in neighborhoods, have children and grandchildren, and other family members and friends. Corporations are not led by evil aliens intent on collecting money while the planet slowly dies, then flying away in their mother ship to the next available planet. In other words, CEOs have grandchildren who have to live on this planet, too. If they really believed global warming was going to be as catastrophic as some environmentalists claim, don't you think they'd be interested in helping to stop it?

As for your claim about EPA scientists being environmentalists, I don't see why that's obvious at all.

I think it's quite reasonable to suppose that scientists who would take jobs at an agency that aims to protect the environment are more concerned about the environment than scientists in general. Especially when you consider that those jobs pay less than jobs in industry. People who work in the porn industry are less religious than the general public.

It should be obvious to any halfway-awake scientist that the entities in question (Exxon, etc.) _are_ intentionally trying to deceive.

See above. It's obvious that oil companies have a vested interest in climate reesarch; it's not obvious to me that they *know* the consensus view is correct and are trying to sow deception.

To take their money to say what they want said is thus to consciously participate in an act of deception.

Here again, you are assuming that there is quid pro quo. But we are talking about scientists who have spent years getting advanced degrees. They are not going to commit fraud and throw away their careers for a few years of research funding. What's far more likely is that these scientists are already skeptical of some aspect of the prevailing state of climate research, and so industry groups are willing to fund them. In order to prove what you're alleging, you'd need to find a researcher who had been in agreement with the consensus view, but then switched camps right at the same time he/she received industry funding. (Even then, you might have the chicken-and-egg problem of whether the funding motivated their switch, or whether their switch attracted the funding.)

In short, you're presenting the kind of simplistic view of the world embraced by activists. The reality is far more nuanced.

One more thing...

The legitimate scientific incentives to produce real work that breaks with consensus are very significant -- researchers who do such are greatly celebrated within the scientific community, and tend to gather a large share of research funding to their efforts.

I know a little bit about this, being a scientist myself. Indeed, when a scientist successfully overturns the existing paradigm, he/she is celebrated. Skeptics, however, are not as warmly welcomed as is often implied. Researchers tend to have a bit more than the average allotment of pride. Try attending a conference and asking really critical questions of a presenter. (Not just clarifying questions, but questions implying you think the presenter is wrong.) I guarantee you'll not be celebrated.

So, unless and until someone makes a real breakthrough overturning a big chunk of the consensus view on climate change, skeptics will still face an uphill battle. The potential prestige they could gain if they are successful may explain why anyone bothers to oppose the consensus view at all (indeed, it's probably a bigger motivator than oil company money), but it doesn't help them beforehand.

Sorry to butt in here as I'm no scientist, but I suspect that scientists don't normally "successfully overturn the existing paradigm" by misrepresenting the work of other scientists. That appears to be exactly the kind of behavior documented in the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report, "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air" about certain researchers/scientists who have received $$$ either directly, or indirectly from ExxonMobil.

And if ExxonMobil is not trying to "sow the seeds of deception," why would they put Steven Milloy (aka "the Junkman"), formerly the behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the tobacco industry, before ExxonMobil put him on their Global Climate Science Team?

regarding the first post: Actually, I pretty carefully avoided making either of those assumptions. If you actually read what I wrote, you'd see that all I'm assuming is that people -- both in government and industry -- usually are just trying to do their jobs well, and that they respond to the incentives around them. And, for the reasons I articulated, there's just little incentive for the government agencies to try to manufacture consensus, with what incentive there is being abstract and mostly unactualizable (since consensus is not purchasable); and plenty of very direct & material incentives for the companies to try to manufacture dissent.

Moreover, to think that, at this point, Exxon and the other organizations in question don't know the state of the science is pure winger la-la-laism.

regarding the second post: Oh, I have plenty of experience with the rough-and-tumble of scientists at a conference (and in their correspondence, etc.), and yes, things can get ugly. Indeed, they can get ugly even when (especially when?) there's nothing like a consensus on the question they're discussing! But that's fine, and all part of the process. But it's still very much the case that if someone produces good empirical work, it's more likely ultimately to break through than not; and if someone produces work purporting to overturn something well-established, then it's more likely a piece of charlatanry or incompetence than anything else. As long as that's a potentially overrideable default, it's perfectly appropriate as a default.