Remember who the enemy is: Republicans
–Michael E. Mann, climate scientist, September 2023
The quote above comes from a recent Tweet 1 by Michael Mann, the climate scientist who is arguably the most visible and influential influencer in the climate science community. [emphasis, links added]
Mann boasts more than 200,000 Twitter followers, is the go-to source for climate reporters on all things climate, and was the inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of a heroic climate scientist in the movie, Don’t Look Up.
Mann is also a fierce political partisan who is quite vocal in his utter disdain for Republicans and unwavering endorsement of Democrats. He has also not been shy in his effort to police scientific discourse.
In short, Mann is without a doubt the most influential and powerful climate science influencer on the planet. He is the Taylor Swift of climate science.
Does Mann’s style of “science communication” offer a template for how scientists ought to engage with their peers and broader society?
Some think so — in climate science, many have followed Mann’s lead and adopted a pugilistic and partisan approach to public engagement. Climate science is not unique.
The popular medical researcher Peter Hotez of Baylor University associates “anti-science” with Republicans and “science” with Democrats.
Similarly, scientists who have rejected the notion of a research-related incident as the origin of COVID-19 have chosen to characterize that theory in explicitly partisan terms. It is not just in the United States either — last month Nature chose to weigh in on the Argentinean presidential election.
Scientists are players in big-time politics! That’s great, right?
Maybe not. An overtly partisan approach to public engagement may be pathological, compromising public trust and confidence, and making the practice of science itself much more political.
Last month, Pew reported that among Americans:
When asked how well climate scientists understand whether climate change is happening, 52% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say climate scientists understand this very well. In comparison, 51% of Republicans and Republican leaners say climate scientists understand this not too or not at all well.
Of course, the average American does not have the expertise to evaluate understandings held by climate scientists, so the poll reflects confidence or trust in climate scientists.
The large partisan split reported by Pew is not unique to climate or Americans. Even with the partisan split a surprising number of Democrats report lower levels of confidence in climate scientists.
Why is there such a partisan split?
The glib answer of course is that the split reflects something wrong with people on the political right. After all, if the overwhelming majority of scientists are on the political left, that surely must tell us who the enemy is, as Mann reminds us.
A current reporter for The Washington Post even wrote a book called The Republican Brain explaining a genetic basis for Republicans’ inability to appreciate science or reality.
An “us versus them” Manichean framing is seductive and enduring.
From this perspective, hyperpartisanship is a feature, not a flaw, and we all should be working to destroy the Republican Party.
An irony here, and it is a deep irony, is that the turn to partisanship among science influencers ignores a substantial body of empirical research and real-world experience that indicates that the politicizing of science by scientists quickly turns pathological for science and society alike.
The consequences include an overall loss of trust in institutions of science, which is replaced with determinations of trust based on identity.
In other words, instead of bringing science more fully into politics, pathological politicization brings politics more fully into science.
The public and policymakers are not fools — if we experts choose to make science more political, they too will respond politically. What did we expect would happen?
Let’s look at some evidence.
Roger Pielke Jr. has been a professor at the University of Colorado since 2001. Previously, he was a staff scientist in the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He has degrees in mathematics, public policy, and political science, and is the author of numerous books. (Amazon)
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So the democrats order everyone to eat insects. I’m like, “Give it to Mikey, he’ll eat anything.” (Keep the chunder bucket handy.)
That experience might change his attitude.
Michael Mann needs to get stranded in Alaska Wilderness or maybe in the Amazon for a whole year then lets see how he can cope with it all him and those Just Stop Oil idiots
Roger, I think that you are overstating Michael Mann’s notoriety comparison to Taylor Swift. Mann is detested among many circles where as Swift is mostly loved by everyone. I rather enjoyed Dr Tim Ball’s attitude toward Mann when he said Mann is from Penn state but should be in State Penn. I think that sums up what Dr Ball was trying to say about Mann’s hockey stick graph re the temperature graph from 1500 or 2000 years to the present at the time he concocted the graph. He just happened to eliminate the Medieval Warm period and several hundred years of the little Ice Age. Yeh they had to get rid of the Medieval Warm period because it was warmer than it was today, despite no SUV’s, air travel, internal combustion engines, cement plants and all the industry we have today. Spurwing Plover you might have a good there buddy.