by Judith Curry
“Just as a magnetic field pulls iron filings into alignment, a strong cultural belief is aligning many sources of scientific bias in the same direction. – policy scientist Daniel Sarewitz
Statistician Regina Nuzzo summarizes the matter:
“This is the big problem in science that nobody talks about: even an honest person is a master of self-deception. In today’s environment, our talent for drawing conclusions makes it all too easy for us to randomly find false patterns, ignore alternative explanations for an outcome, or accept a ‘suitable’ outcome. reason’ without question – that is, constantly leading us astray without realizing it. . ”
Psychologists Richard Simmons et al. found that researcher bias can have a profound effect on the outcome of a study. Such ‘researcher degrees of freedom’ includes choices about which variables to include, what data to include, which comparisons to make, and which analysis methods to use. Each of these choices may be reasonable, but when taken together, they allow researchers to extract statistical significance or other meaningful information from almost any data set. Researchers who make the necessary choices about data collection and analysis believe they are making the correct, or at least reasonable, choices. But their bias will influence those choices in ways that researchers may not be aware of. Furthermore, researchers may simply be using techniques that are effective – that is, they produce the results the researcher wants.
The goal of scientific research is to find out what is really true, not just to verify our biases. If a community of scientists has many different views and biases, then the checks and balances in the scientific process including peer-review will ultimately work against the biases of individuals. . Sometimes this is true – but often this doesn’t happen quickly or smoothly. Not only can poor data and false ideas persist, but good ideas can also be extinguished.
However, when biases caused by reasoned motivations and professional pressures become entrenched in organizations that support science – professional societies, scientific journals, universities and other funding agency – then that subfield of science could go astray for decades.
Deviations caused by the consensus building process
Consensus is seen as a proxy for truth in many discussions of science. The consensus formed by the independent and free deliberation of many is a strong indicator of truth. However, a consensus can only be trusted to the extent that individuals are free to disagree with it.
A scientific argument can soon develop into a governing theory if cultural forces are strong enough and aligned in the same direction. Primitive theories enforced by a consensus-building process clearly jeopardize scientific progress because questions aren’t asked and investigations aren’t made. Nuzzio (2015) calls this ‘hypothetical myopia.’
If the goal of scientific research is to obtain truth and avoid error, how can a consensus-seeking process introduce bias into science and increase the likelihood of error?
‘Confirmation bias’ is a well-known psychological principle that implies finding or interpreting evidence in ways that depend on existing beliefs, expectations, or existing hypotheses. Confirmation bias generally refers to unintentional selectivity in the collection and interpretation of evidence.
Philosopher Thomas Kelly (2005) provides the following insight into confirmation bias. As more and more colleagues weigh in on a given issue, the proportion of total evidence that includes higher-order psychological evidence of what others believe will increase, and the proportion of total evidence that includes primary symptom decreased. Kelly concludes that over time, this invisible hand process tends to give a certain competitive advantage to our earlier beliefs about validation and validation.
Allen et al. (2020) demonstrates how dependence, pressure, and polarization can create consensus, making it unreliable to rely on consensus as an indicator of truth. As a result, a consensus can be trusted only to the extent that individuals are free to disagree with it without repression or retaliation. Likewise, when strong forces support an assertion of a position, consensus asserting it becomes almost inevitable, and thus all but meaningless.
Communication theorist Jean Goodwin argues that once a consensus statement is made, scientists involved in the ongoing IPCC process have reason not only to consider the scientific evidence but also to consider possible effect of their statement on the ability to defend the consensus statement.
The IPCC consensus-building process is said to promote group thinking. ‘Groupthink’ is a type of thinking characterized by self-deception, forcing consensus-building and conforming to group values. Janis (1972) describes eight symptoms of group thinking:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotypical views of outside groups
- direct pressure on dissidents
- self-censorship
- illusion of consensus
- self-appointed guardian of the mind
Many of the IPCC consensus defenders – both scientists and consensual entrepreneurs – show many if not all of these symptoms.
Thomas Gold (1989) discussed the dangers ‘herd behavior’ poses to scientists, potentially leading to inertial persistence of the erroneous consensus opinion in the scientific community. learn. While the herd instinct is valid in sociological behavior, it has been a disaster in science – in science, what we usually want is diversity. When people come together to pursue the same path, they tend to turn off other paths, and they don’t always go in the right direction.
It is not only the herd instinct in individuals that is of interest. If peer support and ethical and financial consequences are at stake, staying with the herd is the policy of individual success; However, that is not a successful policy for the pursuit of science. Mental herd behavior, even if it doesn’t actually stifle free thinking, but implicitly pressures to follow the fad. Organizations that support science – financial aid, journals, referee reviews, conference invitations, professional recognition – are all affected by herding behavior.
Economist William Butos (2015) describes the IPCC as a ‘Big Player’ in science in that it possesses all the characteristic attributes of a Market Big Player: large influence, insensitivity to Conventional constraints and discretion promote a favored research direction. This feature of the IPCC as the ‘Big Player’ is similar to the economist Richard Tol’s description of the IPCC as a monopoly of knowledge. The IPCC’s influence in climate science is pervasive, allowing it to largely ignore conventional scientific constraints on the acceptance of hypotheses. Professional success in climate science is more tied to accepting the IPCC’s claims than to exploring contradictory possibilities.
The existence of IPCC as a ‘major player’ and ‘monopoly of knowledge’ on climate change could lead to an early finalization of the IPCC’s conclusions. Early canonization refers to widespread scientific belief in a false or incomplete conclusion, leading to suppression masquerading as refutation. Repression occurs when fear of social sanctions prevents ideas from being explored or empirical findings from being presented in scientific or public forums. In science, rejection occurs when an idea has been explored and evidence is found. A classic, relatively recent case of early canonization involves the scientific identification of ulcer causes.
So what does this concern mean for the IPCC consensus on anthropogenic climate change? Cognitive biases in the context of an institutionalized consensus-building process are thought to have led to increasingly asserted, and even canonized, consensus. in a self-reinforcing manner. An extensive group of scientists derive their confidence in consensus in a second way from the IPCC’s institutional body and the emphatic nature in which consensus is expressed. This ‘invisible hand’ marginalizes skeptical views. The ‘Big Players’ overconfident claims take away the incentive for scientists to challenge the consensus, especially when they can expect to be called a ‘denyer’ for their efforts and see their chances of receiving research recognition and funding diminish.
The consensus-building process works to amplify individual biases and remove disagreement from the majority opinion or the opinion of the loudest or most motivated person in the room. One can only speculate on the magnitude and significance of the biases introduced into climate science by the IPCC consensus-finding process.
