by Judith Curry
“Is the path to science hell opened with good intentions?” – political psychologist Philip Tetlock (1994)
Part I of this series deals with logical fallacies. Part II addresses biases related to the consensus building process. Part II deals with the role of social conflicts and prejudices.
Additional biases are triggered by the social conflict between an individual’s responsibility to conduct research responsibly and the broader ethical issues related to public and environmental well-being. school. Furthermore, social bias is triggered by conservative goals, loyalty to colleagues, and loyalty to the organization.
Scientists have a responsibility to adhere to research ethical principles and professional standards. But what happens when other responsibilities get in the way of these professional standards? These may include responsibility to their conscience, their colleagues, their organization, the public and/or the environment. One can imagine various conflicts within this area of responsibility that could pervert the scientific process. For example, scientists who are already heavily involved in the IPCC may be interested in upholding the importance of the IPCC and its consensus, which has become central to career success, funding, and their influence.
Arguably the most important of these is the conflict between the responsible conduct of research and the broader ethical issues related to public welfare and the environment. The Book of Fuller and Mosher Climategate: The CruTape Letters argued that ‘corrupt purpose’ was the main motive behind Climategate’s deceptive conduct. Noble cause corruption is when the end of climate protection (noble) justifies the means of undermining your (possibly disdainful) scientific opponents.
University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek claims that the most common and problematic bias in science is ‘motivated reasoning’. People with ‘dogs in the fight’ (reputation, finances, ideology, politics) interpret observations to fit a particular idea in support of their particular ‘dog’. The term ‘motivated reasoning’ is often reserved for political motives, but preserving their reputation or funding is also a powerful motivator among scientists.
Embedding political values into science occurs when value claims or ideological claims are falsely taken as objective truth. Scientists have a wide range of attitudes about the environment; The problem occurs because there is an assumption that a set of attitudes is true and that those who disagree will deny it. This led to the transformation of a widely shared political ideology on climate change into a ‘reality’.
Confirmation bias can become even stronger when people are confronted with questions that trigger moral feelings and concerns about group identity. People’s beliefs become more extreme when they are surrounded by like-minded colleagues. They come to assume that their opinions are not just the norm but the truth – creating what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls a ‘tribal moral community’ with sacred values. separate spirituality about what is worth learning and what is taboo. Such biases can lead to widely accepted claims that reflect the blind spots of the scientific community more than they reflect sound scientific conclusions.
The psychologists Cusiman and Lombrozo found that people who are faced with a dilemma between believing in a fair assessment of the evidence and believing which one would better fulfill their moral obligation, people usually believe in the latter. Cuisman and Lombrozo found that morally good beliefs require less evidence than morally bad beliefs. They also found that people sometimes view the moral value of a belief as an independent justification for the belief.
Motivated biases become especially problematic when these biases are institutionalized, with advocacy statements by professional organizations, editorials by newspaper editors press releases and public statements by IPCC leadership.
