Well, “we all know” that conservatives hold university scientists in contempt for their effemenate [sic], elitist ways & that liberals regard industry scientists as shills. But here’s what GSS says about partisanship & industry vs. university scientists . . . .
He may be fair to liberals, but I do not think that his characterization of conservatives would pass an ideological Turing test.
If I may attempt to speak for those of us on the right, my views would be:
1. When it comes to public relations, industry scientists have an incentive to twist the truth. However, when business decisions are affected by scientific analysis, the incentive leans much more toward aiming for truth.
2. In academics, the incentive is to increase one’s prestige. Aiming for truth is not always the best strategy. In fact, based on my own bitter experience, in economics the best strategy is to surf the latest fads. In my day, it was rational expectations, and I was not on board (pun intended). More recently, we have had behavioral economics, natural experiments, and such. There are probably some current fads that I could willingly join, but not at this stage of my life.
3. In the particular area that most interests Kahan, which is climate change, I trust neither the incentives in industry nor in academics. Obviously, if you work for the coal industry, your incentive is to find low estimates for the environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions. But if you work in academia and you happen to find low estimates for the environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions, good luck to you if you hope to win prestige.
Isn’t what “we all know” is the politically motivated will choose sides that favor their policies, but those more motivated to do the right thing will follow the evidence where ever it leads? There is little greater method of achieving academic prestige than decisively demonstrating the current model is wrong. Economics has been limited in this regard as data has been hard to come by until recently. Other areas are far different in this regard.
Further, the politically motivated with positive agendas will be more interested in truth to see their agendas succeed, while those with negative agendas are often motivated to suppress the truth since it can harm their position while confirming it is redundant. Ignorance is bliss for them.
What is a positive agenda, and what is a negative agenda?
. Whether you want to accomplish something or oppose something being accomplished.
There is a concept in chemistry called “activation energy.” In many chemical reactions, even if the completed reaction will release energy–maybe large amounts–energy must first be put in. Else things will remain as they are.
In the academic long-term, a lot of prestige goes to someone who “decisively demonstrate…[s] the current model is wrong.” But very few people get to do this. And along the way, you will have lower prestige and may struggle for funding. For the ordinary researcher, the expected value of swimming against the tide is pretty clearly negative. For the truly brilliant and driven, the expected value may be positive.
Faith and cussedness are needed to provide that “activation energy.”
From my own experience in the academy, there are plenty of biases and perceptions to go around, but nobody lumps all academics regardless of discipline together. Different fields are held in contempt by different parties.
The social problem with Point #1 is that optimal business decisions are often “truth for me, but not for thee”. See, for example, DuPont’s recent C8 scandal.
The University near here recently output a study headlined “The Zika Virus Threat: How Concerns About Scientists May Undermine Efforts to Combat the Pandemic” ( https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/zika ). Or, roughly speaking: “those know-nothings are going to get us all killed by disbelief in Science.”
Then I went to the Wikipedia page about the “2015–16 Zika virus epidemic” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic ) which contains the following adjacent sentences in paragraph one:
“In January 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the virus was likely to spread throughout most of the Americas by the end of the year. In November 2016 WHO announced the end of the Zika epidemic.”
Assuming Wikipedia is accurate, I’m not sure which Science I’m supposed to be unskeptical about: WHO in January 2016, or WHO in November 2016.
wikipedia quoting Reuters quoting the WHO is like playing a game of telephone. The original WHO quotes say things like “the concern is high and so is the uncertainty.” I don’t see evidence here of scientists doing the thigns the UNH study refers to, like deliberating slanting their analyses to reach a desired conclusion. Of course I’m sure this happens, but the WHO statements on Zika really don’t seem like examples of this.