Friday, November 22, 2013
This essay was published in the NDIAS Quarterly, Fall 2013
[Scientific] thinking, born out of engineering and mathematics, implemented in computers, drawn from a mechanistic mind-set and a quest for prediction and control, leads its practitioners, inexorably I believe, to confront the most deeply human mysteries.
— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer
The twenty-first century is likely to be remembered as the century of biology. We are gaining vast biological insights—and vast power over biological systems—because of high-throughput genetic sequencing technology and computer algorithms that handle vast amounts of data. These insights will give us not only the power to treat disease, but also the power to re-engineer the human body and even nature itself.
As science creates new opportunities, however, it also creates new challenges—ones, it seems, that we rarely anticipate. Those who invented rocketry surely never predicted the logic of mutually assured destruction. And those who invented the Internet thought to empower neither criminal syndicates nor child pornographers. This century will see technological and social changes that are equally profound—and we should think more about their consequences. But this can happen only if scientists—the people who study natural phenomena and invent technical solutions to human problems—are willing to confront the role that values play in determining the direction and application of their research.
Many scientists assume that they have nothing to do with questions of value. It is the task of the scientist, they assume, to reveal how things are—regardless of how the world wants them to be. But that misses the point. We live in a time of unprecedented scientific scope and power, and we can no longer pretend that our assumptions about which problems are most worthy of study and which solutions are most worthy of implementation are not rooted in value-laden judgements and decisions. If scientists intend to address the deepest needs of our world, they must play a role in the direction and application of scientific research—and doing this requires a discussion about social and scientific values. Moreover, since bringing values to bear on science is profoundly complex and potentially fraught with misunderstanding, scientists should engage in conversations with colleagues in the humanities, social sciences, and government. If scientists do not contribute to making decisions about values, others will do it for them, and these people may not have the public interest in mind. Also, non-scientists often lack the technical savvy to inform thoughtful dialogue about science and society. Medicine is a standout case, where sticky normative and technical issues demand scientific engagement with questions of value. Thanks to collaboration among geneticists, biochemists, and physicians, for example, recent biological research has yielded extraordinarily powerful and extraordinarily precise treatments for cancer. This work shows us that cancer is influenced by genetics, environmental pollutants, and infectious agents (Morris et al. 1995; Czene et al. 2002; Soto and Sonnenschein 2010), but it cannot tell how much money and effort should be devoted to cancer detection, how much to cancer treatment, and how much to environmental cleanup and pollution reduction. Yet, cancer researchers can contribute to conversations about these issues in important ways and thereby change the trajectory of public health. For example, scientists can gather data that link dollars spent on environmental cleanup to decreased cancer rates (e.g., Morisawa et al. 2007), and they can help see that the results from their research are applied in the broad public interest and not manipulated for the benefit of a few.
Such social engagement can reap benefits for science as well, including the opportunity to work on vexing and socially relevant issues. With relevancy can come greater funding, a larger stage for presenting scientific findings, and opportunities for large-scale collaboration. With greater social interest in research can come greater attention to scientific accuracy and greater attention to replication and validation (e. g., Fang et al. 2012). In addition, creativity and inspiration can stem from interdisciplinary conversations in which one field stimulates thinking in another—sometimes in a way that, thanks to the limitations of disciplinary language and disciplinary paradigms, would not have been possible otherwise. For example, the economist Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, with its argument that the growth of any population is eventually checked by the scarcity of resources available to sustain it, had a definitive influence on the biologist Charles Darwin when he wrote his Origin of Species (Vorzimmer 1969).
This is not to say that all scientists must be engaged in conversations on the normative dimensions of their work or even have an interdisciplinary perspective. But some scientists—in fact, many—must be willing to confront normative considerations and work across disciplinary boundaries. This openness to questions of value also requires institutions that help scholars grapple with an increasing array of complex dilemmas and perennial questions about the human condition. After all, if the academy cannot help us to understand who we are and what we should do with the opportunities and constraints given to us, then it has little purpose at all.
Collaboration across the disciplines, in ways that bridge the descriptive and the normative, can produce significant results. Consider climate change. The climate is steadily but profoundly shifting due to the human emission of greenhouse gases. These climatic changes affect species and ecosystems worldwide, such that some species will decline and even go extinct. This risk to biodiversity should be an important motivation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But there might also be ways that humans, through ecosystem management, can help species and ecosystems deal with the effects of climate change even as concentrations of greenhouse gases steadily increase (Sala et al. 2008). All of these management strategies, however, come with costs, uncertainties, and possible side-effects, raising key questions about whether, when, and how to act. Scientists cannot answer these questions alone: they must participate in conversations about values to help society weigh the pros and cons of different courses of action and identify solutions for the greatest public good.
Scientists have learned a significant amount about species’ responses to climate change and what management strategies might be appropriate. For example, research shows that species shift geographically to account for changing climatic conditions; the historical records suggest that geographic response dominated over evolutionary change as the leading biological response to climate warming (Davis and Shaw 2001). Yet, not all species shift when the climate changes. Less abundant and geographically restricted species probably decline in numbers and go extinct with warming, and at least one case is known from the fossil record (e.g., Jackson and Weng 1999). Given the rapid rate of modern climate change and a landscape dominated by habitat loss and human modification (Haberl et al. 2007), decline and extinction is likely to be more prominent today than it has been in the past (Periera 2010).
Here is where a climate-change biologist first confronts the normative. The science suggests that climate change is likely to have significant consequences for biodiversity. But this sensitivity isn’t neutral—it arises from a change that humans caused, making culpability part of an otherwise scientific issue. Should we stand idly by and let nature (thanks to human-caused climate change) take its course, or should we intervene like doctors to try to achieve a particular outcome (an outcome that society values) and help species in their struggle with climate change?
Part of the answer to the question is technical. For example, we can evaluate the utility of different approaches. What strategies would be most effective, conferring the greatest benefit or incurring the least risk of negative side-effects? In exploring these “how” questions, however, we inevitably flirt with “why” questions, normative questions. For example, who should decide when action—such as moving a species to new areas—is appropriate? How much money should we spend in taking action? Can we defend inaction if critical biodiversity is lost from climate change? On the other hand, can we defend our actions if unanticipated consequences of those actions turn out to be significant?
The answers to these normative questions are unclear and may depend on the location, situation, and stakeholders in question, but they can be informed by scientific insight. Scientists can help decision-makers grapple with the uncertainty of nature, explaining the difference between noise and knowledge. They also can invite conversation about how we find ourselves in the climate-change predicament in the first place and help navigate complex decisions to the betterment of humanity and the environment. Finally, scientists are in a unique position to help society articulate the various steps it could take to protect the things it values (Hellmann et al. 2011).
Sometimes social values conflict, and science can play a role here as well. In the case of biodiversity and climate change, for example, few would argue that biodiversity has no value, but there are probably limits to its value. Should the government pass laws capping carbon emissions and levy taxes for expensive carbon-sequestration projects in order to protect biodiversity? Or should free markets and private property trump conservation objectives in some cases? Scientists can contribute two things to this kind of political debate. First, they can act as “measurers”: they can demonstrate the consequences of species extinction and the costs and benefits of different courses of action (e.g., see Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Such measurements will likely have some impact upon deciding what to do. Second, scientists can act as citizens of goodwill, ensuring that debates are not hijacked by those with interests other than those of the public at heart—by, for example, corporations intent on gaining profit, no matter the harm they do to the environment.
Abdicating decisions about how scientific theories are applied is itself a decision about values. It implicitly values democratic and free-market processes with little or no participation by scientists as the best way to make decisions, including decisions about how to act in response to scientific conclusions. Yet, scientists are both citizens and frequent recipients of public funding, giving them a duty to participate in these decisions. This duty is magnified by the fact that scientists are often the ones who most fully understand their own research.
While we have argued for scientific engagement in the normative, we recognize that scientists have quite a bit to lose when engaging in discussions about values because they can at times sacrifice data-based objectivity and adherence to the scientific method. We are certainly not arguing that scientists replace their worldview with another, more subjective, perspective. Instead, we claim that engaging with the normative can be a natural and necessary extension of scientific inquiry and that scientists should have a seat at the table, so to speak, when questions of value arise. Because it is critical to delineate the descriptive from the normative in conversations and decisions about values, it is wise, in our opinion, for scientists to approach such conversations in an interdisciplinary way—ideally, in collaboration with humanists. This approach helps scientists avoid the risk of seeming too subjective and gives them a broader perspective. With interdisciplinary collaboration, furthermore, scientists can become more effective at communicating their own work to society, which is critical for making informed decisions in our complex world.
Czene, K. C., P. Lichtenstein, and K. Hemminki. 2002. Environmental and heritable causes of cancer among 9.6 million individuals in the Swedish family-cancer database. International Journal of Cancer 99: 260-266.
Davis, M. B., and R. G. Shaw. 2001. Range shifts and adaptive responses to Quaternary climate change. Science 292: 673-679.
Fang, F. C, R. G. Steen, and A. Casadevall. 2012. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109: 16751-16752.
Haberl, H., K.-H. Erb, F. Krausmann, V. Gaube, A. Bondeau, C. Plutzar, S. Gingrich, W. Lucht, M. Fischer-Kowalski, 2007. Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, 12942-12947.
Hellmann, J. J., V. J. Meretsky, and J. S. McLachlan. 2011. Strategies for conserving biodiversity under a changing climate. Pages 363-288 In: Hannah, L., ed. Saving a Million Species: Extinction Risk from Climate Change. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Jackson, S. T., and C. Weng. 1999. Late Quaternary extinction of a tree species in eastern North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96: 13847-13852.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Morisawa, S., T. Fukami, M. Yoshidac, M. Yoenda, and A. Nekayama. 2007. Applicability of Mathematical Model for Evaluating Cancer Mortality Risk. Journal of Risk Research 10: 853-869.
Morris, J. D. H., A. L. W. F. Eddelston, and T. Crook. 1995. Viral infection and cancer. The Lancet 346: 754–758.
Periera, H. M., P. W. Leadley, V. Proença, R. Alkemade, J. P. W. Scharlemann, J. F. Fernandez-Manjarrés, M. B. Araújo, P. Balvanera, R. Biggs, W. W. L. Cheung, L. Chini, H. D. Cooper, E. L. Gilman, S. Guénette, G. C. Hurtt, H. P. Huntington, G. M. Mace, T. Oberdorff, C. Revenga, P. Rodrigues, R. J. Scholes, U. R. Sumalia, and M. Walpole. 2010. Scenarios for global biodiversity in the 21st century. Science 330: 1496.
Sala, E. O., F. S. Chapin, J. J. Armesto, E. Berlow, J. Bloomfield, R. Dirzo, E. Huber-Sanwalkd, L. F. Huenneke, R. B. Jackson, A. Kinzig, R. Leemans, D. M. Lodge, H. A. Mooney, M. Oesterheld, N. L. Poff, M. T. Sykes, B. H. Walker, M. Walker, and D. H. Wall. 2000. Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science 287: 1770-1774.
Soto, A. M., and C. Sonnenschein. 2010. Environmental causes of cancer: endocrine disruptors as carcinogens. Nature Reviews Endocrinology 6: 363-370.
Vorzimmer, P. 1969. Darwin, Malthus, and the Theory of Natural Selection. Journal of the History of Ideas 30, no. 4: 527–542.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Highlights from the blogs...
Bridging the Science-to-Society Gap
"This shift in what society needs—not just science for science’s sake, but to also using science to help recognize and solve societal problems—means that the goals of communicating science have to shift as well. Society now needs information from scientists not just in the form of interesting facts assembled in hard-to-find places, but especially as recommendations about how to manage the biosphere to maintain what humans depend on for their physical, economic, and emotional well-being. Scientists, after all, are the people paid to produce and collect the knowledge that is relevant to the world."
The Twenty-fifth Hour of the Day: Finding Time for Outreach
"Is your career compromised if you spend time on outreach rather than science, or is engagement all that really counts in a world urgently in need of scientific leadership? Fortunately, new studies suggest that these tasks aren’t necessarily a conflict—those scientists who reach beyond the boundaries of traditional science-doing also appear to be the most productive scientists, probably because they find inspiration, cutting-edge ideas, and novel ways of working while directly engaging with society."
Unclogging Institutional Conduits Between Research and Outreach
"Universities aren’t doing nearly enough to help or reward those who want to engage outside academe. While most institutions pay lip service to outreach, salary and promotion are usually determined by first considering “research productivity,” (i.e., numbers of publications and grants), and second by “teaching effectiveness,” (i.e., number of students and course evaluations). Highly focused pre-tenure faculty are particularly spread painfully thin. The connections needed for meaningful dialogue with decision-makers and the public take time to build, especially if you lack experience. Collectively, we’ve spent hundreds of hours struggling with effects ways to incorporate outreach and engagement in our academic lives. We believe that practical change must come—at least in part—from academic institutions in order to meaningfully expand the role of science outreach."
Monday, May 6, 2013
The following came up after my presentation, "What is global warming?" to 5th and 6th graders at the Stanley Clark School, South Bend, IN. Thanks to the students for being so attentive and for their great follow-up questions!
A bunch of students asked this question, and it's a great one--and scary too. I don't think that global warming will destroy the planet. If you look back 2.5 (or more) million years ago, for example, you can find an atmosphere and a climate that is similar to the one that we creating today. So the planet will go on and some plants and animals that can adjust to the climate change will go on too. But that's not to say that climate change is not a big deal--it really is. We are creating an atmosphere unlike the one that has dominated for 800,000 or more years! And the threat of climate change is not to the planet but to us. It will likely cause many of the plants and animals that we use and enjoy to decline or go extinct (maybe 10-30% of them!). If we have a large amount of climate change--the amount that we are likely to get if we don't stop releasing greenhouse gases in the next 10 or 20 years--if will be difficult to feed all of the world's people and millions of people will loose their homes to rising seas. The question about global warming is: do we want to make it difficult for people around the world to feed themselves, to be happy and to be healthy?
~15% of the greenhouse gases emitted that are causing global warming come from deforestation and forest degradation.
The ozone layer is a really helpful part of the upper atmosphere where ozone tends to concentrate, and it helps to filter ultraviolet radiation that is harmful to living organisms in large doses. Some chemicals made by people, called CFCs, made their way into the upper atmosphere and broke down the ozone layer, creating the ozone hole. The ozone hole lets more UV reach the surface of the earth. Because many governments around the world passed laws outlawing CFCs, the growth in the ozone hole has slowed down. The ozone hole is a different problem than global warming, but the fact that we could stop growth in the ozone hole gives us some hope that we could also solve the problem of global warming. If society could just decide to take action through laws or other mechanisms, we can slow and stop the emission of greenhouse gases.
Acid raid is caused by the release sulfur and nitrogen-based compounds from power plants and other things that burn fossil fuels. These compounds get in to the air and combine with water droplets to make the water acidic. So when those droplets fall from the air, they are "acid rain." The sources that make acid rain also release greenhouse gases, but these are different environmental problems. Learn more about acid raid at this EPA website: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what/index.html
If some--or better yet many!--of us were to stop releasing greenhouse gases, we would slow down climate change. The more that the world emits, the more and the faster the climate changes. Eventually stopping emissions is the ultimate goal to stop the process of global warming.
Of the big three greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide is the most potent. Each molecule has ~300 times the heat trapping capacity of one molecule of carbon dioxide. Each of the greenhouse gases, however, stays in the atmosphere a different length of time, so when thinking about the effect of each gas we have to think about how much we emit, how potent each molecule is, and how long it stays in the atmosphere. CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas because we emit so much of us and it stays in the atmosphere for a very long time.
In the early Eocene, about 50 million years ago, the Arctic was about 8 degrees C (or 14.5 degrees F) warmer than it is was before the humans started enhancing the greenhouse effect. At that time, northern parts of Canada had turtles, alligators, primates, and tapirs. Climate models tell us that if we keep on releasing more and more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, like we have been doing the last 100 years, the Arctic could be that warm again by the end of this century.
Yes, if when we say "global warming" we mean the influence of people on the climate, we can stop that. All we need to do is stop adding carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. To do that, we will need much greater energy efficiency than we have today--turn off those light bulbs when you don't need them and use energy-efficient appliances!--and we will need alternative energy sources that do not pollute the atmosphere, like solar and wind power.
If we could stop emitting more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and take back the ones that we have already emitted, we could bring the earth back to the atmosphere that it would naturally have. It is going to be a lot easier to stop putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, however, than it will be to remove the ones that we already put in. So we likely will have to live with some climate change from the gases that we have already emitted.
I'm afraid that this is one is hard to answer, and particularly hard for a scientist to answer. I think that people must have information about problems in order to want to do something about them, and I see that as my role--to help inform the public about an important problem. But there seem to be factors other than information that are holding politicians back. Some people are working hard to make sure that the government doesn't do anything because they benefit from the industries that release greenhouse gases. The way our political system works, it is also hard for politicians to make decisions that affect people today for the benefit of people in the future. Politicians are often more worried about getting reelected in 2 or 6 years than they are worried about what the climate will be like in 50 years. The only people who can get them to change their mind about that are citizens like you!
Global warming will cause the ocean to rise. First, the ocean will warm as it takes up some of the extra heat in the atmosphere and this will cause it to expand. Second, ice at the poles that is on land seems to be melting at a rapid rate under global warming, and this water will flow into the ocean. More water in the ocean means higher seas.
The largest amount of warming under global warming will take place at the poles and over land away from large bodies of water. The oceans will warm too, but we expect the average temperature over land to increase--at least within this century--more than the air over the ocean. You can see the patterns of warming on this map: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/figure-spm-6.html.
No, this is not true. We can stop global warming if we want to by stop releasing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. If we keep releasing greenhouse gases, we continue to make global warming stronger and more severe. Some scientists are working on ways of taking out of the air some of the greenhouse gases that we already released. These technologies are probably a long way away, but they are important things to study.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
I was a new assistant professor counting plants in the rain when I first truly realized that time was in short supply. The work was progressing slowly and my mood was soggy. I had to write a promised blog post for the class I was missing; I had a grant proposal due the next day that still needed to be routed through the research office; and I was having trouble with one of my field assistance who was going to need a heart-to-heart chat very soon. Don’t get me wrong. I had been busy and frantic before. Grad students are stressed; postdocs work hard; and I’ve never met an undergrad who hasn’t pulled at least one all-nighter. But I realized that this time constraint that I was facing wasn’t acute. It was chronic, and it was likely going to get worse because I only had more that I wanted to do.