[Roundtable] Fwd: Material for Jan 11th Roundtable

[Derek Gray]

Dear All,

Please see comments below regarding the Roundtable next week. Steve
proposes some interesting topics we could cover as part of the discussion.
If anyone else has input please let me know.

Derek

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Katz NOAA Fedoral <steve.katz at noaa.gov>
Date: Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Roundtable] Material for Jan 11th Roundtable
To: Derek Gray <gray at nceas.ucsb.edu>



Hi Derek

I am sending this to you because I don't know the protocol for "outsiders"
to interlope into the process of this discussion group.  But if this is
worth widening, feel free to forward.

I am wondering if it is possible to alter the discussion somewhat - the
question of professional science activity and credibility vs. advocacy has
been the topic of a couple recent discussions at NCEAS and I am not sure
something so open ended is likely to pay the biggest dividends.  For
example, much of the prior discussions have devolved into discussions of
purity of research enterprise vs. pragmatic reality - and if we are all
going to acknowledge that the science we really do is not strictly "pure"
then there is no useful line between science and advocacy.  Also we have
discussed the nature of individual decision making and how do we identify
the individual separate from what we do - at work I am a scientist, but
when I am home after work I can say anything I damn well please and its on
all y'all to tell the difference.  Overarching all of these discussions is
the fact that if there is a line somewhere it is colored to great degree by
values - personal and professional.  And it is really slippery to have an
open ended discussion about values without each persons values influencing
their position and how they express it.  I am not sure that in total these
discussions have been entirely as productive as they might have been.

So I am wondering if it would be better to focus on some more narrow
proposition?  I suspect the selection of a title might be a place for some
democracy - but to offer more than a complaint, there are some
possibilities:

When a scientific finding is distasteful or inconvenient to a given
political entity it is often identified as nothing more than a political
position independent of the objective support for the position (e.g. global
warming is a lefty scheme).  What responsibilities accrue to individual
professional scientists who might have engaged in climate research?  Any?
None?

On what basis do professional scientists claim their information is any
different from corporate, religious, legislative, or legal sources?  Should
all this information be treated as equal and "trade-able" and if not is
there a basis for discrimination?  And does this basis define a set of
criteria for distinguishing personal opinion from objective science?  Is
there a difference between a "denier" and a hypothesis tester?

If the community at large does not distinguish between science information
and any other stakeholder position is that a problem? and does that de
facto make the whole discussion of advocacy moot?  If the users of the
information cant tell the difference then there is no difference, no matter
what we like to tell ourselves when we are alone and cold in the dark.

Let me know what you think or if you want to include the rest of the folks
in the conversation.
Thanks
SLK








On 1/2/2013 12:23 PM, Derek Gray wrote:

Dear All,

 Next week I will be holding a discussion on the involvement of ecologists
in advocacy. I have no expertise in this area whatsoever, but I think it is
an interesting topic that most scientists grapple with at some point in
their career. I thought we could discuss a couple recent papers and a media
story (attached). Please feel free to suggest any relevant papers that the
group might want to have a look at before meeting.

 Thanks!

 Derek

 --
Derek Gray
Postdoctoral Fellow
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
University of California Santa Barbara
phone: 805-892-2512
email: gray at nceas.ucsb.edu
website: http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~gray/


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-- 
Derek Gray
Postdoctoral Fellow
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
University of California Santa Barbara
phone: 805-892-2512
email: gray at nceas.ucsb.edu
website: http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~gray/
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