Danny –
I mistakenly posted this on the other thread…. Re-posting here: Judith, if you read this please delete the other comment:
==> “Curious of your defintion of “activist” and if there are those on the AGW side who might fit the bill?
I think that an activist is someone who is “active” on one side or the other of an issue, in particular a controversial issue, and in particular a controversial issue that has significant societal implications.
As such, most scientists are “activists” in support of the hypotheses they are trying to prove. Further, scientists who are heavily engaged in the public sphere w/r/t the science of climate change are activists.
One of my main beefs with Judith’s argument and that of many others w/r/t the question of activism and science is that the way that “activist” is defined is usually arbitrarily determined (arbitrary in the sense of objectively, not in the sense of randomly). Thus, we get often get is functionally “They are activists (and thus can be discounted) and we are not.”
IIRC, you mentioned something about RPJr. recently? I think that he has a much less arbitrary view of the nexus between “activism” and science than we see with Judith’s approach – which seems to me to largely employ a circular, double-standard in a self-serving manner.
I also think that in balance, activism is a positive force in our society. I look at our history of social change, and while there has certainly been much activism that I would not support or that I think was counterproductive in effect, I think that we all have benefited from living in a society were activism on social issues was a protected right. I look at the work of someone like Amartya Sen, and I think that the combination of civil society activism along with governmental infrastructure that supports that kind of activism is the single most important influence on enhancing standards of living for a broad cross-section of society.
I don’t think that all activism is alike. The temptation is to judge “our” activism as good and “their” activism as bad – but as someone who recognizes the importance of activism, I try to avoid such a subjective calculus. I try to use other measures to evaluate the value of activism – primarily, the integrity of the reasoning behind the activism. In that sense, I agree with the piece of Judith’s “activism” w/r/t prioritizing the engagement with uncertainty – even as I strongly disagree with what I see as her double-standards w/r/t how she engages uncertainty related to climate change:
I think, however, that the very existence of activism tells us nothing definitive about the quality of reasoning that underlies that activism. For example, MLK Jr. was an activist, who relied on the highest quality of reasoning. Thus, I view his activism in a positive light. Of course, it gets tricky because poor quality activism (based on unsound reasoning) can have, IMO, beneficial societal influences and good quality activism (based on sound reasoning) can have, IMO, destructive societal influences.
At any rate – from what I’ve seen Nic is an activist. As such, I note that the value of his work cannot be reverse engineered on the basis of him being an activist. We might try to evaluate probabilities related to the quality of his work on the basis of the quality of his activism (which I think is not based on particularly good reasoning), but always with the knowledge that doing so is based in an intrinsically flawed model (his work on climate change does not necessarily reflect the quality of his activism). What I find unfortunate is that while Nic apparently thinks that his work should not be judged on the simple fact of whether or not he is an activist, he doesn’t extend that same logic when he evaluates the work of others (which is one of the reasons why I don’t think his activism is of a high quality).
==> “It seems that a label (Name + activist = skepticism) yet I see nothing w/r/t quality of “merits of work”.
I couldn’t follow that.