Leading Horses to Water
Ancient Greeks began the way of
thinking originally known as natural philosophy but which we now call
science. Science emerged as we know it during the Renaissance, in
an age dominated by fear, superstition, injustice, and brutality.
In other words, pretty much like the present. These musings are
aimed at explaining how science works, and how science can serve even
nonscientists in their efforts to make sense of the world. I can
try to explain things but it’s up to you to decide whether or not you
wish to drink from these waters.
#13 - A specialist’s perspective
American Heathen: aired: 28 April 2012
Science has fractionated into many disciplines and subdisciplines since
the Renaissance. As any body of knowledge expands, it becomes
increasingly difficult to know it all, so scientists have been becoming
rather specialized over the years and know most about only some small
part of science. My particular discipline is meteorology and my
primary subdiscipline is severe storms. Becoming a scientist
involves learning basic principles in broad disciplines, such as
general physics or biology, and developing skills, such as mathematics
or computer programming. These become foundational elements in
developing one’s specialized interests. The knowledge and skills
needed vary with the topic of specialization.
One problem with being a specialist in anything is that you see things
from a perspective that isn’t shared with many others. It can be
difficult to communicate your understanding of some topic simply
because that understanding is based on a specialist’s knowledge
base. I want to use an example from my field to try to make this
clear.
In the spring of 2011, we had some really big tornado outbreaks that
resulted in tragically high death tolls. In the last 30 years,
every time a big tornado outbreak has occurred, the news media descend
on meteorologists, wanting answers to questions like, “Why has the
weather gone mad?” or “What caused this freak event?” With all
the public media controversy about global climate change – a
controversy not present within the global climate change science
community – we get questions like, “Are worse things than even this
event in store for us because of global warming?” or “Does this event
signal the climate change induced beginning of more such storms to
come?”
To lay persons (including the typical scientifically ignorant media
reporters), it may seem like the weather has gone mad, but to someone
who’s spent decades studying these storms and the historical record of
them, big tornado outbreaks simply are natural hazards that occur when
the conditions for them come together on a particular day. Seen
against the backdrop of the historical record, a major tornado outbreak
isn’t a freak event; it’s just another example of what’s happened
in the past and surely will happen again in the future. And
tornado outbreaks are weather events – the climate is the long-term average
of the weather – so any particular weather event says pretty much
nothing about the climate and how it might or might not be
changing.
What we know about the weather and its relationship to climate tells us
that even if the average temperature of the planet is increasing, the
winters will still be cold and blizzards will still happen. A
particularly hot day in the summer doesn’t signal global warming.
What’s characteristic of the weather is variability
– the weather changes all the time, from day to day, from month to
month, from year to year. A single weather event is but one piece
of data that goes into the climate. On the average, winter days
are colder than summer days, but if you search the record, you can find
warm winter days and cold summer days. It’s only when you do the
averaging over time does the climate emerge.
From my specialist’s perspective, I know that that past is a key to
anticipating the future; what has happened before will happen
again. We can imagine tragic tornado outbreaks in the future, but
can’t seem to convey that to a public that grows complacent within a
few years after major events. Tornadoes? Yeah, I suppose
they happen somewhere but surely not here! Surely not now!
Why should I prepare for something that probably won’t happen to me in
my lifetime?
Such complacency is simply a matter of not having my specialist’s
perspective. Although tornado outbreaks are rare, they also are
inevitable somewhere, sometime. And complacency means that when
another major tornado outbreak occurs, such as happened several times
during 2011, and again in 2012 naturally, unprepared people will make
poor decisions and become casualties.
As I see it, we specialists have an obligation to do our best to share
our perspectives. We have to try to help people who aren’t
specialists understand our point of view. That’s why I’m doing
this. After all, our careers as scientists are bankrolled by
taxes, for the most part, and we should seek to give something back to
our societies for the privilege of a career in science. But the
public (yes, that includes you!) also has a responsibility to serve
their own best interests and not remain willfully ignorant of
information that can save their lives. They have to be receptive
to the message we’re trying to convey, and to deal with the unfortunate
situation that the media fill the public with misinformation, for the
most part. Even the public has to work to separate the wheat from
the chaff. When it comes to understanding the natural world
about us, ignorance and misinformation can get you killed, so it’s in your best interest to make the effort.
Science
is not a religion but rather a tool for those who wish to think for
themselves about the natural world. Its primary characteristic is
its willingness to entertain questions from those who wish to obtain
believable answers.