Al Gore Wins the Nobel Peace Prize for Framing

 
I'm a fan of Al Gore and I would have voted for him if I'd have been an American citizen in 2000. I'd vote for him today if I could. I think he's done a fabulous job of bringing the issue of global warming to the attention of the public. (I also like his latest book The Assault on Reason).

Gore's advantage is that he is not a scientist. That means that he can spin the global warming debate in a way that advances his cause. There is much that is true in An Inconvenient Truth and that's why I support him, but in order to frame the presentation in a way that resonates with the general public he has to drop some of the nuances and present the science in a way that makes it sound far more solid than it actually is.

This is why Gore will not be receiving a Nobel Prize in Science. There are very few scientists who would be comfortable making the same presentation that Gore makes in his public talks. Most scientists know that some of the "facts" are only half-truths and some of them are still disputed within the scientific community. They believe that scientific integrity requires them to be less dogmatic and more circumspect when they talk about science.

Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet would like all scientists to adopt the Al Gore method of presenting science in situations where they advocate changes in public policy. It ain't gonna fly for the reason that I just mentioned. What's so astonishing is that Nisbet and Mooney just don't seem to get it. They don't understand why scientists are leery about framing. It's because we can't do what Gore does without feeling a little guilty over being less than honest about the science.

This does not mean that we don't like Al Gore and other politicians who have learned to appreciate science and base their policy on good scientific foundations. It simply means that pushing science and pushing policy are two different things and the tactics used in the political arena do not belong in science. Some scientists may be able to jump back and forth from one arena to the other but its' going to be very difficult to maintain a scientific reputation under such circumstances. What Nisbet and Mooney are suggesting requires that scientists abandon true science in favor of political science.

I suspect they have a hard time seeing the problem because they're not scientists.

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