Are Politicians Ignorant or Dishonest When it Comes to Science?

I'm about halfway through reading a new book by Dave Levitan called Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science. The main title is derived from a constant refrain among Republican politicians during the last presidential election. While declaring they were "not a scientist," they would then go on to issue statements directly contradicted by science. I'll post a full review on Goodreads and Amazon when I'm finished, but there is one issue that strikes me is need of further discussion.

As Levitan's subtitle suggests, he refrains from labeling politicians as dishonest or outright liars despite their repeated spouting of abject falsehoods. One wonders if this is in an attempt to be fair (aka, false equivalence) or avoid potential lawsuits. It does beg the question: If politicians continue to say things that are not true, are they being profoundly ignorant or fundamentally dishonest?

Each chapter identifies the "types of errors" routinely made by politicians (and others) when discussing science. They include "oversimplification," "cherry-pick," "ridicule and dismiss," "literal nitpick" and others. Many of these errors (aka, tactics) have been discussed on this page over the last decade, though often under different labels.

As I said, I'll do a full review when I've finished the book. For now I want to address the idea of intent that Levitan tries to avoid.

Let's take an example where Levitan discusses Republican Senator James Inhofe's statement regarding regulations on fracking. An infamous climate denier (he was featured in an earlier chapter for his "snowball" speech), Inhofe represents the fossil fuel industry in his home state of Oklahoma (often to the detriment of his constituents). Levitan points out that Inhofe issued a press release with the following statement in an attempt to block regulations and legislation to protect the public from activities related to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for natural gas:

"Since 1949, my state of Oklahoma has led the way on hydraulic fracturing regulations, and just like the rest of the nation, we have yet to see an instance of ground water contamination."

It won't come as a surprise to learn that Inhofe's statement isn't actually true. Levitan focuses on the "mistakes" that Inhofe makes and describes the fracking process, issues, and actual facts well. He explains how this fits into the "error" of "the literal nitpick." But one point near the end of his discussion exemplifies the problem: Inhofe's statement was very highly focused on the "the physical act of cracking rocks through hydraulic fracturing." In other words, he chose his words very specifically to be "true" while making them mean something that wasn't true. The fracking process has multiple components, and Inhofe diligently cherry-picked one aspect that he could tease out as not causing the problem while ignoring all the other components that are, in fact, of greater concern.

Which gets to my point. Republican Senator James Inhofe, from the fossil fuel dependent state of Oklahoma, and who receives substantial campaign funding from those fossil fuel companies and lobbyists, intentionally chose highly selective words to sound true while misleading other policy makers, the general public, and his own constituents. He intentionally chose to say something that was misleading to reach a goal that his financial supporters asked him to reach.

My use of the word "intentional" above is intentional in its own right. Inhofe has served as the senior U.S. Senator for 23 years, with 7 years as a U.S. Representative before that (plus had previously been mayor of Tulsa). He chaired the Senate Committee on Science and Public Works - twice! He has had ample staff and constant access to the scientific community. The facts have been explained to him myriad of times.

So is Senator Inhofe still profoundly ignorant of the science despite all these resources? Is he accidentally being highly specific in his word choice to give the impression of truth while extrapolating patently misleading and false conclusions? Has he somehow been duped for more than 30 years of his time in Congress?

Of course not.

Senator Inhofe actively and intentionally "cherry-picks" and "literal nitpicks" his words to further the interests of his campaign contributors. He or his staff meet with fossil fuel executives and lobbyists routinely to plot their attack on regulations that might impact the bottom lines of those companies and their lobbying arms. Lobbyists work directly with the staffs (and the lawmakers themselves) to craft language that they can argue is strictly factual (even when it isn't) while extrapolating it deceive. This is the case with Inhofe's example statement and many others. He takes a very narrow "factoid" and uses it to argue for a broad ban on regulations for which the narrow "factoid" is not relevant, all while ignoring the voluminous evidence that contradicts his position. There is a word for the action of actively deceive the public and fellow lawmakers.

Inhofe isn't the only one who does this, of course. Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, along with Representatives Joe Barton, Lamar Smith, and many others all actively mislead the public in service of their fossil fuel benefactors.

All lawmakers, of course, work with stakeholders (which includes lobbyists for all special interests, and at least in theory, the public) to educate them on issues so they can make honest judgments. The problem is when those interests (aka, campaign contributions and other "perks") cause lawmakers to intentionally mislead their own constituents.

Inhofe is hurting Oklahomans because of his intentional deceptions. Oklahoma has had a huge increase in earthquake activity. The cause - oil and gas extraction activity. Oklahoma also is severely endangered by man-made climate change, as its largely arid environment is highly vulnerable to climate change's effects, including higher risk of agricultural failures, extreme weather events, and heat- and pollution-related health effects. Senators and Representatives in Texas also endanger their constituents in a similar manner.

So to answer the question posed in the title: is it ignorance or dishonesty?; the answer is rather obvious.


[Photo: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), from Wikipedia]

Scott Pruitt Lied About Climate Science: A Scientific Study

Scott Pruitt, the head of the EPA in the current anti-science administration, blatantly lied to Congress about the state of climate science. A new study explicitly examines Scott Pruitt's claim and proves it utterly false.

The study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, was conducted by eminent climate scientist Benjamin Santer along with a team consisting of seven other scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS, the source of satellite data quoted by Pruitt), and the University of Washington. The study explicitly examined the data to determine the veracity of Pruitt's claim that satellite data show there has been a "leveling off of warming."

The data clearly demonstrate that Scott Pruitt's claim is grossly false.

Satellite temperature measurements do not support the claim of a “leveling off of warming” over the past two decades.

Furthermore:

When examined over the full period of record, long-term tropospheric warming far exceeds current estimates of natural internal climate variability. Our results support and strengthen previous findings of a large human-caused contribution to warming.

So why would Scott Pruitt give false statements to Congress (something that seems to have been a trend with this administration's appointees)?

As discussed before, Scott Pruitt in his previous job as Attorney General of the fossil fuel-dependent state of Oklahoma has shown himself to be, to put it gently, a shill for the fossil fuel industry. He routinely sued the EPA, the agency he now heads, to block health and safety protections and anti-pollution measures. Talking points written by fossil fuel lobbyists were copied onto Oklahoma government letterhead and sent out as official policy positions. Release of his emails proved routine and continued collusion with the industry.

As the study notes, the results "support and strengthen previous findings of a large human-caused contribution to warming." The science is very clear on this matter. The vast majority (97% or more) of climate scientists are convinced by multiple lines of unequivocal data that human-caused climate change is happening. The data overwhelmingly demonstrate this fact.

In contrast, no data support Scott Pruitt's assertion. Scientists told him he was making a false claim many times before he repeated the falsehood to Congress. EPA scientists duly documented the fact that his claim was false, which is perhaps why he had the EPA website scrubbed of climate science facts he found inconvenient once he took over the agency he was still in the process of suing.

So where did Pruitt get his claim? From fossil fuel lobbyists, of course. It's their talking point, repeated over and over by dishonest politicians despite no scientific support for it and unequivocal scientific refutation of it. When politicians are this dishonest it presents a grave danger to all Americans.

The Dangerous Dishonesty of Republican Anti-Science Politicians

Republicans are dishonestly anti-science. This is not a partisan opinion; the empirical evidence of this is overwhelming. This week saw more examples, from the Republican White House's rollback of environmental and health regulations and proposed decimation of science agency budgets, to the Republican House's passage of a bill to restrict EPA's use of science, to the falsehoods pushed by Oklahoma Republican and now EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on the Sunday talk shows, to the dishonesty employed by Texas Republican Lamar Smith in his "climate change" hearing held yesterday, March 29.

Republican dishonesty on science issues (and virtually every other issue) is not new. Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe is famous for his fact-free dismissal of 100+ years of unequivocal climate science as a "hoax." As of this writing, the current resident of the White House mimed this feeling, stating without any evidence or rationality that climate science was a "Chinese hoax." Another Republican Congressman, Texas's Joe Barton, famously apologized to the CEO of BP for bothering them with having to clean up their multi-fatal, multi-billion dollar Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill disaster.

It's no accident that Republicans lean on anti-science politicians from fossil fuel-dependent states like Oklahoma and Texas to lead their "science" committees.

Yesterday's "science committee" hearing led by Texas Republican Lamar Smith was framed as being an evaluation of the "assumptions, policy implications, and the scientific method" as these relate to climate science. Not surprisingly, Smith's opening statement was filled with platitudes and falsehoods designed to attack the very scientific method he proceeded to lecture scientists about.

In fact, virtually nothing Lamar Smith said was true.

This is intentional. As we saw in the campaign and since inauguration day, Republicans have turned their dishonesty up to 11. Republicans learned long ago that if you lie assertively and repeatedly people will eventually start believing it. That is why large percentages of Republicans still believe that former President Obama was not born in the USA despite the obvious falsehood of that claim. The overt lying is not just a Republican tendency, it is a Republican strategy. They do this because, combined with gerrymandering and voter suppression, it works. They now have control of all branches of government.

This is what Republicans have done with that power with respect to science:

• Voted to eliminate funding for science research
• Put science-deniers in charge of every science agency and congressional committee
• Brought anti-science lobbyists into the government as "advisors"
• Repeatedly denied 100+ years of unequivocal science
• Eliminated health and safety rules
• Eliminated worker protections
• Rolled back efforts to reduce pollution
• Voted to undermine EPA authority
• Lied (too numerous to count)

In Lamar Smith's opening statement he revealed some of the dishonest tactics used by science deniers. He followed the lobbyist handbook to the letter, reading a script written by staffers (using language provided by anti-science lobbyists). He said that actions must be based on "sound science," which of course is true, but "sound science" is an Orwellian phrase invented by anti-science tobacco lobbyists to attack the overwhelming consensus of actual sound science that showed smoking causes cancer. He goes on to accuse climate scientists (calling them the lobbyist-approved fake term "alarmists") of "working outside of the principles of the scientific method."

This is rather ironic given that Lamar Smith is a "Christian Scientist," another Orwellian clash of terms for a religious sect that believes illness is simply a failing of faith and correctable solely by prayer. However, this anti-science background is likely less important than the fact that his leading campaign donors are the oil and gas industry, ExxonMobil, and the fossil fuel Koch brothers. Again, the fact that the Republican chairs of key science committees are usually from fossil fuel dependent states is not an accident. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan's famous retort: "I paid for this politician."

Smith goes on to accuse climate scientists of making "nothing more than wild guesses." This is, of course, patently false as the 100+ years of unequivocal science has been exhaustively documented. Smith knows this is false, yet he chooses to say it anyway.

This is why Smith and the other Republicans are dishonest. They know they are lying. They know they are reading scripts provided to their staffs by fossil fuel lobbyists. They know they are intentionally denigrating not only scientists but the scientific process itself.

And that is incredibly dangerous to America's future.

See more on Exposing Climate Denialism - The Series.

[Photo Credit: Lamar Smith (R-Texas) Official Portrait, Wikipedia]