Reticence, Accuracy and Efficacy

Abstract:

James Hansen has cautioned the scientific community against “reticence,” by which he means a reluctance to speak in public about the threat of climate change. This may contribute to social inaction, with the result that society fails to respond appropriately to threats that are well understood scientifically. Against this, others have warned against the dangers of “crying wolf,” suggesting that reticence protects scientific credibility.

We argue that both these positions are missing an important point: that reticence is not only a matter of style but also of substance. In previous work, Bysse et al. (2013) showed that scientific projections of key indicators of climate change have been skewed towards the low end of actual events, suggesting a bias in scientific work. More recently, we have shown that scientific efforts to be responsive to contrarian challenges have led scientists to adopt the terminology of a “pause” or “hiatus” in climate warming, despite the lack of evidence to support such a conclusion (Lewandowsky et al., 2015a. 2015b). In the former case, scientific conservatism has led to under-estimation of climate related changes. In the latter case, the use of misleading terminology has perpetuated scientific misunderstanding and hindered effective communication.

Scientific communication should embody two equally important goals: 1) accuracy in communicating scientific information and 2) efficacy in expressing what that information means. Scientists should strive to be neither conservative nor adventurous but to be accurate, and to communicate that accurate information effectively.