In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Carlo Martini (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Milan) and Mason Majszak (University of Bern) will give a talk on “Values within boundaries – Climate science and tipping points“.
The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 12th of December. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.
Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.
Abstract:
It is often argued that non-epistemic values can play the role of both biases (Lloyd 2006, 244-45) and background assumptions (Parker and Winsberg 2018) in scientific research, with the possibility of resulting in both a positive and/or negative impact on science. This has caused a discussion to arise on when the use of non-epistemic values should be considered legitimate or illegitimate in scientific research, and more specifically in the climate modeling context (Intemann 2015). However, identifying the legitimate use of values tends to become more complicated when discussing science-based policy making and further scientific communication, where values can play a larger and, as we will argue, a slightly different role. In this paper we look at the interplay of science and values on a topic of growing interest in climate science and the larger society: climate tipping points.
While there exists a theoretical and mathematical account of the concept of tipping points in the climate system the scientific community has not reached agreement on any specific tipping point – i.e. ice collapse in Antarctica or Greenland, boreal forest dieback, changes in the frequency or amplitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, etc. – nor on its physical mechanisms, as well as the uncertainty or likelihood of these tipping points occurring under certain climate scenarios (Lenton et al. 2008). As a result, some have argued that “the possibility of global tipping remains highly speculative” (Lenton et al. 2019). In turn, tipping points can, in general, be considered as highly uncertain but potentially highly impactful events.
Even though the uncertainty surrounding climate tipping point is extremely high, this concept has made its way into the popular culture discussions on climate change, where usually subtleties tend to disappear, including considerations about uncertainty levels (Schneider 2016). News outlets, in multiple countries, have highlighted concerns of potential climate catastrophe around tipping point events. Illustrating that not only a large cross section of individuals in our global society are aware of this scientific concept but that they are also concerned about the potential of crossing one of these tipping point thresholds. This presents an interesting case where there is currently high uncertainty within the scientific community, regarding the likelihood of a climate tipping point event of global magnitude occurring, however the importance and relevance of tipping points for decision making is relatively agreed upon within our larger society, as demonstrated by the recent survey by The Global Commons Alliance. They have reported that “among G20 countries, 73% of people believe Earth is close to ‘tipping points’ because of human action” (Gaffney et al. 2021, 4).
We argue that this divergence highlights the role values play in the communication of scientific information and, in this context, claims about climate tipping points. Despite the statement that values play a role in science, it is not always clear the way values play a role in how information is framed or presented. We will show how values are introduced and used in the scientific communication surrounding climate tipping points, by discussing a number of prominent papers, written by climate scientists, that have a specific focus on a wider public audience. These examples will illustrate the way values, specifically the precautionary principle as an evaluative value set, are used by experts to fill the knowledge gaps during scientific communication. This brings up questions of legitimate vs the illegitimate use of values in climate science and the scientific communication on tipping points. We begin to address these questions and contrast the difference in using these values to legitimately support further research/inquiry into climate tipping points and the use of these values to illegitimately fuel or support climate alarmism.
Author bios:
Carlo Martini is an Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Milan) and visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. He has worked on the interface between science and policy, scientific expertise, and science communication. He is leader of the work package “Behavioral Tools for Building Trust” in the H2020 Project “Policy, Expertise and Trust” (https://peritia-trust.eu)
Mason Majszak is a PhD student at the University of Bern, in Switzerland, where he is a part of the Epistemology of Climate Change working group and holds joint membership within the Institute for Philosophy as well as the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR). His work focuses on expertise in climate science and methodological issues in climate science more generally. Before arriving in Switzerland Mason completed his master’s degree in the UK at the London School of Economics with a thesis titled “A Critical Analysis of the Methodology for the Detection and Attribution of Climate Change”.