When I hear the word climategate, I reach for my pistol...
Language is important in discussing climate science and climate change for several reasons. First and most obvious is that this is science. Science gets technical. Technical needs precision of names. Otherwise you get confused about what the other person is talking about. That's why all technical subjects have their own specialist jargon. This can sometimes sound like it's just a way to keep outsiders from knowing what insiders are talking about. But most of the time the insiders actually need the language. Without it, they don't know what they are talking about.
Second reason is that it's almost impossible (though many scientists try) to do climate science without impinging on climate sociology, climate politics and probably now climate business. That generates a whole different set of names and terms. But this doesn't work like a technical jargon. In order to be useful, that always has a precise meaning that you can look up in some dictionary. By contrast, this jargon has a vocabulary where people use different names for the same thing, and they mean something different by it. But the different names and meanings denote what in reality is the same thing. How can that make sense? On the face of it, that seems quite contrary to normal semantics.
Actually, I think that's the whole point. These names are not meant to unify discussion by allowing everyone to adopt a single clear set of meanings. They're meant to divide the discussion by allowing everyone to understand which predefined camp they belong to. And therefore, which predetermined position they have adopted on the topic under discussion. Names in this vocabulary are signals that carry a heavy payload. Not just a technical definition, but a whole belief system and a social affiliation all at the same time. If you don't share that belief system and social affiliation, you will either (a) not use the term at all, or (b) you will mean something completely different by it.
Let's look at an example. I've chosen 'climategate' (though those from other camps might choose other terms). Most of us now know what 'climategate' means, but many of us wouldn't use it, not without quotes anyway. It refers, of course, to the story that began with the UEA hacked (or leaked? - there's another whole sub-myth around that part of the story) emails in 2009. The immediate story was that climate scientists at UEA were said to be caught - by their own admission - faking their results. That'd be enough of a story on its own - careers have ended abruptly about less. But these scientists were said to be doing it in order to hoodwink the world about AGW and climate change. For political reasons. And caught red-handed. Quel horreur!
The story was originally broken, oddly enough, by one who is still at the centre of the world of denialist web-sites, Marc Morano – I mentioned him in an earlier post. Next it was taken up by a darling of the British alt-right, James Delingpole. Everyone knows how the story then took deep root in the blogosphere. Everyone also knows (though some will still not accept) that a whole string of official enquiries have since examined the hacked (or leaked) emails. These found resoundingly that the scientists had simply been quoted out of context, or interpreted way beyond the reasonable meaning of their actual words. I looked at one of the much-recommended "sceptical" publications about this (The Climategate Emails) myself in a previous post on this blog, and I found it to be – honestly – a load of tosh. No evidence there of the much-vaunted sceptical scientific approach.
But anyway, my point now is that only a believer in the climategate conspiracy theory is likely to use the term 'climategate' without qualification. Just using that word declares a belief in the myth that the scientists were caught being unscientific. Non-believers in the conspiracy are unlikely to use the term without contextualising it somehow. For example 'the many-times debunked climategate scandal,' or 'the so-called climategate controversy' or somesuch. Use of the bare term 'climategate' has the implication that the user still believes the full payload: the public exposure of a bunch of base, dishonest, untrustworthy scientists who have brought all of science into disrepute with their scandalous, furtive behaviour. Non-believers in the conspiracy on the other hand are more likely to call it the CRU (Climate Research Unit) email controversy (as Wikipedia does). But simply calling it that is like waving a flag that says "I think the idea that the CRU emails reveal wrongdoing is a load of denialist bunk."
Do you see what I mean? Some jargon in this field can't be used without declaring your belief in (or active disbelief in) something. Or you can put it in quotes to signify that you don't accept the common tribal affiliation that other people will assume you mean, just because you used that word. Even some of the terms in my glossary (below on this blog) are subject to this semantic shift. They mean different things according to (i) who is speaking them, or (ii) who you think is being spoken about. No wonder I've been struggling to get my definitions definitive!
There are many other examples on both sides of the major divide. Here are the ones that particularly got me thinking about it (in brackets after each term is the parameter that makes it tribal):
An aside. In another post in the same debate (a long way down 1.9) @WalterPaul said "I would rather stick to science over sociology." I'm not sure it is possible to do that. I think the meaning of some key language here is sociologically determined, and (despite the protestations of some participants) the discussion often veers off into the ideological and political jungle. However hard you try not to let it...
Another aside. About the title... yes, you're right, it is a play on that famous Nazi quote. But not because I'm a Nazi. And anyway, I figure if Steven Hawkings can get away with "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol" then I can use it too. But, because I'm like that, I did a little research first. The original quote is often misattributed to a top Nazi, variously Himmler, Göring or Goebbels. Actually, according to Wikipedia, it's a line from a play by Hanns Johst, a Nazi sympathiser whose play was performed for Hitler on his birthday in 1933. The correct version of the original line translates as: "When I hear 'culture'... I release the safety catch on my Browning!"
Now, I'm not in the habit of quoting Nazi playwrights at any length. But, just this once, I think a longer quote from this speech addressed to the title character Schlageter is instructive:
By this quotation, I intend no other comparison than this. In this debate, too, the language we use, and how we use it, is of supreme importance. And truth may be the first casualty.
Conclusion. What I hope I have done here is to describe the characteristics of a problem. I believe it is a serious problem, especially for novices in the field of climate science. There are already so many difficult technical concepts and terms to master. Then there are these slippery words that often don't mean quite what they seem to mean. It's a problem that many won't recognise and some won't acknowledge. Some might even be deliberately exploiting it to push an unscientific agenda. What should we do? I don't know, other than urging us all to continue to focus on the science. We should try our best to ensure that what we say is based on sound science, and that means being always willing to question our own assumptions and review our current conclusions whenever we learn something new. As for the language question, well, Humpty Dumpty said (for some reason this always makes me think of Donald Trump):
When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less...
The question is which is to be master – that's all.
Second reason is that it's almost impossible (though many scientists try) to do climate science without impinging on climate sociology, climate politics and probably now climate business. That generates a whole different set of names and terms. But this doesn't work like a technical jargon. In order to be useful, that always has a precise meaning that you can look up in some dictionary. By contrast, this jargon has a vocabulary where people use different names for the same thing, and they mean something different by it. But the different names and meanings denote what in reality is the same thing. How can that make sense? On the face of it, that seems quite contrary to normal semantics.
Actually, I think that's the whole point. These names are not meant to unify discussion by allowing everyone to adopt a single clear set of meanings. They're meant to divide the discussion by allowing everyone to understand which predefined camp they belong to. And therefore, which predetermined position they have adopted on the topic under discussion. Names in this vocabulary are signals that carry a heavy payload. Not just a technical definition, but a whole belief system and a social affiliation all at the same time. If you don't share that belief system and social affiliation, you will either (a) not use the term at all, or (b) you will mean something completely different by it.
Let's look at an example. I've chosen 'climategate' (though those from other camps might choose other terms). Most of us now know what 'climategate' means, but many of us wouldn't use it, not without quotes anyway. It refers, of course, to the story that began with the UEA hacked (or leaked? - there's another whole sub-myth around that part of the story) emails in 2009. The immediate story was that climate scientists at UEA were said to be caught - by their own admission - faking their results. That'd be enough of a story on its own - careers have ended abruptly about less. But these scientists were said to be doing it in order to hoodwink the world about AGW and climate change. For political reasons. And caught red-handed. Quel horreur!
The story was originally broken, oddly enough, by one who is still at the centre of the world of denialist web-sites, Marc Morano – I mentioned him in an earlier post. Next it was taken up by a darling of the British alt-right, James Delingpole. Everyone knows how the story then took deep root in the blogosphere. Everyone also knows (though some will still not accept) that a whole string of official enquiries have since examined the hacked (or leaked) emails. These found resoundingly that the scientists had simply been quoted out of context, or interpreted way beyond the reasonable meaning of their actual words. I looked at one of the much-recommended "sceptical" publications about this (The Climategate Emails) myself in a previous post on this blog, and I found it to be – honestly – a load of tosh. No evidence there of the much-vaunted sceptical scientific approach.
But anyway, my point now is that only a believer in the climategate conspiracy theory is likely to use the term 'climategate' without qualification. Just using that word declares a belief in the myth that the scientists were caught being unscientific. Non-believers in the conspiracy are unlikely to use the term without contextualising it somehow. For example 'the many-times debunked climategate scandal,' or 'the so-called climategate controversy' or somesuch. Use of the bare term 'climategate' has the implication that the user still believes the full payload: the public exposure of a bunch of base, dishonest, untrustworthy scientists who have brought all of science into disrepute with their scandalous, furtive behaviour. Non-believers in the conspiracy on the other hand are more likely to call it the CRU (Climate Research Unit) email controversy (as Wikipedia does). But simply calling it that is like waving a flag that says "I think the idea that the CRU emails reveal wrongdoing is a load of denialist bunk."
Do you see what I mean? Some jargon in this field can't be used without declaring your belief in (or active disbelief in) something. Or you can put it in quotes to signify that you don't accept the common tribal affiliation that other people will assume you mean, just because you used that word. Even some of the terms in my glossary (below on this blog) are subject to this semantic shift. They mean different things according to (i) who is speaking them, or (ii) who you think is being spoken about. No wonder I've been struggling to get my definitions definitive!
There are many other examples on both sides of the major divide. Here are the ones that particularly got me thinking about it (in brackets after each term is the parameter that makes it tribal):
- '97%' (of scientists in the field concur with the consensus)
- 'deniers' (when used of people who consider themselves to be properly sceptical)
- 'settled science' (showing that AGW is causing potentially disastrous climate change)
- 'alarmist' (when used of a scientist who's just doing their job of saying what the data tells them)
- 'catastrophist' (as above for alarmist)
An aside. In another post in the same debate (a long way down 1.9) @WalterPaul said "I would rather stick to science over sociology." I'm not sure it is possible to do that. I think the meaning of some key language here is sociologically determined, and (despite the protestations of some participants) the discussion often veers off into the ideological and political jungle. However hard you try not to let it...
Another aside. About the title... yes, you're right, it is a play on that famous Nazi quote. But not because I'm a Nazi. And anyway, I figure if Steven Hawkings can get away with "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol" then I can use it too. But, because I'm like that, I did a little research first. The original quote is often misattributed to a top Nazi, variously Himmler, Göring or Goebbels. Actually, according to Wikipedia, it's a line from a play by Hanns Johst, a Nazi sympathiser whose play was performed for Hitler on his birthday in 1933. The correct version of the original line translates as: "When I hear 'culture'... I release the safety catch on my Browning!"
Now, I'm not in the habit of quoting Nazi playwrights at any length. But, just this once, I think a longer quote from this speech addressed to the title character Schlageter is instructive:
.... I know what I'm up against.... No rose without a thorn!... And the last
thing I'll stand for is ideas to get the better of me! I know that
rubbish from '18 ..., fraternity, equality, ..., freedom ..., beauty and
dignity! You gotta use the right bait to hook 'em. And then, you're
right in the middle of a parley and they say: Hands up! You're
disarmed..., you republican voting swine!—No, let 'em keep their good
distance with their whole ideological kettle of fish ... I shoot with
live ammunition! When I hear the word culture ..., I release the safety
on my Browning!
By this quotation, I intend no other comparison than this. In this debate, too, the language we use, and how we use it, is of supreme importance. And truth may be the first casualty.
Conclusion. What I hope I have done here is to describe the characteristics of a problem. I believe it is a serious problem, especially for novices in the field of climate science. There are already so many difficult technical concepts and terms to master. Then there are these slippery words that often don't mean quite what they seem to mean. It's a problem that many won't recognise and some won't acknowledge. Some might even be deliberately exploiting it to push an unscientific agenda. What should we do? I don't know, other than urging us all to continue to focus on the science. We should try our best to ensure that what we say is based on sound science, and that means being always willing to question our own assumptions and review our current conclusions whenever we learn something new. As for the language question, well, Humpty Dumpty said (for some reason this always makes me think of Donald Trump):
When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less...
The question is which is to be master – that's all.
posted by Macro @ February 06, 2018
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