Scientific Authority and Political Myth

CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY RESEARCH
CIRES/University of Colorado at Boulder
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu
Closing International Workshop:
Democratisation of science – epistemological
issues and new perspectives
30 May 2018
Université de Lyon
Lyon, France
Scientific Authority
and
Political Myth
Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
University of Colorado

Expertise and Democracy
https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/908660195869515776
@WillMcPhail

An outline of this talk
 The struggle to reconcile expertise with democracy is
eternal
 Experts are essential to 21st century governance in and
out of government
 One important function of experts in democracy is to
help create and sustain “political myth”
 “Political myth” refers to a shared narrative that explains
past, present and future political events
 I’ll suggest three modes for how experts contribute to
the authoring of political myth:
 Defunct economist (~600 BC to present)
 Democratization of science (~1970s to present)
 Power politics of the Brahmin left (~2005 to present)
 I’ll critique the considerable risks of the rise of experts
as a more conventional, interest-based political
movement

Initial disclaimer & plea for forbearance (and thank you)

Political myth
“Political myths are mapping devices through which we look at the
world, feel about it and therefore also act within it as a social group. . .
Political myths cannot be falsified because they are not scientific
hypotheses as to the constitution of the world ...
Political myths provide fundamental cognitive
schemata for the mapping of the social world:
by reducing the complexity of experience, they
enable us to come to terms with the multifaceted
character of the world we live in.”
Bottici, C., & Challand, B. (2006). Rethinking political myth:
The clash of civilizations as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
European Journal of Social Theory, 9(3), 315-336.
“political myth is comprised of the most basic assumptions that justify and
explain the possession and use of power - whether or not the assumptions
are true” (Brunner 1994)
Brunner, R. D. (1994). Myth and American
politics. Policy Sciences, 27(1), 1-18.

Political myth
• Key elements of political myth (Lasswell and Kaplan 1950)
• doctrine (core beliefs)
• formula (preferred actions)
• miranda (symbols that manifest core beliefs & actions)

Experts as Contributors to Political Myth:
~600 BCE to present
Thales of Miletus
Two brief examples
follow:
• Basic research and
the linear model of
innovation
• The so-called “green
revolution” and
technological
innovation

Example One – The Central Political Myth of S&T Policy
 Basic research and the linear model of
innovation …
Public funding € $

The axiology of values within science
“Research is none the less genuine,
investigation none the less worthy,
because the truth it discovers is
utilizable for the benefit of mankind.
Granting, even, that the discovery of
truth for its own sake is a nobler
pursuit. It may readily be conceded
that the man who discovers nothing
himself, but only applies to useful
purposes the principle which others
have discovered, stands upon a lower
plane than the investigator.”
The very first editorial in Science 1883

First references to “basic research”
1. US Congressional hearing – 1919
2. New York Times - 1922
3. US Congress, floor debate - 1923
4. Science – 1924
5. Nature – 1928
6. US President – 1946

“Basic Research” mentioned in the US Congress

Political myth has political functions (duh)
“To persuade the Congress
of the pragmatically inclined
United States to a strong
organization to support
fundamental research would
seem to be one of the minor
miracles… When talking
matters over with some of
these [people on Capitol
Hill], it was well to avoid the
word fundamental and to
use basic instead.”
Vannevar Bush 1970
Bush, V. (1970). Pieces of the Action. Morrow.

In the 1940s US, political myth of the role of science in
society moved from a focus on agriculture to physics
Wallace Bush

Political myth shapes how we interpret knowledge
In 1957 Robert Solow published his famous paper which helped him
later win the Nobel Prize and also explained that “technical change”
was responsible for up to 80% of economic growth from 1900 to 1949.
But what is this “technical change”?
It is often recast by scientists and
politicians as “technological change” or
even just R&D.
This is a misreading of economics,
history and science & technology policy.

What Solow actually wrote . . .
“I am using the phrase ‘technical change’ as a shorthand
expression for any kind of shift in the production function.
Thus slowdowns, speedups, improvements in the education of
the labor force, and all sorts of things will appear as ‘technical
change.’ ”
Solow 1957

Example #2: The “Green revolution” as political myth
 A massive famine was going to occur in the
developing world
 Hundreds of millions, maybe billions would die
 Science (and Norman Borlaug) came to the
rescue by inventing modern varieties of crop
strains, especially wheat
 The predicted famine was averted (thus
proving the predictions correct!)
 In agriculture, we therefore need more
“events” like the “Green Revolution” – e.g., in
Africa, to deal with climate change, etc.
 The “green revolution” thus provides a
generalizable model for successful innovation
policies

The “Green Revolution” as political myth
“Norman E. Borlaug, the plant scientist who did
more than anyone else in the 20th century to
teach the world to feed itself and whose work
was credited with saving hundreds of millions of
lives, died Saturday night. . .
In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was widely described as the father of the
broad agricultural movement called the Green
Revolution . . . His breeding of high-yielding
crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that
were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the
course of history.”
New York Times
13 September 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-
environment/14borlaug.html

Population crisis? Time - January 1960

US Policies of the 1950s and 1960s
•US Cold War Policy & India
•Agricultural overproduction in the US
•Communist expansion in South Asia
•US Food Aid to India started in 1951
•China border dispute and invasion of India in 1962
•Congressional skepticism
•India often did not play along, offered criticism
N. Cullather, 2007. Hunger and Containment: How India Became
“Important” in US Cold War Strategy, India Review, 6:59-90.

1965: Lyndon Johnson’s Political Problem
•LBJ wanted to continue food
shipments to India for reasons of
both domestic and foreign policy
•US Congress was skeptical, in
part due to India’s criticisms of
the US and closeness with Russia
•Solution:
“through the fall of 1965
[Johnson] developed the theme of
a world food crisis brought on by
runaway population growth.”
Cullather 2010

There was one problem . . .
Source: The Times (of London) 22 February 1966
Cullather (2010)
“Journalists are coming in from
abroad to report a historic calamity
which is not taking place, public
collections are being made in Italy
and Holland for example, for
famine relief here . . .”

A famine narrative was created -- 1966
In March, 1966 US and Indian
leaders met in Washington to
align their stories. The US
explained that what emerged
had to meet conflicting
criteria:
“it shouldn't be such as to
frighten people in India, but
on the other hand the need
must be seen to be real in the
United States.”
Continued . . .
Sources: Cullather (2010), US State Department Archives
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v25/d308

A famine narrative was created -- 1966
… The Indian delegation noted that:
“The situation in the United States is
that to get a response, the need must
be somewhat overplayed”
and
“the case should be presented as this
being the year in which famine was
averted.”
Sources: Cullather (2010), US State Department Archives
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v25/d308

Scientists joined the bandwagon
In March 1966, The New York Times
reported on the fears of atmospheric
scientists who pointed to India as an
example that we were “losing the
race” to feed the world, and raised
the specter of population control.
Clark, E. 1966. Scientists fear nature may win, New York Times,
March 15

National Academy of Sciences, April 1966
• Organized and paid for by the
Rockefeller Foundation
• Introductory remarks: “there is a
growing consensus that the
combination of annual deficits in
world food supplies and onrushing
population increase could spell
disaster for the eventual attainment
of world peace and prosperity”
• Overt political orientation
• Focus on population control (Revelle)

“The fate of India . . .”
An assembly of leading food and
agricultural specialists was told today
that unless the problem of feeding
underdeveloped countries could be
solved, “the fate of all men will be the
fate of India.”
The speaker was Dr. Roger Revelle,
head of the Center for Population
Studies at Harvard University . . .
April 26, 1966

The Powerful Ideas of a Defunct Economist
“the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both
when they are right and when they are wrong, are more
powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world
is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe
themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual
influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct
economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are
distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years
back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly
exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.
Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the
field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who
are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty
years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians
and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the
newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests,
which are dangerous for good or evil.”
General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
J. M. Keynes, 1936

A First Idealized Mode of Experts in Democratic Politics
Experts (scientists) Political
Myth
Public and Politicians Political and
policy outcomes
IDEAS OF THE DEFUNCT ECONOMIST
1
Two examples:
• Example #1 -- “Basic research”
• Example #2 -- “The “Green Revolution”

A Second Idealized Mode of Experts in Democratic Politics
Myth
Public and Politicians
Experts (scientists)
Political and
policy outcomes
DEMOCRATIZATION OF SCIENCE
Political
Myth
Political and
policy outcomes
1
2
“creating institutions and practices that fully
incorporate principles of accessibility,
transparency, and accountability. It means
considering the societal outcomes of research at
least as attentively as the scientific and
technological outputs. It means insisting that in
addition to being rigorous, science be popular,
relevant, and participatory.”
Guston, D. H. (2004). Forget politicizing
science. Let's democratize science!. Issues
in Science and Technology, 21(1), 25-28.

Democratization of Science
We are all familiar with:
• Democratization of science
• Public engagement
• Science communication
• ELSI initiatives
• Stakeholder engagement
• Science cafes
• Usable science
• Citizen science
• Participatory science
• Mode 2
• Criteria of societal impact
• Technology assessment

Piketty 2018 on the politics
of the “highly educated”
Note: In what follows please
beware of some unavoidable
imprecision in categorization:
• scientists
• experts
• highly educated
• PhD recipients
Has a 3rd mode of engagement emerged?

Piketty 2018 on educational inequalities
Piketty, T. 2018. Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality and
the Changing Structure of Political Conflict
(Evidence from France, Britain and the US, 1948-2017), World Inequality
Lab, 22nd March. http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2018.pdf
The main mechanism that I have in mind is the following:
educational expansion, and in particular the rise of
higher education, creates new forms of inequality
cleavages and political conflict that did not exist at
the time of primary and secondary education. For a
long time, the main issue in terms of education policy was
to generalize access to primary and secondary education.
Such a policy agenda is naturally inclusive and egalitarian:
one can argue that the objective is to bring the totality of a
given generation to this level. Once everybody has reached
primary and secondary schooling, things look markedly
different: it is difficult to imagine a situation where
the totality of a generation becomes university
graduates; and even if this happens it is hard to
think of a world where everybody in a generation
obtains a PhD, at least in the foreseeable future. In
other words, the rise of higher education forces
societies and political forces to deal with inequality
in a new way, and to some extent to accept certain
educational inequalities on a permanent basis, which
can lead to complicated political cleavages.

Highly educated vote progressively more left

In US: More Education = More Democratic

Who are the highly educated?
Compared to the less highly educated, let’s look at some
evidence . . .
1. More left (Piketty 2018)
a. Also FT (2016, 2017a, 2017b)
b. Goodwin and Heath (2016)
c. this talk
2. Higher income (Edsall 2018)
3. More wealth accumulation (this talk)
4. More ideologically prejudiced (Henry and Napier 2017)
5. More biased in information evaluation (Liu 2017)
6. Concentrated geographically (Florida, 2010)
7. Over-represented in elected offices (Ipsos 2015a, 2015b)
8. but, crucially, still small in absolute numbers (this talk)

https://www.ft.com/content/62d782d6-31a7-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a
1. More left (FT 2017)
France: 2017 more education correlated with Macron vote

Goodwin, M. J., & Heath, O. (2016). The 2016
referendum, Brexit and the left behind: an
aggregate‐level analysis of the result. The
Political Quarterly, 87(3), 323-332.
“The vote for Brexit was
delivered by the ‘left behind’-
social groups that are united
by a general sense of
insecurity, pessimism and
marginalization, who do not
feel as though elites, whether
in Brussels or Westminster,
share their values, represent
their interests and genuinely
empathize with their intense
angst about rapid social,
economic and cultural change.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9fc71e40-
b015-11e6-a37c-f4a01f1b0fa1
1. More left (FT 2016, Goodwin and Heath 2016)
UK: University degree “strongest correlation” in Brexit vote

https://www.ft.com/dutchvoting
1. More left (FT 2017b for 2012 Dutch election)
The Netherlands: Higher education correlated with lower PVV vote
🇳🇱

1. More left (FT 2016)
US: Since 2012, less education correlated with R swing
https://www.ft.com/content/9fc71e40-b015-11e6-a37c-f4a01f1b0fa1

District of Columbia 30.0
Massachusetts 17.1
Maryland 16.9
Connecticut 16.6
Virginia 14.9
New York 14.4
Vermont 13.9
New Jersey 13.8
Colorado 13.7
Rhode Island 12.8
New Hampshire 12.6
Illinois 12.0
Delaware 11.4
California 11.3
Oregon 11.3
Washington 11.3
New Mexico 11.2
Alaska 10.9
Kansas 10.9
Pennsylvania 10.9
Minnesota 10.8
Hawaii 10.5
Georgia 10.4
Utah 10.4
Arizona 10.2
Michigan 10.0
Maine 9.8
Missouri 9.7
Nebraska 9.7
Florida 9.6
North Carolina 9.3
Ohio 9.3
Wisconsin 9.3
Montana 9.2
South Carolina 9.1
Texas 9.0
Kentucky 8.9
Alabama 8.6
Tennessee 8.6
Indiana 8.4
North Dakota 8.4
Idaho 8.2
Iowa 8.2
South Dakota 8.1
Oklahoma 7.9
Wyoming 7.8
Mississippi 7.6
Louisiana 7.5
Nevada 7.5
West Virginia 7.3
Arkansas 7.2
1. More left (this talk)
US: More advanced degrees in a state correlated with Trump vote

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/opinion/dem
ocracy-inequality-thomas-piketty.html
2. Higher income (Edsall 2018)

3. More wealth accumulation (this talk) – in dollars
US: Total annual income by terminal degree, high school vs. PhD

3. More wealth accumulation (this talk) – 1991 =100
US: Total annual income by terminal degree, high school vs. PhD

Henry, P. J., & Napier, J. L. (2017). Education is Related to
Greater Ideological Prejudice. Public Opinion Quarterly, 81(4),
930-942.
4. More ideologically prejudiced

”. . . as attitude strength
increased, people were more likely
to praise the scientific study that
supported their position and
denigrate the study that
challenged their position. . . Across
multiple political topics and
controlling for multiple forms of
knowledge and cognitive styles,
participants were especially
biased in how they evaluated
scientific evidence if they had
strong attitudes toward and
claimed superior knowledge of
the topic of interest."
Liu, B. S. (2017). The expertise paradox: Examining the
role of different aspects of expertise in biased evaluation of
scientific information. University of California, Irvine.
5. More biased in information evaluation

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/wh
ere-the-super-brains-are/62232/
6. Concentrated geographically (Florida 2010)

https://spotlight.ipsos-na.com/news/education-
levels-among-u-s-elected-officials/
7. Over-represented in elected office (US, Ipsos 2015a)

https://spotlight.ipsos-na.com/news/education-levels-among-u-s-politicians/
7. Overrepresented in elected offices (US, Ipsos 2015b)

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Degrees-in-the-Statehouse/127797?cid=rclink
7. Overrepresented in elected offices (US, CHE 2011)

The political rise of the Brahmin Left?
2004
2018
2012

A Possible New Mode of Experts in Democratic Politics?
Myth
Experts (scientists)
Experts (scientists) Public and Politicians
Political and
policy outcomes
DEMOCRATIZATION OF SCIENCE
POWER POLITICS OF THE BRAHMIN LEFT
Political
Myth
Political
Myth
Political and
policy outcomes
Political and
policy outcomes
1
2
3

US academics were once politically diverse
Eitzen, D. S., & Maranell, G. M. (1968). The political party
affiliation of college professors. Social Forces, 47(2), 145-153.
Spaulding, C. B., & Turner, H. A. (1968). Political
orientation and field of specialization among college
professors. Sociology of Education, 247-262.
1959-1964

By 2009 science (AAAS members) lacked political diversity
Source: Matt Nisbet, Northeastern University (2011)
9 to 1, Ds to Rs
1.5 to 1, Ds to Rs

Source: Matt Nisbet, Northeastern University
2009

Has science become a partisan issue?
Ross, A. D., Struminger, R., Winking, J., & Wedemeyer-
Strombel, K. R. (2018). Science as a Public Good:
Findings From a Survey of March for Science
Participants. Science Communication, 40(2), 228-245.

Is there risk in scientific authoritarianism?
In many democracies, including the US and
UK, migrants are required to pass
government-sanctioned civic tests in order to
gain citizenship. So, in this vein, why not
give all voters a test of their knowledge?
This would ensure minimum standards
that should lead to higher-quality
decision-making by the electorate. The
message this would send is that voting
is not just a right, but one that has to be
earned. Such testing would not only lead to a
better-informed electorate, but also to voters
who are more actively engaged.
Dambisa Moyo, 2 May 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/02/dem
ocracy-crisis-plan-trump-brexit-system-politicans-voters

Disenfranchisement based on educational attaintment?
“excluding the bottom 80 percent of
white voters from voting might be
just what poor blacks need”
J. Brennan, Against Democracy, 2016
Hobbits Hooligans
Vulcans

Planetary boundaries as political mythmaking?
“Ultimately, there will need to be
an institution (or institutions)
operating, with authority, above
the level of individual countries
to ensure that the planetary
boundaries are respected. In
effect, such an institution, acting on
behalf of humanity as a whole, would
be the ultimate arbiter of the
myriad trade-offs that need to be
managed as nations and groups of
people jockey for economic and social
advantage. It would, in essence,
become the global referee on the
planetary playing field. “
Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Robert Costanza, 2011. How
Defining Planetary Boundaries Can Transform Our Approach to
Growth, Solutions:2:59-65.
https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/how-defining-
planetary-boundaries-can-transform-our-approach-to-growth/

Are scientists as partisan social media warriors helping?
Suhay, E., Bello-Pardo, E., & Maurer, B. (2018). The Polarizing
Effects of Online Partisan Criticism: Evidence from Two
Experiments. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(1),
95-115.
“online partisan criticism likely has contributed to rising
affective and social polarization in recent years between
Democrats and Republicans in the United States, and
perhaps between partisan and ideological group members
in other developed democracies as well”

Populism as perceived status threat
“the 2016 election was not about economic hardship. Instead, it
was about dominant groups that felt threatened by change and a
candidate who took advantage of that trend by positioning himself
closer than his opponent to Americans’ positions on status threat-
related issues.”
Mutz, D. C. (2018). Status threat, not
economic hardship, explains the 2016
presidential vote. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 201718155.

“I love the poorly educated” Donald Trump Feb 2016
“In this election, education represented group status threat rather
than being left behind economically. Those who felt that the hierarchy was
being upended—with whites discriminated against more than blacks,
Christians discriminated against more than Muslims, and men discriminated
against more than women—were most likely to support Trump.”
Mutz, D. C. (2018). Status threat,
not economic hardship, explains the
2016 presidential vote. Proceedings
of the National Academy of
Sciences, 201718155.
See also:
Grossmann, M., & Thaler, D. (2018).
Mass–Elite Divides in Aversion to
Social Change and Support for
Donald Trump. American Politics
Research, 1532673X18772280.

Does political myth matter? Yes.
“A symbolic consensus rests on the mutual attribution of significance
to a symbol and on common affective sentiments toward it—not on
agreement about its substantive meaning. A symbolic consensus
is viable and can sustain the political community only as
long as the content attributed to politically significant
symbols is not brought into question. People may be talking
past one another when these symbols are used, but this is of little
consequence as long as their referent is, for most, remote, abstract,
ambiguously defined, or poorly understood.”
Source: Elder, C., D., and R. W. Cobb.
1983. The political uses of symbols.
London: Longman Publishing.

We laugh at, mock and disenfranchise the passengers
wanting to decide when gets to fly the plane at some risk
https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/908660195869515776
@WillMcPhail

War on science? Anti-Science? Post-truth?

Has the US public lost confidence in the scientific community?
scientific
community

Public support (US) for academics is unstable
http://www.people-
press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-
divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/

Can the highly educated play power politics and win? (No)
 We are rich, and getting richer
 We are in control of governments and bureaucracy
 We have written “political myth” for centuries
 … but we are small in numbers, US case below
 Democracies ultimately run on votes, not advanced degrees
 We engage power
politics at some risk
 Trump, Brexit may
reflect status
concerns among
broad parts of the
electorate
 We can work to
allay those concerns
or heighten them,
our choice

We are the hegemon
at AAAS 2016

Thank you 🙏
 pielke@colorado.edu
 Blogs
– http://thehonestbroker.org
– http://theclimatefix.wordpress.com
– http://leastthing.blogspot.com
 About me: http://rogerpielkejr.com/
2007 2010 2011 2014 2016

Scientific Authority and Political Myth

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