Scientific credentials include academic degrees, institutional affiliations, scholarly publications, grants, and awards. They are used to establish expertise, entitling one's opinions on scientific issues to special attention from professional colleagues, policy makers, and the public.

In light of disagreements about the existence, causes, and importance of global warming, there has been debate over whose opinions should be taken seriously.

Scientists are frequently invited to speak outside their field, especially by journalists who may see little difference (for their purposes) between one expert and another. As citizens, scientists of course have views about various subjects on which they are not experts, but they (or others) may exaggerate the weight of these opinions.

The only earned degree of Freeman Dyson, known by some as the best physicist never to have received a Nobel prize, was an undergraduate bachelor's degree in mathematics (he has been awarded numerous honorary degrees). Despite his many accomplishments, including early recognition of the possibilities for offsetting carbon emissions through forest management, Dyson has complained that they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models . . . do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests.

Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg complained that when he wrote Verdens sande tilstand (1998; The Skeptical Environmentalist, 2001) his book was reviewed in Scientific American by four scientists without his having an opportunity to reply (Bowen, 2007). He responded online. In April, 2002, the journal's editor, John Rennie, replied to the critique, emphasizing that Lomborg's lack of credentials as an environmental scientist does not disqualify him from making an environmental argument, but it does legitimately bear on whether his knowledge of the field and his paraphrasing of its findings can be trusted.

To his critics, Lomborg was a scientific neophyte who drew misleading conclusions because he failed to consider the full range of facts a professionally qualified environmental scientist would know. In Rennie's view, Lomborg's book was "not really a scientific work so much as a polemic." Lomborg's supporters saw Scientific American's dismissal of his work as motivated by rejection of his "politically incorrect" views. The controversy made Lomborg famous, and in 2004 Time magazine named him one of the world's hundred most influential people. Prominence in the media--including radio, television, movies, publishing, journalism, and the Internet-- can create the appearance of scientific authority. Popularity, influenced by criteria such as plausibility and likableness, supports political influence.

Popular misconceptions about scientific credentials have been exploited by all sides of the culture wars. Scientists such as Lomborg and Dyson are alternately seen as experts or interlopers. Former NASA climatologist Roy Spencer, also out of sympathy with the Kyoto consensus, wrote, Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world--possibly none--have a sufficiently thorough, "big picture" understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem (Dessler, 2006).

Some experts believe people must radically change their lives to deal with global warming, while others think little change is required. Some advocate adopting a precautionary principle and acting in light of worst-case scenarios, while others say an excess of caution is unfair to the disadvantaged. Those who dislike business as usual, for independent reasons, may find a lower level of confidence (about the probability and results of global warming) a satisfactory basis for change. Those who support business as usual will demand more justification before abandoning accustomed ways. With global warming, as with other large issues, it is easy to see the glass as now half full, now half empty--when, in fact, it is both.

References

1. Bowen, Mark. Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Surprising Truth About Global Warming. New York: Penguin, 2007.

2. Dessler, Andrew E., and Edward A. Parson. The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

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