My google-fu is failing me but I seem to recall some controversy over the ‘nuclear winter’ warnings of the early to mid 1980’s. Namely that a famous scientist later admitted that he had fudged the figures in order to present a more appalling scenario than could actually be proven, and that he did this because he believed that the political leadership and population would not act unless he did so. Basically he believed the greater good (prevention of global thermonuclear war) meant he was justified in presenting a not-entirely-accurate scenario.
What about scientists these days doing the same thing with global warning, or on a slightly different note (and absolutely hypothetical before someone knee jerks) a researcher or researchers discovered hard evidence that IQ really did vary between races or another politically incorrect finding, would they be justified in hiding or covering up the research in the name of the greater good of harmony and equality?
Well, the classic example of a morally-justified lie is lying to the SS about hiding Jews in your attic.
And there’s even a scientific example of this: Germany’s atomic bomb project was going nowhere fast, and after the war, Heisenberg (who was Germany’s lone big-name scientist by that point) claimed that it was because he was deliberately sabotaging the project from within. If so, then that would be an example of a scientist lying within his field, falsifying data to reach wrong conclusions, and yet one that almost everyone would consider morally acceptable.
This is a vague memory so do not hold me to it but IIRC in WWII German scientists miscalculated how much uranium would be needed to make an atomic bomb (they came up with something like 10x more than necessary) and so the search to make an atomic bomb was given a lower priority since getting that much would be problematic.
I think it was suggested that this was not a mistake but done on purpose.
Anyway, true or not I think it can serve as a good hypothetical for this question.
First off, I don’t think Carl Sagan was lying … he honestly believed this and there’s no scientific reason to say it was a complete and knowing falsehood in 1983 … so it wasn’t a lie …
So … is there a debate about prominent scientists being disallowed to enter the public advocacy arena? … that would run afoul of several of the First Amendment rights … therefore scientists can say whatever the hell they want to … it’s the gullible public that’s the problem …
Linus Pauling claimed Vitamin C could cure the common cold while he was heavily invested in the orange juice industry … did he lie, did he advance health … or was he just trying to get rich? …
Very bad example. In reality about one hundred years they figured out the mechanism and then about 60 years ago scientists figured out that it was a very flawed assumption to think that natural sinks of CO2 and other global warming gases were going to save us from treating out atmosphere as a sewer.
Now the current state of misinformation out there shows that there are however scientists and powerful interests that did lie or are grossly deluded into thinking that they should continue to misled people into the idea that we should remain as complacent as in the good old days.
So, in general a bad example, but there are good examples from the ones denying the issue: As an example of misleading by omission, the history of fossil fuel scientists telling only their bosses that most scientists were correct, but the powerful interests “forgetting” their conclusions.
Yes I believe it was Carl Sagan I was thinking of, I seemed to recall he had later admitted he had if not stretched the data to support his conclusions but perhaps chose to present the ‘worse case’ scenario on thinner evidence than present a more probable lesser impact. However it appears I may be conflating it with something else. Still it stands as a hypothetical example.
I admit I put the OP together quickly this morning before leaving home, ‘global warming’ just struck me as an issue in the contemporary consciousness in the same way the threat of nuclear war had been in the 1980’s.
I’m still giving him a pass on this one … stretching the data to present an extreme conclusion is still within the scientific realm … sometimes insight can be had by looking at the extremes … Exxon falsified data to deceive the public … Carl Sagan wasn’t trying to deceive, rather to educate … he got a few things wrong, corrected them, and the rest of everything he said still stands …
Carl Sagan touched upon climate change … again he gets a pass, nothing about climate change alarmism that is deceptive … it’s a proper scientific position to hold and doesn’t involve any lying …
Piltdown Man is how science lies … and science is a terrible liar …
In some situations, yes, especially if it’s a really big issue with major consequences. However, there will always be people who will too quickly latch on to that, and use that to justify lying for even relatively small or mundane purposes.
However, a lesson should not be lost here, one should not wonder any more why many are being misled by dubious sources of information on that issue. There are powerful interests that even today do want most people to think like that.
So, yes, it is very important, for the OP issue at hand; to notice that scientists with very flawed reasoning or way past their time (engineers seem to fall more into this) that think that they do understand an issue, are influencing very bad choices of people in positions of power. They are not the proper experts.
One has to realize that very few skeptical scientists get a lot of attention regardless if they are wrong because powerful interests (in the media too) like what they say.
(The sad tale of scientist Dr Seitz, and his almost criminal defence of the tobacco industry and then against climate science)
One important thing to keep in mind is that indeed scientists like Dr Seitz also told themselves that they were doing something “for the common good” but they did not notice (and do not notice now) that it was really their common political biases talking.
Ignoring the morals, it’s a bad idea because scientists try to duplicate others results. If a scientist publishes the terrible findings that they’ve found regarding hazard X, then other scientists will likely try to duplicate the experiment and see if they’ve found the same results. If they do find the same or similar results, then the position is strengthened. But if they find much lesser results, that show that the original scientist was exaggerating or even lying, then everyone might dismiss the hazard altogether.
I need to point out (without unfortunately adding anything else useful to this interesting discussion) that the word “skeptical” in this post requires scare quotes around it for the post to make sense - the people being described are the opposite of skeptical.
Actually a fascinating story. The two scientists who made critical discovery were Jewish emigres in Britain, force out of German by the Nazis. When they discovered that with enriched uranium the quantities required go down by order of magnitude (from tons to grams) they kept the fact secret and only shared with the powers that be via a memo that kick started both the US and British nuclear bomb programs.
The Nazis never made that logical leap, know they didn’t as by the time Hiroshima almost all the Nazi nuclear scientists were all in Allied custody and being wiretapped. So we have recordings of they private conversations where they clearly still though tons of fissile material must have somehow been delivered to Japan.
More relevant to the OP is what happened at the start of the war. The idea of an atomic bomb was on everyone’s mind. And Neils Bohr actually tried to convince Heisenberg that there should be world wide “Physicists strike” top stop it from happening. Obviously a doomed concept but he took it seriously.
Science is a house of cards. People build on the research and results of those who went before - ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ - but if one card is shown to be false, then the whole edifice collapses.
Well, the classic example of a morally-justified lie is lying to the SS about hiding Jews in your attic.
[/quote but that’s not science.
I’d argue that that isn’t science either, but technology - the application of science.
How was he sabotaging the effort? By creating false data, or by deliberately ignoring approaches (uranium enrichment, for all I know) that he knew could work better than the current approach?
There’s a difference between deliberately sabotaging research promulgated by an evil government with potential horrific consequences (i.e. nuclear weapons research by a totalitarian regime), and lying/fudging to prop up work that’s perceived to have a great humanitarian benefit.
I’d still argue that the latter is totally unacceptable, even if it’s “for our own good”. It becomes a great temptation in instances where the opposition habitually promulgates falsehoods and distortions (climate change deniers and antivaxers come to mind), but once you get caught telling whoppers, you lose public trust and the job of convincing people to support you gets a lot harder.
