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Index
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- Ethics and Science
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- 05 November 2012
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- 25 October 2012, pp 347-370
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Preface
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- Ethics and Science
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- 25 October 2012, pp xiii-xviii
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Summary
Preface
This volume aims to introduce students of science and philosophy to issues that are sometimes thought peripheral to real science or real philosophy. As an introduction, it necessarily simplifies, hopefully in a manner that stimulates further reflection. With regard to those who doubt the centrality of ethics to science or science to ethics, our claim for centrality is argued from multiple perspectives. But most importantly, given the central influence of science on the character of the contemporary world and of ethics in human affairs, not to reflect on the ethics–science relationship is to limit self-understanding in the technoscientific human condition.
A brief word is in order here about how we conceive of both science and ethics as actors on the social stage. As for science, since the 1970s the interdisciplinary field of science, technology, and society (STS) studies has been arguing that science cannot properly be understood solely as a cognitive enterprise or method of knowledge production. Science is situated in economic, cultural, and political contexts that it both reflects and influences. Science and society co-construct each other through ideas and scientifically based technologies in ways that make ethics all the more relevant, even crucial, to the self-understanding of scientists. From an STS perspective, science must be recognized as technoscience, a view implicit in many of the arguments to be explored.
11 - Science and ideational culture
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 268-289
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As we saw in the previous two chapters, science is more than the practice of scientists, and ethics is an issue not only within the scientific community but also for the larger society within which modern science exists. Those chapters, however, were largely limited to politics. This chapter highlights interactions between science and culture. The term “ideational culture” denotes something much broader than politics and policies, namely, the attitudes, values, goals, practices, and beliefs that comprise a way of life and a way of ordering and making sense of experience. Science entails certain methods and practices for obtaining knowledge, as well as a set of theories or ideas. Yet these are not the only methods or theories to be found in human cultures, and science finds itself constantly interacting with the other methods and theories prominent in the contemporary world. The story of the Templeton Foundation illustrates the issues that arise when we adopt this wider perspective on science and its relationship to other spheres of society. This chapter then goes on to map four modes of interaction between science and culture. The final chapter considers the professional ethics of engineers, which is an important bridge between scientists and material culture.
Setting the stage: the Templeton Foundation
John Marks Templeton was born in 1912 in Winchester, Tennessee, not far from where John Scopes in 1925 was tried for teaching evolution in the public schools. A lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church, Templeton thus grew up in a culture in which the relation between science and religion took dramatic form as a conflict between biblical theology and the theory of evolution. He attended Yale University, earned a degree in economics (1934), and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. An extremely successful career in financial investment led to the creation of Templeton Growth Ltd. (1954).
1 - Introduction and overview
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- Ethics and Science
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- 25 October 2012, pp 1-22
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This book differs from many other introductions in philosophy, and even more so from those in science. It does not so much summarize existing knowledge – although it does some of that – as attempt to open a space for critical reflection on a spectrum of questions that were rarely asked until the late twentieth century. Philosophy and ethics deal with perennial questions, but here they are associated with new issues that nevertheless promise to become perennial in a world increasingly dependent on science and technology. By means of case references and interpretative arguments, the chapters that follow invite philosophical attention to the relationship between ethics and science, on the part of students and practitioners in the fields of both philosophy and science. The introductory chapter provides a quick intellectual geography of the terrain to be explored.
Setting the stage: the Manhattan Project
On August 2, 1939, Nobel Prize physicist Albert Einstein signed a letter (written by the Austro-Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd) addressed to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The world’s preeminent scientist felt a moral responsibility to inform the president of recent developments in nuclear physics. Scientific advances had raised the possibility of creating nuclear chain reactions that could unleash vast amounts of energy. This new knowledge might lead to the construction of bombs more powerful than any previously imagined, and Einstein concluded that Nazi Germany might already be pursuing such weapons. Roosevelt responded with an initial allocation of US$6,000 for preliminary research. This was the beginning of what became the “Manhattan Project,” a massive, secret effort by the United States to build the atomic bomb. The project eventually employed 160,000 people working at centers in remote locations including Hanford, Washington; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The push to build “the gadget” (as the scientist-engineers called it) was the most expensive research and development (R&D) project to that point in history.
12 - Science applied
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 290-318
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The final chapter once again expands appreciation of the ethical dimensions of science, this time into the domain of engineering. Expansion is justified insofar as engineering is a kind of applied science – although that is not all it is. Additionally, all scientific research is increasingly dependent on engineered instrumentation to form the interactive technoscience that founds the contemporary human-built world. Scientific engineers who have been at the forefront of constructing this world have also been leaders in ethical reflection on professional responsibilities. Codes of ethics for engineers, for instance, anticipated codes of ethics for scientists by more than half a century. Considering the ethics–engineering relationship is thus useful both to help place the ethics–science relationship in perspective and to stimulate further reflection on that relationship.
Setting the stage: the Challenger and Columbia disasters
After the Manhattan Project, one of the most iconic and important fusions of science and engineering was the US Apollo program, launched in a 1961 speech by President John F. Kennedy when he announced the goal of “landing a man on the moon” by the end of the decade. Scientists and engineers worked together to design a vehicle and sociotechnical system capable of accomplishing a politically defined goal. The Cold War successor to the Apollo program was created in 1972 when President Richard Nixon announced that NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) would develop a permanent space station and reusable shuttle to provide regular service between it and Earth. The original vision was of a shuttle that would be, not just politically but also commercially, beneficial and provide regular service by the mid-1980s.
5 - Research ethics II
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 125-155
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Following a review of some historical cases of fraud and misconduct in science, Chapter 4 considered key elements of GSP (good scientific practice) or RCR (responsible conduct of research). Yet well before public and professional attention was directed toward GSP or RCR in general the ethical practice of research had become an even more public and controversial issue in relation to two special types of scientific work, those having to do with the use of humans and animals in research. Interestingly, the issue of the ethical treatment of animals actually preceded that of the proper treatment of human beings, at least as a popular issue. Because of its greater salience today, however, it is appropriate to deal first with scientific research involving humans before turning, in the following chapter, to a discussion of research involving nonhuman animals.
Setting the stage: clinical trials in developing countries
One of the most human-intensive areas of science is that of experimental studies or trials of medical therapies. There are many more types of research with humans, including biological and genetic, psychological and social scientific, and even pedagogical research. But clinical trials research raises most issues in the most intensified form, and it is in the biomedical area that ethical standards have been developed and then extended to other types of research on human beings. The single most salient issue not raised in the biomedical area itself concerns the appropriateness of extending or adapting the standards of biomedical research to biological, genetic, psychological, and social scientific research involving human subjects.
3 - Science and its norms
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 66-86
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As indicated in Chapter 2, norms are forms of behavior expected by and constitutive of a group; ethics involves an effort at critical reflection on such norms. These norms can be implicit or explicit, the outgrowth of custom and tradition or the outcome of rational decision. This chapter gives a slightly more expansive account of the norms constitutive of science, in preparation for considerations of the complexities of their practical realization. It concerns the norms of science in a general sense – as these have developed historically and become implicitly constitutive of science as a knowledge-producing activity. It argues for a foundational distinction between myth (narrative) and science (nonnarrative rationality) and highlights the institutionalization of modern science that began shortly after Galileo Galilei’s encounter with the church. The final sections survey epistemological and social norms intrinsic to the conduct of science.
Setting the stage: Galileo and the church
In the pantheon of science, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), Isaac Newton (1643–1727), and Albert Einstein (1879–1955) are often taken to exemplify the ideal. But given his historical priority and conflict with church authority, it is Galileo who is commonly thought to be the most heroic figure – and thus to present in vivid form the general norms of science, even insofar as he was forced to betray them.
Frontmatter
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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4 - Research ethics I
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 87-124
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Chapter 3 introduced the epistemic and social or behavioral norms in science as a method of knowledge production and as a social institution. These norms were described in general terms by the sociologist Robert Merton as communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism (known by the acronym CUDOS). In the last quarter of the twentieth century, questions arose in society and among a new generation of social scientists about the extent to which the normative ideals of science actually govern scientific practice. To what extent are scientists really living up to the normative ideals that science seems to espouse? Chapters 4, 5, and 6 examine various realities of science that pose challenges to its ideal normative structure. The present chapter digs into the details of operationalizing the norms of science and considers some of the scandals that have occurred as a result of their breach.
There are numerous ethical issues associated with scientific research, which presents a challenge for organizing them into a logical framework. Alphabetically they range from avoiding conflicts of interest and honesty in reporting results to protecting human subjects and recognizing intellectual property. Positively good scientific practices (GSP) or the responsible conduct of research (RCR) are often summarized under the rubric of scientific integrity or responsibility. Negatively, the official US governmental definition of scientific misconduct identifies FFP (fraud, falsification, and plagiarism) as the most egregious failures. Sometimes specifics are analyzed in terms of professional responsibilities to oneself as a scientist, to the scientific community, or to society as a whole. Another common organizer considers ethical issues in relation to the three overlapping, iterative moments of planning, conducting, and reporting research. This chapter adopts a version of the last organizer and distinguishes anticipating, doing, and disseminating research. But it should be recognized that any such framework is to some extent simply a matter of convenience rather than a natural kind. What is most important is to call attention to a number of specific possible experiences in which there will be ambiguities and dilemmas, temptations to cut corners, or opportunities to exercise strength of character. Critically analyzing these experiences helps to cultivate and reinforce appropriate institutional norms in the practice of science.
7 - The science of ethics
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 174-196
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Ethical theories (as introduced in Chapter 2) begin with descriptions of behaviors that are considered moral and seek to explain why they are so considered. As such ethical theories also provide perspectives on the norms incorporated into science as a social institution, mapped out in the sociology of science (Chapter 3). Additionally, theories provide different frameworks for examining and promoting institutional norms in the practice of science (Chapters 4, 5, and 6). But the relationship between ethics and science can also be reversed. It is possible to ask not only what ethics has to say about science, but also what science has to say about ethics. Science can be used to try to respond to the “why” question about behavioral norms. The present chapter thus considers efforts to use, for example, decision science, evolution, and psychology to give scientific explanations for human behavior and some associated moral beliefs. Thus, whereas the previous three chapters focused on the ethical assessment of issues related to the practice of science, the present chapter turns to considerations of how science can be used to give an account of these practices.
Setting the stage: sexual harassment among scientists
In a 2009 issue of the peer-refereed scientific journal PLoS ONE, Min Tan (from the Guandong Entomological Institute, Guangzhou, China) and colleagues published a study of the practice of fellatio among fruit bats. According to the paper abstract:
Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals.… The short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx exhibits resource defense polygyny and one sexually active male often roosts with groups of females.… Female bats often lick their mate’s penis during dorsoventral copulation. The female lowers her head to lick the shaft or the base of the male’s penis but does not lick the glans penis which has already penetrated the vagina. Males never withdrew their penis when it was licked by the mating partner. A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male’s penis during copulation and the duration of copulation. Furthermore, mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate’s penis than if fellatio was absent.
List of figures and tables
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp xii-xii
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Contents
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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Epilogue - Looking back, leaning forward
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 319-323
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By way of conclusion, let us briefly meditate on a central paradox in the development of modern science. We first state it bluntly and then unpack it a bit, but we intentionally leave loose ends to discourage any temptation to think there are easy answers.
Here is the paradox. When science was a more personal matter, conducted by amateurs on the margins of society, scientists were imbued with a more public sense of responsibility. But just when science became more public – when it was enrolled into institutions of commerce and politics, money and power – scientists shrunk their sense of responsibility. In short, just when science became a powerful social force scientists became parochial laborers, responsible only to a narrow community of disciplinary peers. This mismatch, we believe, must be rectified. Scientists must reclaim a broader moral responsibility and rediscover a sense of science as a higher calling, a vocation, and not just another job.
Ethics and Science
- An Introduction
- Adam Briggle, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012
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Who owns your genes? What does climate science imply for policy? Do corporations conduct honest research? Should we teach intelligent design? Humans are creating a new world through science. The kind of world we are creating will not simply be decided by expanding scientific knowledge, but will depend on views about good and bad, right and wrong. These visions, in turn, depend on critical thinking, cogent argument and informed judgement. In this book, Adam Briggle and Carl Mitcham help readers to cultivate these skills. They first introduce ethics and the normative structure of science and then consider the 'society of science' and its norms for the responsible conduct of research and the treatment of human and animal research subjects. Later chapters examine 'science in society' - exploring ethical issues at the interfaces of science, policy, religion, culture and technology. Each chapter features case studies and research questions to stimulate further reflection.
6 - Research ethics III
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- Ethics and Science
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- 25 October 2012, pp 156-173
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In the previous chapter, we noted an emerging consensus in the scientific community that all human beings possess intrinsic moral worth, which means they cannot be used as mere resources in order to advance scientific knowledge. There is far less consensus about the moral status of nonhuman animals, which means that there is much greater disagreement about the principles that ought to guide research involving animals. The notion of free and informed consent that played such a central role in the previous chapter is of little use in this context as perhaps no other animal is capable of comprehending a proposed research project and communicating consent. Yet this fact alone does not mean that the perspective of animals merits no consideration in the conduct of scientific research. After all, human babies and those who are severely mentally handicapped are similarly incapable of understanding and communicating. Is there anything different about nonhuman animals that might justify treating them differently in the name of scientific progress?
Setting the stage: war over animal research
Animal research can take a variety of forms, from ethological studies of animal behavior and the paradox of scientific wildlife management to veterinary medical research and the genetic engineering of animals for specific forms of experimentation. Animals in research are not only used to test drugs but have been bred and engineered to do so. Other animals are used to test, not therapies, but cosmetics. Some animals live for the most part in the wild only to be, on occasion, tranquilized, trapped, tagged, and released. Still other animals are subjects of research in their own right, with electrodes implanted in their brains to learn more about the brains of animals and by extension humans.
9 - Science and politics I
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 210-236
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Chapter 8 made the case that a book on ethics and science should include considerations of science–society relationships. Thinking must extend beyond doing things right to doing the right things. Thus the remaining chapters explore the social contexts of scientific research. Chapters 9 and 10 form a natural pair: the former covers the making of policies to guide the conduct of science, the latter deals with the use of science to guide policymaking. Notice how in the political context concern for “good science” and “certified knowledge” tends now to be discussed in terms of “sound science” (science that is good for society) and “responsible knowledge.” The final two chapters broaden the perspective beyond politics to consider the place of science in ideational culture (the world of ideas and beliefs) and material culture (technologies and their human significance).
Setting the stage: government funding of embryonic stem cell research
Early in his administration, US President George W. Bush gave a nationally televised address about government funding of research on human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). He announced a policy that would restrict federal funding of research involving ESCs. This policy for science can be used as a case study in the political governance of science, which includes state regulation and promotion of scientific research.
Appendix - Ethics codes
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 324-327
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This appendix contains information for accessing a wide range of influential science ethics codes and declarations. In addition to the websites listed, many of these documents and other related codes, statements, and declarations can be found in appendix V in volume IV (pp. 2158–2296) of Mitcham (2005).
1 Hippocratic Oath (fifth century BCE)
Ancient oath requiring physicians to swear upon a number of healing gods and to uphold certain professional ethical standards. The National Library of Medicine, nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html.
2 The Nuremberg Code (1947)
The first and perhaps most influential code outlining ethical guidelines for the treatment of human subjects of medical research. National Institutes of Health, http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html.
3 World Medical Association: Declaration of Geneva or International Code of Medical Ethics (1948)
A declaration of the physician’s dedication to the humanitarian goals of medicine. Updated in 1968, 1984, 1994, 2005, and 2006. World Medical Association, www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c8/index.html.
4 The Einstein–Russell Manifesto (1955)
A statement calling on scientists to convene a conference to consider the perils that have arisen as a result of nuclear arms proliferation. Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm.
8 - Transition
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- 25 October 2012, pp 197-209
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Following the introduction to ethical theory (Chapter 2) and an analysis of how science as a social institution involves commitments to certain behavioral norms (Chapter 3), Chapters 4 through 6 surveyed attempts to cultivate these norms. Although some behavioral norms, such as those concerning the treatment of human subjects, reflect concerns from a larger, nonscientific society, even these were cast – as is typical – in distinctly science–science-relationship terms. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 thus surveyed leading issues related to ethics in the practice of science itself, more than in the maintenance of science–society relationships. Chapter 7 provided another take on science-science discourse, the efforts of scientists themselves to explain ethics. Are such considerations enough? Might something more be required? Consider the following scenario.
Setting the stage: developing a course
Two professors at a prominent research university – one a faculty member in science, the other in philosophy – happened to have read some equivalent of Chapters 4, 5, and 6. A number of such publications exist. One widely used example is the third edition of On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research. Both faculty are intrigued and decide to collaborate to offer a course on science and ethics. The scientist thinks that ethics training would enhance the science curriculum, on top of which some GSP (good scientific practice) or RCR (responsible conduct of research) education is increasingly being required by funding agencies. The philosopher would like to step down from the ivory tower of abstract ideas and arguments and bring philosophy to bear in human affairs. What better way, in a society imbued with science, than to offer a course on ethics and science?
2 - Ethical concepts and theories
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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Following the Chapter 1 high-altitude overview of the whole terrain to be covered, Chapter 2 begins with an inventory of key concepts and theories. This is not a book focused primarily on theory. But concepts indicate a geological-like foundation for thinking important distinctions in the landscape, while theories function like maps, which can call attention to different features in a geography – features which might otherwise be overlooked or obscured. Political maps reveal jurisdictional boundaries, road maps help navigate driving distances, and “worldmapper cartograms” can resize images to give abstract phenomena graphic representation. Consider, for instance, the maps in Figures 1 and 2.
The land area map provides one perspective on the world, the population map another. Each may be described as a theory of, or way of looking at, the world. Indeed, the word “ theory ” comes from the Greek theorein, to look at or observe. Theories are ways of observing our experience. Like spectacles or glasses, ethical concepts and theories assist us in seeing the world in which we live – although they can on occasion also distort it.
10 - Science and politics II
- Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Carl Mitcham
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- Ethics and Science
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- 25 October 2012, pp 237-267
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The previous chapter explored the ethical dimensions of policies that guide the conduct of science and raised questions about scientists’ responsibilities for the broader outcomes of their work. This chapter continues to focus on science in its social context, with emphasis shifted to the role of science and scientists in informing public policy. Considering how scientists ought to contribute to political decision-making and policy formation raises ethical issues about relationships scientists have with the military, courts of law, and the media. This in turn prompts further questions about science and culture, which will be explored in the next chapter.
Setting the stage: climate change and an inconvenient heretic
No policy issue has been more dependent on input from science and more contested than that of global climate change. Global climate change refers to the ways average planetary weather patterns alter over time. For example, evidence of ancient climates shows that in the last 800,000 years the planet has seen a series of oscillations between ice ages and warmer interglacial periods. Because of the long timescales involved, climate change is not subject to direct individual experience; humans experience weather, not climate. Science is needed to identify climate change. The scientific study of climate or climatology depends in turn on interdisciplinary analysis of the atmosphere, including circulation patterns and interactions with ocean and land masses; the global monitoring of weather patterns along with human historical records; measurements of ancient atmospheric compositions from small samples of air trapped for thousands of years in glacial ice cores and dendrochronological reconstructions of changes in plant growth; and more. This scientific dependence has encouraged the assumption that defining and responding to climate change are scientific and technological in nature.