Slashdot Mirror
Smithsonian 'Toned Down the Science' In Climate Change Exhibit
An anonymous reader writes "According to an International Herald Tribune article, the Smithsonian pre-emptively toned down the scientific content of a climate change exhibit put into place last year. The changes, including removal of scientist conclusions and muddying of displayed data, were made to ensure that the exhibit would not offend the Congress or the White House. Pressure brought to bear by Institute officials resulted in the resignation of Robert Sullivan, a sixteen year veteran of the organization. 'This is not the first time the Smithsonian has been accused of taking politics into consideration. The congressionally chartered institution scaled down a 1995 exhibit of the restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after veterans complained it focused too much on the damage and deaths. Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.'"
Are you guys still spreading misinformation about the hockey stick?!
It's 2007...
"...the script...was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans..." Imagine that! Uncertainty in science. If you want certainty, get a shaman/priest/rabbi.
Yes, science has uncertainty. The problem is in injecting more uncertainty than the scientific studies originally concluded.
"...officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data..." Why would they do that? Don't they know the great unwashed can't be trusted to draw trhe "proper" inferences?!?!!?!!
Hell, even other scientists have trouble looking at a graph and drawing conclusions from it, unless they're experts in that specific field. That's why scientific papers and scientific talks have words to go along with all those pretty graphs.
Look at all of the abuses of science that go on in Slashdot global warming threads when you take away the interpretation.
Raw data: graph showing CO2 increases following temperature increases, instead of leading them
Implied conclusion: CO2 doesn't cause temperature increases
Missing scientific interpretation: temperatures cause CO2 increases, which in turn amplify and prolong the original temperature increase
Actual scientific conclusion: CO2 does cause temperature increases (and vice versa!)
Raw data: graph showing CO2 increasing smoothly in the 20th century, but temperatures falling mid-century
Implied conclusion: CO2 doesn't cause temperature increases
Missing scientific interpretation: there were non-CO2 cooling effects in the mid-20th century, including heavy air pollution and a brief spike in volcanism
Actual scientific conclusion: CO2 does cause temperature increases (and other manmade and natural factors also influence the climate)
Raw data: graph showing temperatures and solar intensity increasing
Implied conclusion: solar brightening causes global warming
Missing scientific interpretation: the increase in solar intensity is real but too small to produce the observed warming, and did not increase at a rate similar to the increased rate of late 20th century warming
Actual scientific conclusion: solar brightening can only account for a small minority of the global warming
Raw data: graph showing Earth and Pluto temperatures increasing
Implied conclusion: solar brightening causes global warming everywhere in the solar system
Missing scientific interpretation: see above, and the fact that Pluto has recently been unusually close to the Sun
Actual scientific conclusion: solar brightening isn't responsible for global warming on Earth or Pluto
There is nothing wrong with explaining how scientists interpret data. The data themselves only give part of the picture, especially to non-scientists who don't know as much about the issues.