Should scientists take a stand or remain neutral?

IPCC sci­ent­ists announced as early as 2018 that a rise in glob­al sur­face tem­per­at­ure of more than 1.5°C poses a threat to human­ity. Faced with the effects of cli­mate change, the sci­entif­ic com­munity and poli­cy­makers bear a par­tic­u­lar respons­ib­il­ity, for whilst the danger is widely recog­nised, many uncer­tain­ties remain regard­ing the paths our soci­et­ies will take to adapt. Against this back­drop of uncer­tainty, Armand Hatch­uel reflects on the need to define the rela­tion­ship between research­ers and gov­ern­ment to work towards a just soci­et­al transition.

Armand Hatch­uel. Civic engage­ment is not an unex­pec­ted trait among research­ers. The image of the research­er isol­ated in a labor­at­ory, pro­du­cing know­ledge sheltered from all extern­al influ­ence and with no known audi­ence, is more myth than real­ity. A research­er is first and fore­most engaged with­in their own sci­entif­ic com­munity, where debates and con­tro­ver­sies take place. When facing their peers, each seeks to defend the dir­ec­tion of their work, their meth­ods and their con­clu­sions. But even in their civic engage­ment, research­ers must, whenev­er they speak based on their sci­entif­ic expert­ise, uphold a form of argu­ment­at­ive neut­ral­ity. This involves present­ing, even under polit­ic­al and eco­nom­ic pres­sure, only the most reli­able find­ings on which they rely, togeth­er with the cor­res­pond­ing sources. It is adher­ence to sci­entif­ic rigour² (the set of meth­od­o­lo­gic­al prin­ciples that enable reli­able know­ledge) that guar­an­tees, not the absence of per­son­al com­mit­ment, but the researcher’s sci­entif­ic neutrality.

In demo­cra­cies where decisions are sub­ject to pub­lic debate, research­ers do indeed have a duty to res­ist vari­ous pres­sures from pub­lic opin­ion to defend veri­fied the­or­ies. Today, the sci­entif­ic com­munity con­tin­ues to sound the alarm: human soci­et­ies are at risk from glob­al warm­ing. How­ever, bey­ond simply rais­ing the alarm, this crisis should prompt research­ers to reflect more deeply on the nature of their vari­ous com­mit­ments. Thus, warn­ing of a danger and for­mu­lat­ing pro­pos­als to guide pub­lic policy are two dis­tinct forms of pub­lic engage­ment. Each of these forms requires a spe­cif­ic sci­entif­ic approach. A cli­mate spe­cial­ist is jus­ti­fied in warn­ing of the dangers that lie ahead if noth­ing is done. How­ever, unless speak­ing as a private cit­izen, their expert­ise as a cli­ma­to­lo­gist will not suf­fice to cri­ti­cise inac­tion or pub­lic policy. To uphold sci­entif­ic rigour, any­one denoun­cing the state’s inac­tion must be able to pro­pose effect­ive and feas­ible pub­lic policy.

The French gov­ern­ment, like any oth­er gov­ern­ment, has a duty to main­tain the country’s demo­crat­ic unity by strik­ing a bal­ance between imper­at­ives that are some­times con­tra­dict­ory. Under the Loi Duplomb, or the ‘Emer­gency Act for Agri­cul­tur­al Pro­tec­tion and Sov­er­eignty’, health and envir­on­ment­al con­cerns have been pit­ted against the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­culties faced by part of the farm­ing com­munity since the ban on cer­tain pesti­cides (acet­ami­prid). In this debate, research­ers also have two dis­tinct respons­ib­il­it­ies: to warn of the dangers of pesti­cides, and to devel­op pesti­cide-free farm­ing mod­els. How­ever, dis­cus­sions regard­ing the exist­ence of these altern­at­ive mod­els, their actu­al res­ults and their accept­ab­il­ity to farm­ers have lacked trans­par­ency³. To help move bey­ond this fruit­less con­front­a­tion, the researcher’s role is pre­cisely to high­light the exist­ing altern­at­ives for the gen­er­al public.

Work­ing in har­mony with nature and devis­ing new, viable agri­cul­tur­al mod­els requires a vast amount of know­ledge. Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park in the US, for example, has brought togeth­er a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of research pro­jects with the sole aim of sup­port­ing the rein­tro­duc­tion of wolves. All sci­entif­ic dis­cip­lines have been drawn upon there. The chal­lenges relat­ing to cli­mate change and soci­et­al adapt­a­tion require a com­mit­ment on the same scale. Cli­mate sci­ence alone will not be enough to meet these chal­lenges. Admit­tedly, sci­entif­ic insti­tu­tions are inev­it­ably faced with polit­ic­al or eco­nom­ic con­straints. How­ever, it has always been the respons­ib­il­ity of research­ers to con­vince decision-makers and fel­low cit­izens to pri­or­it­ise invest­ment in cer­tain fields of research.

Both pub­lic author­it­ies and sci­entif­ic insti­tu­tions share respons­ib­il­ity should it tran­spire that cer­tain areas of research have been wrongly sac­ri­ficed. And if across-the-board cuts to research budgets become neces­sary, the choice of pri­or­it­ies must also be the sub­ject of sci­entif­ic debate before becom­ing a polit­ic­al one. It is import­ant that each sci­entif­ic dis­cip­line can explain its own chal­lenges and expect­a­tions to col­leagues from oth­er dis­cip­lines. Blind com­pet­i­tion between research fields will in no way guar­an­tee that the polit­ic­al decision will be an informed one.

These appeals – made in the name of the law – are extremely use­ful. For they force a debate that is often sidestepped. A decision-maker makes choices, wheth­er demo­crat­ic­ally or author­it­at­ively, based on exist­ing and known know­ledge. But when a decision-maker must make a decision whilst know­ledge is lack­ing, and we are faced with the unknown, the situ­ation is quite dif­fer­ent. In such cases, it is the respons­ib­il­ity of polit­ic­al lead­ers to inform the pub­lic without con­ceal­ing gaps in know­ledge or con­tro­ver­sies amongst experts. For it is this lack of know­ledge that can explain and jus­ti­fy, in the eyes of the pub­lic, the decisions taken. Law­suits for fail­ure to act can at least provide a for­um for com­par­ing research­ers’ pro­pos­als with polit­ic­al choices.

Interview by Alicia Piveteau