Incorporating User Values into Climate Services

Parker, Wendy S.; Lusk, Greg

doi:10.1175/bams-d-17-0325.1

Cited by 46 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…2017). Philosophers of science are currently exploring how climate services can best take the concerns of different stakeholders into account when handling important value judgments (Parker and Lusk 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Open Science Work for Science and Society

Elliott

Resnik

2019

Environ Health Perspect

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Background:The open science movement is transforming scientific practice with the goal of enhancing the transparency, productivity, and reproducibility of research. Nevertheless, transparency is a complex concept, and efforts to promote some forms of transparency may do relatively little to advance other important forms of transparency.Objectives:Drawing from the literature in history, philosophy, and sociology of science, we aim to distinguish between different forms of scientific transparency. Our goal is to identify strategies for achieving forms of transparency that are relevant not only to scientists but also to decision makers and members of the public.Discussion:We draw a distinction between “scientifically relevant transparency” and “socially relevant transparency.” Most of the prominent strategies associated with the open science movement (e.g., making data publicly available and registering studies) are designed primarily to promote scientifically relevant transparency. To achieve socially relevant transparency, which is particularly important in fields like environmental health, further steps are needed to provide scientific information in ways that are relevant to decision makers and members of the public.Conclusions:Promoting socially relevant transparency will require a range of activities by many different individuals and institutions. We propose an array of strategies that can be pursued by scientists and other scholars, journals, universities, funders, government agencies, and members of the public. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP4808

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Open Science Work for Science and Society

Elliott

Resnik

2019

Environ Health Perspect

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“…To avoid the pitfalls associated with such unwarranted confidence in climate models while taking climate science seriously in climate adaptation, they propose that structured expert elicitation processes would allow a range of experts to systematically discuss climate science with other available knowledge in order to produce more scientifically justified as well as decision-relevant climate services. In a similar vein, Parker and Lusk (2019) enrich the pragmatist studies of including user values in the coproduction of climate knowledge by highlighting that the types of errors which users want to avoid-risk of overestimating or underestimating particular climatic changes-is of importance when producing actionable knowledge. Parker and Lusk (2019) enrich co-production discussions by emphasizing that users can also guide scientists' methodological choices: knowing whether under-or overestimation is of greater consequence to users can favor one approach over another.…”

Section: The Argumentivist Order: Analyzing Knowledge Demarcating Sciencementioning

confidence: 97%

“…In a similar vein, Parker and Lusk (2019) enrich the pragmatist studies of including user values in the coproduction of climate knowledge by highlighting that the types of errors which users want to avoid-risk of overestimating or underestimating particular climatic changes-is of importance when producing actionable knowledge. Parker and Lusk (2019) enrich co-production discussions by emphasizing that users can also guide scientists' methodological choices: knowing whether under-or overestimation is of greater consequence to users can favor one approach over another.…”

Section: The Argumentivist Order: Analyzing Knowledge Demarcating Sciencementioning

confidence: 97%

Orders of Social Science: Understanding Social-Scientific Controversies and Confluence on What “High-Quality” Knowledge and “Good” Adaptation Is

Skelton

2021

Front. Clim.

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Various scholars have noted—and experienced—tribal tendencies between social-scientific “schools of thought” or “paradigms.” The intensity and fervor of such controversies has led some scientists to compare them with frictions between religious orders. In the research domain focused on the use of climate science for climate adaptation, such disputes revolve around the what “high-quality” climate knowledge and “good” adaptation is or should be. Emphasizing this diversity of orders of social science and the humanities, this article describes five distinct ways social scientists and humanities scholars have thought and written about climate adaptation: descriptivists aim to empirically portray climate adaptation as objectively as possible from an assumed subject-independent perspective; pragmatists' research wants to increase climate resilience through usable climate information; argumentivists strive for assessing the justification of climate scientific findings, as well as adaptation decision-making that is based on these findings; interpretivists seek to empirically redescribe how the use of climate science for adaptation is shaped by, and shapes, various other social processes and political actors; and critical scholars work toward revealing how pervasive powerful interests and marginalizing discourses shape adaptation projects negatively. By comparing these five orders' respective scientific, environmental and social aims and concerns, this article pinpoints to how epistemological, ontological and methodological priorities not only drive scientific controversies on issues such as what “high-quality knowledge” is, but also how interdependent orders' methodological choices are with their epistemological and ontological positions. However, this analysis also reveals that while some scholars implicitly stick to their order, others are comfortable to collaborate across such borders. Overall, the diverging aims, priorities, and methods are unlikely to be ever fully reconciled. A better understanding of why academics from different orders differ in the approaches they take and the issues they care about will likely lead to a larger appreciation of the differences of other orders' research and broaden our understanding of key dynamics in studying “good” climate adaptation and “high-quality” climate knowledge.

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“…If scientists want to better communicate their knowledge in a way that the lawyers, judges, and public policy workers will understand as intended, these are our recommendations: In our view, the too narrow focus of climate science on extremely stringent levels of proofs is damaging in a legal context and can lead to confusion when communicating scientific findings more generally. We argue that standards for scientific proof for climate science should be considered that are appropriate for use in a specific context, a point that has been emphasized in philosophy of science by some (Lloyd 2015 ; Knüsel et al 2020 ; Parker and Lusk 2019 ; Winsberg 2018 ), much as scientific and clinical standards for causality are used in tort law contexts. For example, to prevail in a tort action against the producer of a toxic chemical, such as asbestos, the injured party only needs to show that it is more likely than not that the producer’s negligence caused the injury.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Climate scientists set the bar of proof too high

2021

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Standards of proof for attributing real world events/damage to global warming should be the same as in clinical or environmental lawsuits, argue Lloyd et al. The central question that we raise is effective communication. How can climate scientists best and effectively communicate their findings to crucial non-expert audiences, including public policy makers and civil society? To address this question, we look at the mismatch between what courts require and what climate scientists are setting as a bar of proof. Our first point is that scientists typically demand too much of themselves in terms of evidence, in comparison with the level of evidence required in a legal, regulatory, or public policy context. Our second point is to recommend that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommend more prominently the use of the category “more likely than not” as a level of proof in their reports, as this corresponds to the standard of proof most frequently required in civil court rooms. This has also implications for public policy and the public communication of climate evidence.

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Incorporating User Values into Climate Services

Cited by 46 publications

References 25 publications

Making Open Science Work for Science and Society

Making Open Science Work for Science and Society

Orders of Social Science: Understanding Social-Scientific Controversies and Confluence on What “High-Quality” Knowledge and “Good” Adaptation Is

Climate scientists set the bar of proof too high

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