The relationship between environmental advocacy, values, and science: a survey of ecological scientists' attitudes

Abstract

This article reports the results ofa survey of 1215 nonstudent Ecological Society of America (ESA) members. The results pertain to three series of questions designed to assess ecologists' engagement in various advocacy activities, as well as attitudes on the relationship between environmental advocacy, values, and science. We also analyzed the effects of age, gender, and employment categories on responses. While many findings are reported, we highlight six here. First, ecologists in our sample do not report particularly high levels of engagement in advocacy activities. Second, ecologists are not an ideologically unified group. Indeed, there are cases of significant disagreement among ecologists regarding advocacy, values, and science. Third, despite some disagreement, ecologists generally believe that values consistent with environmental advocacy are more consonant with ecological pursuits than values based on environmental skepticism. Fourth, compared to males, female ecologists tend to be more supportive of advocacy and less convinced that environmentally oriented values perturb the pursuit of science. Fifth, somewhat paradoxically, ecologists in higher age brackets indicate higher engagement in advocacy activities as well as a higher desire for scientific objectivity. Sixth, compared to ecologists in other employment categories, those in government prefer a greater separation between science and the influences of environmental advocacy and values.

Traits of a good ecologist: What do ecologists think?

“…The relatively low rating of pro-social traits (10th and 11th among 15) compared with aesthetic and epistemic traits suggests that many ecologists are not as motivated or enthusiastic about the environmental activism and advocacy as may be reflected in ESA's societal literature (see also Reiners et al 2013). Some ecologists might even have some reservations about the last element of ESA's Code of Ethics which reads: ''.…”

Integration of terrestrial observational networks: opportunity for advancing Earth system dynamics modelling

“…Blume et al, 2017;Reiners et al, 2013;Steel et al, 2004). In order to investigate the use of models and linkage of 15 models to data in the CZO and LTER communities, a questionnaire was set up with multiple response questions.…”

Scientists’ attitudes on science and values: Case studies and survey methods in philosophy of science

“…For example, consider a survey of ecologists regarding their activities and attitudes about specific types of advocacy, such as donating money to an environmental cause, writing a newspaper editorial, or taking a leadership role in an environmental advocacy organization (Reiners, Reiners, & Lockwood, 2013). Among the key findings were a lack of consensus among ecologists about the propriety of advocacy and whether it tends to degrade scientific integrity and a greater tendency for female ecologists to approve of advocacy and not see it as threat to objectivity (Reiners et al, 2013(Reiners et al, , p. 1226. 15 Evidence of systematic variation revealed by survey data might be relevant to methodological concerns related to case studies in several ways.…”

“…17 The study of ecologists' views on values and advocacy mentioned in section 4.1 also notes this potential ambiguity of the term 'values,' and assumes that NEV interpretation would be dominant: "Given the context of the survey, we judged that the wording would be interpreted by the vast majority of respondents in a conventional fashion, where the notion 'science is/ought to be value-free' is understood as excluding the essential values of science itself" (Reiners et al, 2013(Reiners et al, , p. 1240.…”