Tricked or troubled natures? How to make sense of "climategate"
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Tricked or troubled natures? How to make sense of "climategate". / Skrydstrup, Martin.
In: Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 28, 2013, p. 92-99.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Tricked or troubled natures?
T2 - How to make sense of "climategate"
AU - Skrydstrup, Martin
N1 - Special Issue: Responding to the Challenges of our Unstable Earth (RESCUE)
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - What do we know about what goes on in the laboratories and wider institutional networks that produce the scientific facts about the state of the Earth's climate? This question was brought to the fore by the recent event, known as "climategate", which was generally taken to reveal that climate scientists manipulated their data sets to make them speak to contemporary political agendas. I shall ague that this interpretation of climategate hinges on a conception of science as "modern", i.e. as a pure pursuit of truth above and beyond worldly affairs. Departing from my own ethnographic fieldwork among climate scientists, I shall argue that this modern conception of science - carrying the implication that climategate was a scandal - is inadequate and misguided. I hope to show that the defense mounted by the climate scientists was about illuminating context, rather than being reflective about their own epistemic practices and commitments. Thus, it is argued that the problem about climategate is not so much the ways in which climate science is conducted, but rather the ways in which scientists go about depicting their own business and ultimately the ways in which the public perceives science.
AB - What do we know about what goes on in the laboratories and wider institutional networks that produce the scientific facts about the state of the Earth's climate? This question was brought to the fore by the recent event, known as "climategate", which was generally taken to reveal that climate scientists manipulated their data sets to make them speak to contemporary political agendas. I shall ague that this interpretation of climategate hinges on a conception of science as "modern", i.e. as a pure pursuit of truth above and beyond worldly affairs. Departing from my own ethnographic fieldwork among climate scientists, I shall argue that this modern conception of science - carrying the implication that climategate was a scandal - is inadequate and misguided. I hope to show that the defense mounted by the climate scientists was about illuminating context, rather than being reflective about their own epistemic practices and commitments. Thus, it is argued that the problem about climategate is not so much the ways in which climate science is conducted, but rather the ways in which scientists go about depicting their own business and ultimately the ways in which the public perceives science.
KW - Conceptualizations of nature
KW - Science and society
KW - The science of climate change
KW - Communication of science
KW - ``Climategate''
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2012.11.012
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2012.11.012
M3 - Journal article
VL - 28
SP - 92
EP - 99
JO - Environmental Science & Policy
JF - Environmental Science & Policy
SN - 1462-9011
ER -
ID: 118458081