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BALANCING SOUND SCIENCE AND CONSERVATION ACTION

by Stephen H. Schneider

I am deeply honored to be receiving the LaRoe award this year, particularly since I shared many values in common with Ted LaRoe. Ted and I met in 1990, when he asked me to give a keynote talk at an ahead-of-its-time interdisciplinary meeting on climate and wildlife. We both stressed sound science as essential, and we equally stressed effective conservation and management. That raises questions about how scientists can enter the murky worlds of popularization, advocacy, and political negotiations--all of which are essential to get action for conservation goals--while at the same time preserving the soundness of the science--mentioning all the uncertainties, missing data, deficient theory, and so forth. How can we be both effective and true to the complexities? Having attempted this juggling act many times over the past three decades, let me offer some experiences and suggestions (e.g., Schneider 2002a).

Scientists tend to think that advocacy based on a "win for the client" mentality, which often means deliberately selecting "facts" out of context, is unethical. Yet courts of law, political forums, and much of the media are steeped in just such practices. Unaware of how the advocacy game is played outside the cloister of the scientific peer review culture, some scientists, perhaps naively, stumble into a pitfall of being labeled as an advocate lobbying for a special interest--even if they had no such intention.

When the scientist merely acknowledges the credibility of some contentious information or endorses actions that affect stakeholders differentially, opposing advocates often presume the scientist is spinning the information for some client's benefit. I hear that accusation constantly in the global warming policy debate. Even when the expert admits the full range of considered possibilities and refers to extensive, peer-reviewed assessments, the opposition accuses the expert of currying favor from some alleged funding agent--after all, isn't that what everybody else is doing?

Is there a solution to this "advocacy-truth" conundrum? Can a scientist walk the fine line between broad, nuanced assessment (i.e., sound science) and clear, definitive messages delivered via the advocacy sound-bite system in which we are forced to operate to achieve conservation objectives?

On the one hand, it is indeed the responsibility of an expert to report honestly the range of plausible outcomes, and then to estimate a subjective probability distribution--and a subjective confidence associated with that estimate--for each outcome (see, e.g., Schneider 2002b). In other words, a technical expert has an obligation to describe what he or she believes to be a range of consequences--"what can happen"--and the relative likelihood of each event occurring--"what are the odds." Moreover, not all our probabilistic estimates--subjective as they may be by clear admission--carry equal confidence, as some aspects of complex problems are well-established (based on considerable experimental and theoretical backup), whereas other aspects are quite speculative--and we must make the distinction among those categories in our assessments as well. In a sound-bite advocacy world that is a tall order indeed.

On the other hand, an expert could have a personal opinion on what society ought to do with this risk assessment. Can a scientist who expresses such value preferences about a controversial topic also provide a fair assessment of the factual components? In other words, is the scientist-advocate an oxymoron? This may be a feasible tightrope to walk--but, even if one is scrupulously careful to separate factual from value-laden arguments, will the outside world of advocates and advocate institutions buy it? Is it possible to both express what we believe ought to be done about possible outcomes and at the same time provide as fully "objective as we can be" scientific assessments of the likelihood of such outcomes?

Personally, based on playing the scientist-advocate role many times, I believe this dual role is not an oxymoron, but is riddled with pitfalls. The scientist-advocate must work hard to separate out the "positive" from the "normative"-- that is, separate the factually based aspects from the value components of a debate. But, no matter how hard we try to be objective and forthcoming, there are always biases that creep in--often unconsciously. And an unconscious prejudice can be even worse than a conscious one. At least consciousness of bias creates the opportunity to openly distinguish the factual from the normative, by choice. But an unconscious prejudice creates the illusion of impartiality. With unconscious prejudice or ideological zeal, advocates--including scientists--can be captured by their perception of "objective truth" and may not even recognize the need to reveal their biases. We need to run our science and outreach activities through a community of colleagues, to help us find any subsurface biases.

The more we discuss our initial assessments with colleagues of various backgrounds, the higher the likelihood we can illuminate unconscious biases. We may not ever reach the archetype of "pure objectivity," but pure objectivity is, of course, a standard myth in science. Hanging up our citizenship at the door of the hearing room because we have a Ph.D.--and thus appearing to express no opinions on policy to maintain a pretense of some higher calling as an "objective scientist"--is not the path to objectivity. Rather, only active effort to make our biases conscious and explicit is likely to effectively keep our science-advocacy more objectively based and thus allow us to better manage the "advocacy-truth" conundrum and be more effective in conservation action.

When an expert is willing to play in the sound-bite world and communicate with metaphors and analogy, there is one more step one can take to be as responsible as possible. Public scientists or scientific bodies that make public statements can also produce a hierarchy of backup products ranging from op-ed pieces, which are often a string of written sound-bites themselves, to Scientific American-length popular articles that provide more moderate depth, to full length books, which document in greater detail the aspects of an issue that are well understood and which distinguish them from those that are more speculative. Books can also provide an account of how one's views have changed as the scientific evidence changed. Even if only a vanishingly small segment of the public really wants this level of detail, this hierarchy of articles and books in the popular and scientific literature provides credibility and integrity to the popularization process. And because "full disclosure" (like archetypal "scientific objectivity") is simply not possible in time-constrained congressional or media debates--where metaphors and sound-bites have to do the job--then the hierarchy of back-ups is crucial for elaborated disclosure beyond these forums.

Table 1 summarizes my primary "rules" to minimize being misrepresented in the "real world."

Table 1. Responsible advocacy of value positions and popularization "rules"

• Make your values and biases conscious -- use the relevant scientific / technical communities to help you overcome your own dogmatism and denial
• Make your values and biases explicit and separate them from your scientific priors on probabilities and consequences
• Struggle to prevent personal value positions from distorting your subjective priors on the probabilities of various outcomes or "facts"
• Defend value positions separately from scientific assessments of probabilities and consequences
• Encourage popularizers who follow responsible practices, and censure those who are unclear, obscure or biased, which harms efforts to educate and elucidate

In summary, responsible advocacy or popularization is not, in my view, an oxymoron--but it takes discipline to minimize trouble. You'll never please everyone, especially because many continue to think scientists should stay out of the policy arena. But if we do, then we merely abdicate the popularization to someone else--probably to someone less knowledgeable or responsible. In my view, staying out of the fray is not taking the "high ground;" it is just passing the buck. Good luck, and remember, conservation needs both sound science and effective advocacy.

Literature Cited

Schneider, S. H. 2002a. Keeping out of the box. American Scientist 90:496-498.

Schneider, S. H. 2002b. Can we estimate the likelihood of climatic changes at 2100? Climatic Change 52:441-451.

Stephen Schneider received the 2003 Edward T. LaRoe III Memorial Award from SCB in recognition of his leadership in translating principles of conservation biology into real-world conservation, in large part through public service.

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