Believe It or Not

A friend with whom I was discussing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vs climate deniers mentioned that one is always hearing conflicting “scientific” evidence in various fields. She commented that in the changing nutritional landscape, for example, where whole grains are the panacea one year and omega-3 fats the next, the great importance of vitamins has remained constant for ages, but just what vitamin is the answer to a nutritionist’s prayer varies considerably. Vitamin C ranked first for a long time, then it was E, then D, B12, folic acid….

In a day and age that prides itself on its scientific competence, how can this be? Can’t one do a big study once and for all and get the answer? Conversely, should we be as skeptical of the information in the IPCC’s reports as we apparently need to be in the field of experiments involving vitamins?

Let’s look at the process of experimentation itself as applied first to vitamins for human beings and second to the many aspects of climate change.

I. There are a number of scientific protocols that can be used in experimentation in both fields. Some are more expensive to use than others, more time-consuming, more difficult. Some are more accurate than others. In addition, there are various types of statistical analysis, and the laws of statistical analysis as applied to large samples are complex.

II. Then we have the subjects themselves. Mice are frequently

used to test substances that are given to humans, and one would think one could control their lives rigidly. But only in the last few years has it been found that the temperature at which the mice are kept and the design of their cages have appreciable effects on the outcome of experiments. If studying mice is complex, consider studies done on people. The lives of the people taking part in a study cannot be controlled; we are not kept in cages in a laboratory. There is much reliance on the answers of the participants themselves, not always as accurate as one would like. It is know, for example, that study participants’ estimates of the amount of exercise they get in a week is usually exaggerated. In addition, the human body is so much more complex than, say, an iceberg, that it is difficult to use the scientific method, in which only one variable changes. To be sure, there are factorial experiments, involving more than one variable, but one must know what they are, not always the case in human beings.

Now let’s consider the subjects used for climate change research. Atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, sources of greenhouse gases, sea level rise, degree of melting of arctic ice etc. also involve enormous quantities of data, but they are much more straightforward and controllable than are people.

There is another complication in experiments involving people, that of ethics and legality. One is not worried about an iceberg’s rights or perhaps harming it during the experiment.

III. The experimenters: It is not only the subjects in experiments on people who are human, those sponsoring the testing are, too. In the case of vitamins, the sponsors are often pharmaceutical companies, with a vested interest in the outcome. It is easy enough to manipulate the experiment itself, the analysis thereof or the reporting so as to present a result favorable to the company. Most notable in this regard are probably experiments done in another area, that of the effect of smoking on one’s health. It is know that tobacco companies skewed their research results for years so as to present their products as harmless.

By contrast, those doing research cited by the IPCC’s fifth report are mostly at universities and research institutes. They are not in the business of selling anything. Anyone getting grant money is under scrutiny and must publish all the data if he wants to be taken seriously as a researcher.

IV. Money: And then there is money. Experiments are extremely

expensive, and who has the money to experiment on vitamins? Pharmaceutical companies. Who is paying for climate research? Government and university laboratories, without the vested interests of corporations. Businesses are not interested. An exception here is renewable energy companies, but they are still very small, and focused further down the line; convincing homeowners to buy their products, for example. They assume climate change, they don’t investigate it.

Returning to my friend’s question, it appears that there are a number of differences in research on vitamins, on the one hand, and research on climate change on the other. The IPCC goes yet further in adding up the results of many, many experiments done in a great many different university and government laboratories. It looks as if we can believe their conclusions.