Politics and Science: A Coming Essay and Talk Today

These days, I'm spending a bit more time these days on my old beat. Later this week I'll have a piece up at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, as part of their periodic exchanges, focused on responding to the following prompt:

Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently questioned the science of climate change in ways so unsupported by evidence that Glenn Kessler, the "Fact Checker" columnist at The Washington Post, gave him a rating of  "four Pinocchios." Perry's is but one scientific misstatement among many that regularly roil the US political scene. What is the proper scientific response to the political distortion -- or even outright rejection -- of science? In coming weeks, three Bulletin experts will offer authoritative and at times provocative analysis.

I suppose that last bit is supposed to refer to me ;-)  My piece starts out, "Here we go again ..."  I'll post a link on Thursday.

Also, today I am giving a talk here at CU on this same topic. Here are the details:

Scientists in Policy and Politics

COSI Seminar
Monday, October 24, 2011 - 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Engineering Bldg. - ECCR 1B55
Roger Pielke Jr.
Professor - Center for Science and Technology Policy Research - University of Colorado at Boulder

Scientists, and experts more generally have choices about the roles that they play in today's political debates on topics such as global warming, genetically modified foods, and food and drug safety, just to name a few. This talk is about understanding these choices, their theoretical and empirical bases, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise.

Roger A. Pielke, Jr. has been on the faculty of the University of Colorado since 2001 and is a Professor in the Environmental Studies Program and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). At CIRES, Roger served as the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research from 2001-2007. Roger's research focuses on the intersection of science and technology and decision making. In 2006 Roger received the Eduard Brückner Prize in Munich, Germany for outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary climate research. Before joining the University of Colorado, from 1993-2001 Roger was a Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Roger is a Senior Fellow of the Breakthrough Institute. He is also author, co-author or co-editor of seven books, including The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics published by Cambridge University Press in 2007. His most recent book is The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You About Global Warming.