Unpopular hypothesis thread for thought.
H1: Because scientists are generally good people, they are particularly bad at recognizing evil at work in the world.
H2: Because scientists are bad at recognizing evil, they are reluctant to name & shame it publicly.
1/

H3: Because scientists are bad at recognizing evil, they are particularly susceptible to becoming its unwitting accomplices.
H4: Unless scientists educate themselves and wise up, these mistakes will be made over & over.
2/

Let's start with H1. Most scientists are curious nerds, whose main joy in life is thinking about hard stuff and learning about the world. They are used to a certain kind of deviousness (the intricacies of their topic), but generally don't care much about other types of humans. 3/

(Unless they are psychologists of course.) They are prone to making simplifying assumptions about society and humans, including assuming that most other people are like them: good, genuine, honest. Because scientists focus most of their critical ability on their own topic ... 4/

they spend less critical ability on understanding the workings of the people, institutions and world around them. And for good people, evil is a confusing thing. It works in ways that are counter-intuitive to the ways our good & genuine minds work. Evil is devious. 5/

It says one thing, but means another. Evil cloaks itself in partial good works & reputation (like abusers), so that it will be harder to attack it publicly when its crimes come to light. Evil uses the norms and virtues within our cultures, then twists them to its evil purpose. 6/

This is why, for academics, it takes someone like Hannah Arendt to expose & recognize how evil works through our societies, through discourses and policies and people. How ordinary, everyday, banal it is. But I will hazard that most climate scientists have not read Arendt. 7/

And if they have, they have done it to understand Nazism and totalitarianism: they have not drawn the parallels to our particular intertwined economic & political systems, or the central place played by fossil fuel (& automotive etc) industries. 8/

Which leads me to H2: scientists are reluctant to name & shame evil at work in the world. Because scientists are good, they tend to assume good intent, purpose or potential in all entities they observe. This includes, believe it or not, fossil fuel industries. 9/

The working hypothesis of scientists is that all social entities, individual or institutional, are capable of working together for the common good (say net zero emissions) once the necessity of that trajectory has been explained. 10/

(It also explains why William Nordhaus has been given free passes and accolades rather than being denounced as both anti-scientific and pro business-as-usual regardless of any other eventuality, including disastrous climate change. But I digress.) 11/

So climate scientists, including the majority of the IPCC (guestimate), view the fossil fuel industry as some kind of potential future partner, who just needs to be convinced. A bit like the school nerd will haplessly try to become buddies with the big bad playground bully. 12/

And it means that climate scientists, at least many of them, still have a hard time picking political sides openly. "Climate policy should be apolitical!" is their cry, an understandable one since climate policy is in the benefit of all of humanity. 13/

But that's wishful thinking: the other side, in the climate crisis, is not physics. It's the powers pushing and benefiting from ever more emissions. And those powers are extremely political, and it will take politics to defeat them (and bring down emissions). 14/

Now to H3. This one is simple: because climate & other scientists are not very savvy at recognizing evil, they often become its unwitting accomplices. If your view is that fossil fuel companies will eventually come around to your side on climate science, of course ... 15/

you'll accept their funding: that funding is effectively, in your world view, the confirmation that fossil fuel companies are turning to the "right" side of history. Instead, if you understood evil better, you would see immediately they were just trying to buy ... 16/

some scientific & social credibility, with, as a side benefit, acquiring an ally: you. Because if you accept their funding, you're not likely to criticize them, are you? So as universities divest more and more, fossil fuel companies are desperately ramping up their funding. 17/

I wrote a bit about fossil funding of prestigious universities here. 18/ https://twitter.com/JKSteinberger/status/1301444939713216512

In fact, one thing does help scientists recognize and understand evil: being the direct target of campaigns of disinformation by fossil fuel & climate denying organisations, like @MichaelEMann was and is. That helps. 19/

Another thing that helps is the research of @NaomiOreskes @GeoffreySupran @ErikMConway Ben Franta Kari Norgaard @amywestervelt @emorwee etc. By exposing the deliberate campaigns of climate denial, they are showing us how evil works. They are the Hannah Arendt's of our time. 20/

H4 should be obvious. Science is political. Climate science especially so. Unless we are willing to name & shame the organisations and people driving & benefiting from climate breakdown, and how they maintain their power in our societies, we are not true to our science. 21/

Oh, yes. A definition of evil. Lol. Evil is the pursuit of actions & discourses that knowingly and deliberately result in the harming of other people and living creatures. If you made it this far into 2020 and you're like "but evil is such vaaague and loaded language" ... 22/

You're beyond hope and not likely to be much help in the struggle ahead. I think for most of us by now, we're able to see evil in the policies that result in unnecessary death & harm of so many around us, from #Moria to covid to #BLM to climate. End/