Often here at Prometheus we take issue with scientists who assert that a certain view on science compels a specific political agenda. We less frequently comment of the opposite case, scientists who claim that a particular political ideology determines scientific findings. The reasons for this are pretty obvious; hardly any scientist would make such a claim.

But in a stunning example of what appears to be a public career suicide, Climatologist Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist for University of Alabama in Huntsville well known for his long-time collaborations with John Christy on satellite temperature trends, has written an article for Tech Central Station in which he claims that he “came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism.”


Now without a doubt there is an important debate underway in some parts of the United States about what should be taught in biology classes. And understanding this debate requires some considerable nuance. It requires, for example, an appreciation that some have used evolution as a vehicle to advance their own views on religion, which in a perverse way helps to motivate the ID movement. Both of these views go well beyond science, as evolution says nothing about religion, one way or the other. Such questions are, in the words of Alvin Weinberg, trans-scientific. And Spencer does a pretty poor job recognizing any sort of nuance in his piece. Contrast Spencer’s muddled perspective with the clear views expressed by the president of the American Astronomical Society in a letter to President Bush on this subject (thanks to Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer): “”Intelligent design” isn’t even part of science – it is a religious idea that doesn’t have a place in the science curriculum.”

One has to question the judgment of Roy Spencer opining in support of ID in a fairly simplistic way on a prominent WWW outlet (and also TCS for allowing him to do so; to be fair to TCS they have published a diversity of views on ID). The lapse in judgment seems particularly egregious occurring in the same week that, as word on the street has it, Science magazine will be publishing several papers that identify errors in his calculations of satellite temperature trends. Irrespective of the merits of his climate research, and by all accounts it is solid science, he will forever be known as the climate scientist who believes in “Intelligent Design.” I can see the characterizations now — “How can you believe the science of someone who doesn’t even believe in evolution?”

And this gets us to the larger point here. Spencer, perhaps inadvertently, gives support to the notion that scientific results are simply a function of ideology. This view, in conjunction with a view that “sound science” or “consensus science” compels particular political outcomes, leads to a transitive relationship where ideology determines science and science determines political outcomes, which in other words means that science is simply irrelevant to policy debates, other than a vehicle for ideological expressions. This would be a bad outcome because science matters for policy. Just not in the way that Roy Spencer and Paul Krugman would have you believe.