Have politics finally come for the National Academies of Science?
Have politics finally come for the National Academies of Science?
政治终于盯上美国国家科学院了吗？
Founded during the US Civil War to provide advice to the government, the National Academies of Science have become one of the most prestigious scientific organizations. Its primary function is to prepare comprehensive reports on scientific and technological issues, aided by its ability to attract top talent from across the country. Those reports have not been afraid to weigh in on matters of public controversy and risk offending powerful groups, which it has managed to do without losing the respect of the governmental organizations that fund these reports. But this year, there have been increasing signs that the Academies’ ability to dodge political firestorms has reached its limit. 美国国家科学院（National Academies of Science）成立于美国内战时期，旨在为政府提供咨询，现已成为最负盛名的科学组织之一。其主要职能是借助汇聚全国顶尖人才的能力，针对科学和技术问题撰写综合性报告。这些报告从不避讳介入公共争议领域，也不惧怕得罪权势集团，且在过去一直能在不失去资助机构尊重的前提下完成这些工作。然而今年，越来越多的迹象表明，科学院规避政治风暴的能力已达到极限。
Yesterday, a deeply reported story from Politico explained the breakdown between the National Academies and Republican politicians. The National Academies is preparing an expert report on attribution of weather events to human-driven climate change, and fossil fuel companies are worried it will lead to findings of liability in the many cases where those companies are being sued. 昨天，《政客》（Politico）杂志的一篇深度报道揭示了美国国家科学院与共和党政客之间的关系破裂。目前，国家科学院正在准备一份关于“将极端天气事件归因于人为气候变化”的专家报告，而化石燃料公司担心，这份报告将导致它们在多起诉讼中被判定承担法律责任。
A fight over climate
关于气候的争端
In public, the National Academies has been very circumspect in its approach to the overt hostility toward science displayed by the Trump administration. The organization’s president, Marcia McNutt, almost completely ignored the attacks in her annual “state of the science” address last year, and repeated that approach in this year’s. But that hasn’t helped the organization stay out of Republican crosshairs. 在公开场合，面对特朗普政府对科学表现出的公然敌意，国家科学院一直表现得非常谨慎。该组织主席玛西娅·麦克纳特（Marcia McNutt）在去年的年度“科学状况”演讲中几乎完全无视了这些攻击，并在今年的演讲中重复了这一做法。但这并没有让该组织免于成为共和党的攻击目标。
The problem, apparently, was projects that were started during previous administrations. One of these was the production of the fourth edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. This was prepared for the Federal Judicial Center to help judges determine how to handle scientific issues that come before the courts. The fourth edition was the first to contain a chapter on climate change, but a group of Republican state attorneys general had issues with it. 问题显然出在那些在前几届政府任期内启动的项目上。其中之一是《科学证据参考手册》（Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence）第四版的编写。该手册是为联邦司法中心（Federal Judicial Center）准备的，旨在帮助法官确定如何处理法庭上的科学问题。第四版首次包含了关于气候变化的章节，但一群共和党籍州总检察长对此提出了异议。
The chapter included information from people who had been involved in litigation over climate damages; rather than seeing that as a sign of expertise, the AGs viewed it as a form of bias. Also an issue: the chapter treated human-driven climate change as established science (which it is), which was termed a failure to be impartial. The state attorneys general demanded that the Federal Judicial Center pull the chapter, and it immediately caved. 该章节引用了参与过气候损害诉讼的人员提供的信息；总检察长们并未将其视为专业知识的体现，反而将其视为一种偏见。另一个争议点是：该章节将人为气候变化视为既定科学事实（事实确实如此），这被指责为“未能保持中立”。州总检察长们要求联邦司法中心撤下该章节，后者随即屈服。
But the National Academies had already placed the original, intact report on its website. When the state attorneys general demanded that it follow the Judicial Center’s lead, it declined. At that point, Republicans in Congress stepped in. A group of 11 representatives sent a letter to the head of the Office of Management and Budget in which they “respectfully urged” the office’s director to “investigate whether NASEM should be suspended or debarred from all federal funding under your jurisdiction.” 但国家科学院已将原始且完整的报告发布在其网站上。当州总检察长们要求其效仿司法中心撤下报告时，科学院拒绝了。此时，国会共和党人介入了。11名众议员致信管理和预算办公室负责人，在信中“郑重敦促”该办公室主任“调查是否应暂停或禁止美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院（NASEM）获得其管辖范围内的所有联邦资金”。
Again, the issue is that they feel there should be some sort of affirmative action for the views of people who refuse to accept the evidence for human-driven climate change: “Most shocking is that there was no fully independent, meaningful peer review from scientists with differing views on climate science.” Similarly, members of Congress threatened to investigate the National Academies when it organized an updated climate report at the same time as the Department of Energy had brought together a group of fringe contrarians to produce something that said that all those carbon emissions are probably fine. 问题的核心再次在于，他们认为应该为那些拒绝接受人为气候变化证据的人提供某种“平权行动”：“最令人震惊的是，没有来自对气候科学持不同意见的科学家的完全独立、有意义的同行评审。”同样，当国家科学院组织编写一份更新的气候报告时，国会议员也威胁要对其进行调查，而当时能源部正召集一群边缘的反对派人士，试图炮制出一份声称“所有这些碳排放可能没问题”的报告。
The fight over attribution
关于归因的争端
Why is there so much fuss about scientific advice to judges? The Politico piece puts it into context and suggests that things are likely to get worse. The issue is one of attribution: Can we detect the cause of climate change in individual weather events? A few decades ago, that simply wasn’t possible. But researchers have since developed tools that allow them to determine the probability that different events would occur with and without the influence of our greenhouse gas emissions. And so it has become clear that some of the most extreme events simply wouldn’t have occurred without the warming we’ve driven. 为什么关于给法官提供科学建议的事情会引起如此大的骚动？《政客》的文章将其置于背景中，并暗示情况可能会变得更糟。问题的核心在于“归因”：我们能否在具体的极端天气事件中检测出气候变化的原因？几十年前，这根本不可能实现。但研究人员后来开发了相关工具，使他们能够确定在有或没有温室气体排放影响的情况下，不同事件发生的概率。因此，显而易见的是，如果没有我们造成的气候变暖，一些最极端的事件根本就不会发生。
That clarity has allowed other researchers to tie the financial damages from catastrophic weather events to the influence of fossil fuels produced by individual companies. If those studies are widely accepted as valid scientific work, then judges will be compelled to admit them as evidence in any lawsuits against said companies. There have been a number of lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies, but most have not succeeded because judges have decided that they impinged on policies that needed to be set on the federal level. 这种清晰度使其他研究人员能够将灾难性天气事件造成的经济损失与特定公司生产的化石燃料的影响联系起来。如果这些研究被广泛接受为有效的科学成果，那么法官将被迫在针对上述公司的任何诉讼中将其采纳为证据。目前已有不少针对化石燃料公司的诉讼，但大多数并未成功，因为法官认为这些诉讼触及了需要在联邦层面制定的政策。
But things like economic damages have long been considered the domain of the courts, and a direct connection between business practices and damage caused by a storm may be a harder accusation to dodge. Those instances are where the National Academies come in again, as a committee it formed during the Biden administration is in the process of evaluating the scientific standing of attribution studies. 然而，经济损失等问题长期以来一直被视为法院的管辖范围，而商业行为与风暴造成的损害之间的直接联系，可能是一个更难回避的指控。在这些情况下，国家科学院再次发挥了作用，其在拜登政府期间成立的一个委员会目前正在评估归因研究的科学地位。
The oil companies are concerned enough that, as the Politico article details, they’ve hired third parties to file for access to the emails of committee members who work at public universities. All of which suggests that the fight over this report is going to get intense, and both the credibility and funding of the National Academies is likely to come under sustained assault, which may permanently damage science-based policy in the US. And that would provide yet another demonstration that, when even basic facts can become politicized, trying to avoid becoming a target by saying “we’re just focused on the science” will not be a successful strategy. 石油公司对此感到非常担忧，正如《政客》文章所详述的那样，它们已聘请第三方机构申请获取在公立大学工作的委员会成员的电子邮件。这一切都表明，围绕这份报告的斗争将会变得异常激烈，国家科学院的信誉和资金都可能受到持续攻击，这可能会对美国的科学决策造成永久性损害。这也再次证明，当连基本事实都能被政治化时，试图通过说“我们只专注于科学”来避免成为目标，并不是一种成功的策略。