Climategate and Confederacy Theories

Megan McArdle expresses a sentiment many people share when it comes to weighing the importance of Climategate to the larger questions about climate change:

I am thoroughly unimpressed with the belief that global warming scientists have been engaging in some kind of massive conspiracy to conceal the truth.

I agree with this, though possibly not for the same reason as McArdle. To me, the problem appears to be partially a matter of semantic hesitancy: We are loathe to assume a conspiracy theory because conspiracy theorists have given conspiracy theories a bad name.

To even hint that a broad conspiracy has occurred shifts the focus from the truth of the theory to the rationality of the person making such a claim—and rightly so. Almost all conspiracies are based on paranoia, gnosticism, and an irrational belief in the competency of individuals or organizations (particularly the government) to flawlessly pull off extraordinarily devious and complicated schemes. Generally, modern conspiracy theories (e.g., Birthers, 9/11 Truthers, Trig Truthers) are championed by people who have more of an emotional attachment to the truth of their theory than a concern for the truths of reality.

A more useful, less crazy, concept—and one that better accounts for the flaws and foibles of real human beings—is needed to explain such situations as Climategate. One such type of explanation is what I would call a “confederacy theory”:

A theory that explains an event as being the result of an alliance between well-intentioned persons or parties who allow their biases and motives to shape their actions in such a way that the results can be judged by the public to be evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious.

For an example of where confederacy theory may be a more apt explanation than an assumption of a conspiracy, consider Adam Smith’s famous quote:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Assuming this claim is true, it makes more sense—and is exceedingly more charitable—to believe that the people do not intentionally contrive to do something evil or unlawful. Instead, their complex relationship as confederates leads them to share certain biases, presumptions, and goals that align in such a way that makes it seem if they are intentionally attempting to cause harm or conceal truth.

Similarly, I don’t think we have to assume bad motives, much less a conspiracy, on the part of climate scientists to account for Climategate and other questionable claims about climate change. As McArdle says, “[T]he actual worrying question about CRU, and GISS, and the other scientists working on paleoclimate reconstruction: that they may all be calibrating their findings to each other.”

This should only be “worrying” if you assume this is not already a systemic practice. Such a realization is much less concerting if you start—as I cynically do—with the belief that this is an implicit bias within peer review that is only rarely corrected for.

After all, if a climate scientist submits a finding that is out of the norm, the reviewer is likely to simple assume that that the finding is in error and reject the paper. What reviewer is going to check the accuracy of thousands of pieces of data, the means by which they were collected, and the reliability of the model used, in order to determine whether a specific finding is—as they already suspect—an error? Additionally, why would they bother checking such a finding when it would not only cast doubt on their own research but would potentially put them outside the circle of confederates, lumped in with the “deniers”?

No need, therefore, to suspect a “massive conspiracy to conceal the truth” when this simple confederacy theory will do: That for well-intentioned climate scientists, Truth is, to paraphrase Richard Rorty, what your confederates let you get away with saying.