Providing independent scientific advice is an important social function of science. Advice to Government on climate change is where we see this most clearly at present, as was demonstrated at the recent APEC meeting in Sydney.

CSIRO was conceived in 1926 by Prime Minister Stanley Bruce to do science independent of departmental bureaucracy. In contrast, other countries ran government science with top-down departmental dependence.

Effective science-in-government requires an understanding of the difference between independent science, scientific excellence, academic freedom and scepticism.

Academic freedom means open expression of all ideas. Modern universities are broad social contests and science is only part of the story. University leaders need not support science in preference to other lines of thought or dissent.

Climate change sceptics often invoke the lone dissenting genius as the source of truth. This model has individual scientific excellence, represented by freedom, novelty, creativity and gadgetry, overturning collective thought.

The reality is that faulty ideas are upheld by the control of a few individual gatekeepers with closed minds.

Broad socialized science, like counting with numbers, is seldom overturned.

The necessary condition to challenge an idea is an open and independent mind. Exceptional open individuals respond over time to enough signals to form a new idea. Most of us learn from these people.

Climate change sceptics have closed minds and seek affirmation by sacrificing independence to secret alliances of orthodoxy.  Closed scepticism is its own religion.

The triumph of Alfred Wegener over flawed orthodoxy is a good example. He was a meteorologist open and informed enough to propose continental drift. He remains a hero of science for openness of thought and the acceptance of new evidence. The leading geologists of his day were closed thinking sceptics and suppressed his work for decades.

The independent expert is important in the climate-sceptics world. Experts are often defined by ranking people by science excellence, which is a social construct. Perversely, the ranking of science excellence acts against new ideas and promotes narrowness of thought. It also promotes secrecy and unwillingness to share data and techniques.

Scientific independence is instead an essential approach to science rather than a social construct. This approach is to always have an open mind and assess, generate, share and replicate evidence to verify or refute new ideas. Necessary scepticism is applied to the validity of the evidence and not initially to the ideas. Scientific independence requires open review and sharing of the evidence for independent testing. What we call science is a socialized view, not an individualistic view, and it emerges from a public process.

Scientific independence goes hand in hand with science excellence and particularly technical excellence. It requires teamwork from technicians, workshop staff and efficient administration, rather than just a god-scientist and enslaved post-docs.  CSIRO has traditionally supported technically excellent, disciplined, and independent research. Long-term commitment to sharing science, data, collections, and the development of technical skills are all traditional CSIRO roles. But nothing lasts forever.

Modern science management and its contests put science excellence on a pedestal without knowing what it means.

The current duelling climate-change experts have excellent credentials. The disputes are mostly about preserving this social hierarchy.

The fact is that socialization of climate science, as a human-induced risk to civilization, has occurred within most societies, and within much of the business world.  Recalcitrant governments like Australia’s which have ignored independent scientific advice are slowly catching up. However Australia still refuses to ratify the Kyoto Agreement, despite signing it and meeting its targets.

Dissenting members of Parliament from government are promoting climate scepticism. Led by Dr Dennis Jensen, a former post-doc in CSIRO, they are influenced by the Lavoisier Group and other climate-change sceptics. Their ghost-written words are not their own or from their electorates but come from largely unaccountable and undemocratic sources. Dr Jensen should know better.

The influences on our democratic decision makers should be open, transparent and accountable. The decision makers also need to understand the difference between ranked social hierarchies of science and independent science done for the sake of informing them and a democratic society.

CSIRO’s independence is accountable to society in many ways. We have Senate Estimates hearings where questions can be asked by elected representatives. This imposes a form of open accountability uncommon in the corporate or university world.

CSIRO is also accountable for scientific excellence in competition with universities for resources.  Australia has moved from a peak of 40% of its public science in government laboratories to 16% now, with CSIRO being about 12% of this activity.
 
CSIRO is also accountable for commercial outcomes and how it spends its public funds in detail. CSIRO is currently defending patents in U.S. courts against Microsoft, Dell, Intel, and others.

These multiple accountabilities have led to a bureaucratic dilemma for CSIRO. The uncertain understanding of science and its outcomes by management means that bureaucracy manages by process, by top-down selection, or by corporate mimicry.

Bureaucracy of this kind kills scientific independence and openness. Top-down science is not independent. On the other hand, it can build arbitrary scientific excellence, but it kills technical and support excellence and the sharing of science.

In the modern world scientific independence is under attack from resource hungry universities, from short-sighted politicians and from internal and external bureaucracy.

CSIRO experiences all of these things and is currently undergoing difficult reform, but with some positive renewal. Nevertheless it still remains an icon in Australia and is highly trusted and valued by the public. The 2007 Federal budget increased funding by 5% per annum as part of a four year agreement. This gives stability and real growth for the first time in decades.

Much of this change reflects renewed public good aspirations linked to water, energy and climate sustainability. CSIRO has a high profile and is often ‘on the line’ in public debates.

Last year a long running public-profile problem was resolved. Change management led to public-comment gagging restrictions which alienated many scientists, particularly those involved in climate science. The remarkable media and public demands for CSIRO openness and independence forced change. An open debate led to new policy and re-engagement with the media.

The media and open independent science have much in common. Shelley Gare, author of ‘The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense,’ gave me the term ‘on the line.’ I have used this to describe people who take risks to establish truth. Both journalists and scientists have ‘on the line’ jobs, although these are no longer valued highly relative to deal makers and marketers.

However the communication of science is a major part of the socialization of CSIRO’s science.  The organisation must be trusted and open to the public through the media and the Parliament.

The renewed public comment is epitomized by John Church from CSIRO. As chair of the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme, his team’s independent science defines global sea level rise. His public comment on accelerating sea level rise, and its observed growth at the upper end of the IPCC forecasts, is a call to action.

John Church recently won a Eureka Prize for science excellence.

Similarly, CSIRO’s Mike Raupach is vice chair of The Global Carbon Project and has written powerfully on the accelerating emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Mike also wrote on this ‘tragedy of the commons’ issue in The Age. This social understanding is important because small nations like Australia are tempted to cheat and not to cooperate.

The profile of CSIRO in Australia is strong, and is enhanced by such public comment. Australians like people going ‘on the line’ for society.

The Productivity Commission report on public science in Australia from powerful independent public service economists strongly recognized the public role of CSIRO. This is a reflection of broader governance and judicial issues in Australia.

The reaction against a growing executive style of government, with hidden and un-democratic agendas, has reinforced the role of independent and fearless advice from all sectors of the public service.

The inescapable role of science advice for energy, climate and resource issues, and the struggle of governance on a finite planet, makes a compelling case for more independent science that is more open and more accountable to the public.

Yet the governance and leadership of our current society is ill-equipped to socialize science. Even our science communities, with internal power struggles around science excellence and independence, are not well equipped to help.

The recent APEC meeting only aspired to tackle climate change, but is this the best democratic solution for our societies?

We need instead increased recognition and understanding of independent science from these leaders and for consequent actions from them. 

Three strong steps are required to better socialize science for open, democratic and evidence-based governance.

The first is to enhance government laboratories to do independent science outside of departmental control. 

The second is for democratic society and the media to hold science openly accountable for its independence and outcomes.

The third is that society must see actions from government as a consequence of socialized independent scientific evidence.

The CSIRO Staff Association fights for this science-in-society consultation loop and the scientific independence of CSIRO.

Michael Borgas is president of the CSIRO Staff Association