Why Global Warming Is Controversial

65 of the conversations Brenner and his

64 friends had about what they knew, what

63 they didn't know, and what was the next

62 important question to tackle. It also offers

61 readers a broad sample of Sydney's pun-

60 gent opinions on scientists and science:

59 58 57

If you simply say, "Development is just a matter of turning the right genes on in the

56 55 54 53

right place at the right time and that's the answer," that's absolutely true. But it's absolutely useless because somewhere deep down what we'd really like to do is to actually go

52 51 50

and make a mouse...Of course no one will build a real mouse, but we'd like to be able to make a gedanken (imaginary) mouse."

49 I last saw Sydney a few months ago at a

48 dinner honoring the participants of a 1985

47 conference that was the first to examine the

46 feasibility of a human genome project. As the

45 speeches droned on and on, he sat at the next

44 table, constructing something with his napkin

43 (perhaps it was a mouse). He winked when

42 our eyes met, and I thought of Kokopelli--

41 the mythic musician, trickster, and sower of

40 seeds of the American Southwest whose flute

39 songs beguile the people and bring the rain.

38 Near the end of the book, Brenner com-

37 ments that he hates writing but is good at

36 talking. This no doubt explains why My

35 Life in Science was compiled from video-

34 tapes. I was very disappointed that the "ac-

33 companying video" mentioned in the pref-

32 ace was not available for review. I would

31 love to see and hear Sydney once again ex-

30 pounding on some topic. Any topic.

29

28 B O O K S : C L I M AT E 27

26

Why Global

25

24

Warming Is

23

22 Controversial

21

20

George Philander

19

S 18

uppose we are in a raft, drifting toward a

17

waterfall. To avoid a calamity, we must

16

address two questions: How far is the

15 waterfall? And when should we get out of the

14 water? We deal with these questions in radi-

13 cally different ways. The first can be answered

12 with the methods of science. The second (a

11 matter of policy) is far more difficult. It has a

10 multitude of possible answers, none entirely

9 satisfactory to everyone, and it requires com-

8 promises among the different values of differ-

7 ent people (some timid, some foolhardy). The

6 difference between the science and policy as-

5

4

3

The author is in the Department of Geosciences, Guyot Hall, Washington Road, Princeton Univer-

2 sity, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. E-mail: gphlder@

1 princeton.edu

SCIENCE'S COMPASS

pects of environmental problems is sharp in are marred by misconceptions concerning

this allegory, but the distinction can easily be- models of weather and climate.

come blurred when the scientific results pos-

The discussions of models, except for

sess uncertainties. Controversies are common Stephen Norton and Frederick Suppe's

when it is unclear whether disagreements consideration from the perspective of

about the distance to the waterfall reflect sci- philosophers of science, are poor. A major

entific or political differences.

reason is a failure to explore why, at pre-

Changing the Atmosphere demonstrates sent, climate models have far larger uncer-

convincingly that in the current debate about tainties than those that predict the weather.

global warming the distinction between sci- Weather forecasts used to be regarded as

ence and policy is almost absent. Edited by auguries, but now are accepted as sources

Clark Miller (a political scientist at the Univer- of reliable and important information. In

sity of Wisconsin?Madison) and Paul Ed- early November 2001, for example, fore-

wards (the director of the Science, Technology, casts for Hurricane Michelle prompted the

and Society program at the University of governor of Florida to order the evacuation

Michigan), the book comprises ten essays on of the Florida Keys. (Even though the or-

the interactions between the atmospheric sci- der proved unnecessary on that particular

ences and public policy. In their introduction, occasion, it will be repeated under similar

Miller and Edwards state that, today, environ- conditions in the future.) The advances in

mental "science's place in global policymak- weather prediction that cause such predic-

ing is increasingly formalized, boosting its au- tions to be widely accepted were possible

thority in policymaking processes

because the time scales of the

but also subjecting it to new forms of political and legal oversight and review. International expert institutions such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) increasingly determine which knowledge counts and which does not, help-

Changing the Atmosphere Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance

Clark A. Miller and Paul N. Edwards, Eds.

phenomena of interest (a few days) are so short that the data collected over the past few decades provide stringent tests for the predictive models. Unfortunately, the instrumental records are too short to provide similarly demanding tests for

ing to shape crucial policy out- MIT Press, Cambridge, models that predict climate

comes." In a later chapter, Edwards and Stephen Schneider describe the IPCC as a "hybrid scientific/political organization"; it involves hundreds of scientists

MA, 2001. 397 pp. $67, ?47.95. ISBN 0-26213387-3. Paper, $26.95, ?18.95. ISBN 0-26263219-5.

changes decades hence. Scientists are therefore turning to the geological records (which are not mentioned at all in this book) that describe dramatical-

and several nonscientists from all

ly different climates in the past.

over the world in evaluating and synthesizing Of particular interest is Earth's response to

the scientific understanding of global climate slight fluctuations in orbital (Milankovich)

change. That the IPCC is controversial is thus parameters such as the tilt and precession

no surprise. Dale Jamieson tells us that many of its axis. Over the past few million years,

people regard it as "the voice of reason and the amplitude of that response has in-

dispassionate objectivity," but that others who creased significantly, and it now includes

disagree with its findings consider it a recurrent Ice Ages. Why Earth's climate is

"malevolent conspiracy."

currently far more sensitive to this modest

Several of the essays provide an excel- Milankovich forcing than in the past is, as

lent summary of how this state of affairs yet, unknown. But this sensitivity is ample

developed. After World War II, the creation reason to be concerned about the current

of an integrated, global, observational net- exponential rise in the concentration of

work to monitor the weather was intimately greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (Most

related to the efforts of politicians to recon- of the book's authors seem to believe that

struct a stable world order by promoting in- the basis for concern stems strictly from

ternational cooperation in science and tech- the results of climate models.) Confidence

nology. An intriguing interplay between sci- in the theories and models for future global

ence and politics transformed weather and warming will be bolstered significantly

climate from local into global phenomena, once we have explanations for and simula-

thus setting the stage for global climate tions of the Ice Ages.

change to become an international issue. In

Coping with global warming will re-

dealing with this complex problem, a dis- quire the collaborative efforts of people

tinction between its science and policy as- with diverse backgrounds. In Changing

pects would be helpful. Several authors of the Atmosphere, experts in science studies

this book seem to believe that, in the case alert us to the current absence of a clear

of global warming, such a distinction is im- distinction between the science and policy

possible. However, the arguments of these aspects of global warming. They apparent-

experts from the field of "science studies" ly believe that this will always be the case.

SCIENCE VOL 294 7 DECEMBER 2001

2105

65 Scientists need to respond. The develop-

64 ment of climate models that estimate the

63 distance to the waterfall with greater accu-

62 racy will contribute considerably to a more

61 constructive debate about how and when

60 we should get out of the water.

59

58 B O O K S : P H A R M A C O L O G Y

57

56 The Pill in Context

55

54

Londa Schiebinger

53

52 51 50

Hailed as a panacea for the world's burgeoning population woes when it was released some 40 years ago, the con-

49 traceptive pill has now been taken by some

48 200 million women. An estimated 70 million

47 women will take their "pill" today. In Sexual

46 Chemistry, Lara Marks, a historian of

45 medicine at London's Imperial College,

44 places the history of the pill in a rich context

43 that considers sexual customs, religious atti-

Sexual Chemistry A History of the Contraceptive Pill

tudes, and government support for family planning--all of which have influenced the fate of

by Lara V. Marks

this 1/4-inch-in-diameter

Yale University Press, cultural artifact. As

New Haven, CT, 2001. Marks points out, the

384 pp. $29.95, ?20. pill revolutionized con-

ISBN 0-300-08943-0. traception: it could be

taken conveniently by

42 mouth, it could be taken at any time of day

41 so as not to disrupt the spontaneity of the

40 sexual act, and it could be taken without the

39 knowledge of the male partner.

38

Much has been written about the pill.

37 One fresh aspect of Marks's account is her

36 discussion of how innovations in packaging

35 eased usage. Despite its many advantages,

34 the pill was still fairly complicated to take.

33 A woman had to remember to take one each

32 day, starting and stopping the cycle of pills

31 in relation to her own menstrual cycle.

30 David Wagner, who designed the special

29 "Dialpak" (a circular design that became

28 widely copied and used by the mid-1960s),

27 did so as a result of arguments he had had

26 with his wife about whether she had remem-

25 bered to take her pill. According to Marks,

24 this pharmaceutical packaging was the first

23 deliberately designed to aid patient memory.

22 The pill was also one of the first prescrip-

21 tion drugs, after isoproterenol inhalators, to

20 be marketed with package inserts warning

19 of its health risks, which included thrombo-

18 sis and severe allergic reactions.

17

One of Marks's purposes in writing this

16 book is to challenge the notion that the pill

15 was primarily a U.S. innovation. Much like

14

13 12

The author is in the Department of History, Pennsylvania State University, 311 Weaver Building, Universi-

11 ty Park, PA 16802?5500, USA. E-mail: lls10@psu.edu

SCIENCE'S COMPASS

Nelly Oudshoorn's Beyond the Natural 1940s because he had read about cabeza de

Body (Routledge, London, 1994), Sexual negro in a botany book. This wild Mexican

Chemistry focuses on the contributions yam seemed a possible ample source of sa-

made by the European sex hormone indus- pogenins, which offered an alternative to

try in the 1930s and by scientists who, flee- cholesterol as the raw material from which

ing fascism, found asylum in the Americas. progesterone could be synthesized.

Marks also wishes to draw attention away

By starting her account in the early 20th

from the canonical "fathers" of the pill-- century, Marks has also left out the rich his-

Gregory Pincus, Carl Djerassi, and John tory of fertility control practiced by women

Rock. She highlights the contributions of throughout Latin America. Naturalists travel-

Margaret Sanger, feminist advocate of birth ing in the area from the 16th through the

control, and Katherine McCormick, the 19th centuries--among them, Maria Sibylla

second woman to graduate from the Mas- Merian, Sir Hans Sloane, and Alexander von

sachusetts Institute of Technology. Heiress Humboldt--expressed surprise that indige-

to a magnificent fortune, McCormick pro- nous and African slave women used both

vided two million dollars for research and abortifacients and contraceptives. These

development of female oral contraceptives women successfully employed various roots,

beginning in the 1950s, when such research flowers, and seeds to control their childbear-

was still prohibited by the Comstock laws ing. In her story, Marks overlooks the fact

in many parts of the United States and the that Latin American women may have pro-

pharmaceutical companies were reluctant vided clues to an abundant and cheap source

of diosgenin, the sapogenin

that was used in the devel-

opment of the first mar-

ketable pill--and did so in

an era when progesterone

was prohibitively priced at

$1000 per gram.

Image not available for

Marks provides much information on the economics of the birth control

online use.

pill. Not surprisingly, pill

use is highest where public

assistance or private insur-

ance support is greatest.

Although British women

have had free contracep-

tion since 1974, many U.S.

Pictorial instruction. Posters like this were distributed to teach women still bear these

Malaysian women how to use the pill.

costs. That the pill must be

purchased on a regular ba-

to enter the field because they feared pub- sis goes a long way toward explaining why

lic controversy and a Catholic backlash.

so many women in developing countries

There are, however, other unsung heroes continue to use intrauterine devices and

and heroines who do not show up here. Marks sterilization.

endeavors to develop an international frame-

Some people continue to believe that sci-

work for understanding the origins of the pill, ence is "value-free," and that research results

but she does not discuss some Latin American are about truth, nature, and knowledge.

perspectives on the history. In these accounts, Marks's Sexual Chemistry tells a tale of com-

the American organic chemist Russell Mark- petition among firms, of political suppres-

er, while traveling in a remote part of Oaxaca sion and religious objections, of problems

in 1949, "discovered" the yam barbasco with protocols for human testing, and of con-

(Dioscorea mexicana) when he observed his troversy over cancer risks--all of which be-

Mexican guide making tea from its root. Bar- gin to overshadow what we might think of as

basco provided a cheap source of the steroidal technical questions about human fertility and

hormones needed to jump-start the production its control in the development of the pill.

of a widely marketable contraceptive pill. Its Without McCormick's money, a birth control

discovery was the key that allowed Marker to pill might not have become "one of the most

break the European monopoly on hormone important landmarks" in the 20th century; at

production; unlike the research findings of the the same time, McCormick insisted on a fe-

European companies, the Mexicans' tradition- male pill, seeing as essential women's ability

al knowledge was not protected by patents. to determine their own reproductive destiny.

According to his own typewritten account What might become the determining factor

(housed in the Pennsylvania State University allowing men to share in this right and duty

archives), Marker had gone to Mexico in the in the 21st century?

CREDIT: PHOTOGRAPH BY D. ROGER/UNITED NATIONS FUND FOR POPULATION ACTIVITIES AND WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

2106

7 DECEMBER 2001 VOL 294 SCIENCE

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