In 2002 Donald Rumsfeld was asked how he was so sure that Iraq has attempted to or was willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. In an answer that would become fodder for public speculation, he actually said: "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." Got that?
Five years later, here's what ExxonMobil's Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson said in late May to the annual shareholders meeting when asked why the company has funded groups that deny global warming is a real problem in the face of scientific consensus. He said: "There's much we know and can agree on around the climate change issue, and there's much that we just don't believe we do know...and we want to have a debate about the things we know and understand, the things we know about that we don't understand very well, and the things we don't even know about around this very complex issue of climate science. So that is what will continue to be our position." Sound familiar?
I have created this weblog as a means of zeroing in on the “doing” of science and the debate over climate change and global warming in a politicoscientific way while speaking of matters of fact versus matters of concern. My project is the final assignment for Dr. Michael Flower’s “Science: Power-Knowledge” course (Spring 2007) at PSU.
Bruno Latour
No comments:
Post a Comment