ON ISSUES from genetically modified crops to climate change, scientists are confronted by critics seemingly willing to say or do anything to win the debate. Faced with such opposition, it can be tempting to push facts harder than they can bear, simply to get a hearing.
This temptation has long worried some of the scientists at the sharp end of such controversies. When the issue of global warming first made headlines in the late 1980s, the influential climate researcher Stephen Schneider expressed the hope that scientists could strike a balance “between being effective and being honest”.
Yet such hope seems…
