Keywords

Introduction

In the field of the theory and methodology of science, it has been convincingly argued that there are no neutral tools for the analysis of objective reality. The existence of an objective scientific reality has been questioned by Thomas Kuhn (1962), while Paul Feyerabend (1975) has shown that science in general constitutes only one way of approaching reality. Social factors, as well as the personal convictions of the researcher, can affect scientific research in many ways, e.g. the choice of the subject of research or the interpretation of findings. Max Weber’s (1949) view for a value-neutral science does not seem to be a rule in scientific activity (Chalmers 1999; Kothari 2006).

Our decision to research the subject of disagreement among scientists regarding the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect was sparked by Adans (2001) and made on the basis of the following criteria, which are directly related to the issues under research in this paper:

The students of the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, Democritus University of Thrace, tomorrow’s scientists, whose study programme is directly related to the subject of environmental management and protection.

The graduates of institutions of higher education, either of a university or technological background, which at the time of this research were registered in the annual Programme of Pedagogical Training and the annual Programme in Counselling and Professional Orientation of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education in Athens, who will soon be working mainly as teachers in secondary education schools and, in particular, schools with a technical–vocational orientation. As teachers, they will teach courses of their specialization which will be related to the study of the environment. In addition, they may also participate in specialized environmental education programmes as teacher-coordinators.

The graduates of institutions of higher education have different scientific backgrounds (they can be sociologists, engineers, medical doctors or agriculturalists). This variety of scientific specialization creates opportunities for a very interesting interdisciplinary dialogue. This gathering of all these different specialists under the same training programme is both rare and, for research purposes, very important.

The issue of the disagreement among scientists regarding the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect is directly related to the field of education, which is the most important place for informing today’s students – tomorrow’s citizens – on matters relating to the protection of the environment (Leal Filho 2008; Leal Filho et al. 2009). Therefore, it is of particular scientific and social importance to investigate the views of the above groups on possibly the most important contemporary problem of our planet. In addition, the differences between the two groups and in particular (a) the fact that the former are still undergraduates while the latter have already graduated and (b) the fact that the former are under 25 years old while the latter 25–45 years old, may make the study of the views of these two groups even more interesting.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the views of Forestry students at a Greek university and to compare and contrast these views with those of the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education in Athens. These were two independent research projects which, however, were carried out through the use of the same questionnaire. Both groups of students were asked to assess, on a scale from 1 to 10, the extent to which they regard as credible the information they receive about the global increase in temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect, the views and causes which make scientists disagree on the above issue and whether or not we should wait for more convincing scientific evidence before we adopt drastic measures for confronting the problem of the increase in the global temperature.

Research Methodology

Both research projects were carried out through the use of a self-management questionnaire (Oppenheim 1973; Siardos 1999). As it was important to choose a suitable time to conduct the research (Daoutopoulos 1994), it was carried out during the examination period of February 2008. Generally speaking, the students took part in the survey willingly. The time required for filling in the questionnaire was 10–15min.

The research area of the first project was the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, of Democritus University in Thrace, which is located in Orestiada, Greece. The participants were the students who were being examined in at least one course, i.e. 245 students. The participating students were 60% male and 40% female. The distribution of the students from the first to the fifth year of study was the following: first year 20.8%, second year 19.6%, third year 19.2%, fourth year 20.4%, and fifth year 20%.

The research area of the second project was the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education at Athens. This project investigated the views of 132 graduates of institutions of higher education, who through the annual Programme of Pedagogical Training and the annual Programme in Counselling and Professional Orientation obtain the right either to teach or work in the field of counselling and in secondary education. Of the 132 graduates who completed the questionnaire, 111 were attending the annual Programme of Pedagogical Training and 21 the annual Programme in Counselling and Professional Orientation. 34.8% were male and 65.2% female.

Also, in order to find out the extent to which there are natural and useful groupings of data, we used cluster analysis and, in particular, the method of hierarchical clustering. Starting from each observation being by itself one cluster, in each step we associated the observations with the smallest distance, so that the data of one cluster were included in the data of the hierarchically next cluster (Behrakis 1999; Siardos 1999; Filias et al. 2000; Karapistolis 2001; Karlis 2005). Indeed, this hierarchically next cluster can function not only towards the direction of observation grouping, but also towards the direction of variable grouping (Siardos 1999).

As the unit of analysis is the variable, the measures of distance or similarity were calculated for all the pairs of variables. As measure of distance, we used the Pearson correlation coefficient and for combining the observations in clusters we used the method of the furthest neighbour. According to this method, the distance between two clusters is considered to be the one between their furthest points (Siardos 1999; Bartholomew et al. 2002). The analysis of the data was carried out through the use of SPSS.

Results

There can be little doubt that awareness of, and general concern for, global warming is almost universal (Dunlap 1994). However, global warming has all the characteristics of issues which are difficult to understand. It is a complex issue characterized by substantial uncertainty (Berk and Schulman 1995). Regarding what they think of the credibility of scientific information about the global increase in temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect, on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 refers to uncertainty while 10 to certainty), both the students of Forestry and the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education gave low grades, the former 6.73 (s.d. 1.728) and the latter with 6.42 (s.d. 1.727).

For the public, making an assessment of how to respond to the threat of climate change requires, in part, assessing these uncertainties (Adans 2001). Assessing climate change also requires that the public improves its understanding of the nature of scientific controversy which surrounds the issue (McBean and Hengeveld 2000). Therefore, both the students of Forestry and the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education were asked to assess the reasons for which scientists disagree about the global increase in temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect, giving marks from 1 to 10, where 1 means unimportant and 10 important. The results of the two research projects which were carried out are given in Table9.1.

Table9.1 Assessment of the reasons scientists disagree on the global increase in temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect
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The students of Forestry mainly recognize four reasons of disagreement among scientists on the issue of global temperature increase: “The interconnection of science with economic activity” (mean 7.33), “the dependence of a scientist on his employer” (mean 7.17), “the desire for personal fame” (mean 6.88), “the different scientific background and skills” (mean 6.68).

The question, therefore, is whether research on climate change in the universities and research centres of our country should not only be financed by the state but also by the market, and whether the latter orients research and its results towards controlled directions. However, this disadvantage may become an advantage if we secure funding from different sources for different research teams which, however, research the same issue. So, in the long term, the analysis, synthesis, and publication of the results will lead to dominant scientific views. This seems to be correct, since regarding the increase in global temperature due to the greenhouse effect, both groups of students think of the reason “access to different data” as the least important reason of disagreement among scientists.

Lower in their assessment are reasons such as “the climate system is complex” (mean 6.58), “approaching the problem(s) on the basis of emotion or logic” (mean 6.57), “the human nature of scientists which means they see different things in the same picture” (mean 6.65), “the difficulty of proving hypotheses” (mean 6.64) and “access to different information” (mean 5.55).

Using hierarchical clustering we have four groups of variables which become obvious with complete linkage (Table9.2) and a dendrogram of the variables (Fig.9.1).

Table9.2 Complete linkage of variables and clusters with reference to students of forestry
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Fig.9.1
figure 1

Dendrogram of variables regarding reasons of disagreement with reference to students of Forestry

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The “dependence of a scientist on his employer” is related to the view that “science is interconnected with economic activity” and in greater distance with the view that “due to human nature, scientists see different things in the same picture”. This is the first cluster which can be named “economic dependence of scientists”. The second cluster, “personality of the scientists”, includes the reasons for disagreement among scientists with reference to “approaching the problem(s) on the basis of emotion or logic”, as well as “the desire for personal fame” by a scientist. The views that there is “difficulty in proving hypotheses” and that “the climate system is complex” constitute the third cluster, which can be named “nature of the problem”. The fourth cluster, “possibilities regarding human and material potential”, includes “access to different information” and “different scientific background and skills”.

The students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education think that the main causes of disagreement among scientists are “the dependence of a scientist on his employer” (mean 7.92) and that “science is interconnected with economic activity” (mean 7.22). Next come “the system of the climate is complex” (mean 6.84), “the difficulty in proving hypotheses” (mean 6.42), “approaching the problem(s) on the basis of emotion or logic” (mean 6.19) and “the human nature of scientists which means they see different things in the same picture” (mean 6.00). As least as important are the views “desire for personal fame” (mean 5.92), “different scientific background and skills” (mean 5.88) and “access to different information” (mean 5.40).

Using hierarchical clustering in this case too, we have four groups of variables. The complete linkage (Table9.3) and the dendrogram of variables (Fig.9.2) show that the interconnection of the reasons is the same with regard to both populations, with the only differentiation the variable “the human nature of scientists which means they see different things in the same picture”, which is connected with greater distance to the variables “access to different information” and “different scientific background and skills”, which form the cluster “possibilities regarding human and material potential”. Therefore, the only difference is that the students of Forestry believe that the difference in perception and analysis of information is due to interests originating in the relationship employee–employer, while the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education believe in the skills of the scientists and the means available to scientists. Other clusters are “the economic dependence of scientists”, “personality of scientists” and “nature of problem”.

Table9.3 Complete linkage of variables and clusters with reference to the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education
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Fig.9.2
figure 2

Dendrogram of variables regarding the reasons of disagreement among scientists with reference to the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education

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One of the most basic policy questions which must be answered is whether action should be taken now or whether more research is needed (Adans 2001). Most of the students of Forestry (57.1%) declare that we should not wait for more conclusive scientific evidence before we take decisive action to confront the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect. With reference to the students of Forestry, 32.7% disagree with this view, while 10.2% of the students do not answer the question. The students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education are more categorical since 87.9% of them believe that we should not wait for more conclusive scientific evidence before we take decisive action. 7.6% of the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education believe that we should wait, while 4.5% of those students do not answer the question.

The differentiation of the views of the two groups of respondents may be due to differences in age, knowledge and social experience. Such differences may make the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education perceive more clearly and more confidently how dangerous it might be to delay taking immediate measures for confronting the problem of the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect. They may be more aware of the fact that scientific disagreement is a characteristic and acceptable feature of scientific activity and, therefore, we should not wait for a definitive agreement among scientists before we adopt the necessary measures simply because such an agreement may never occur.

Similarly, a study by Doble et al. (1990) found that 60% of their sample (402 adults from four US metropolitan areas) agreed with the statement, “If we wait for more conclusive scientific evidence before taking decisive action to deal with the greenhouse effect, it will be too late”. On the other hand, only 29% of their respondents agreed with a converse statement, “Before taking decisive action to deal with the greenhouse effect, we should wait for more conclusive evidence”.

Conclusions

In a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means uncertainty and 10 certainty, both the students of Forestry and the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education think that the information they receive from the scientific community regarding the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect is a little above average.

In investigating the views of the study population regarding the reasons of disagreement among scientists on the increase in global temperature, we see that the first two positions in both research projects are occupied by “science is interconnected with economic activity” and “dependence of a scientist on his employer”. Through the use of hierarchical analysis in clusters, we see that both of these variables constitute a cluster which we named “economic dependence of scientists”.

Besides state funding, research centres and universities are also financed by other sources. This does not mean that the results are necessarily controlled by those who finance the research. However, some central mechanism with the task of assessing the credibility of the results must be created. Care should also be taken for the development of research areas which the private initiative is not particularly interested to finance.

Although the other reasons are assessed differently by the two populations, through the use of hierarchical analysis in clusters, we get four clusters which include the same variables. “Approaching the problem on the basis of emotion or logic” and the “desire for personal fame” of the scientists, constitute the cluster “personality of scientists”. “The difficulty of proving hypotheses” and “the climate system is complex” constitute the cluster “nature of problem”. The variables “access to different data” and the existence of “different scientific background and skills” constitute the cluster “possibilities regarding human and material potential”.

Regarding the students of Forestry, the variable “due to their human nature scientists see different things in the same picture” is included in the cluster we named “economic dependence of scientists” whereas, regarding the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, the above variable is included in the cluster “possibilities regarding human and material potential”. It seems, therefore, that the students of Forestry are stricter in their judgment and associate the different perceptions of scientists with the relationship employee–employer, whereas the connection for the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education is the ability of and means available to scientists.

However, it is positive that both groups – with the students of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education being more categorical – believe that we should not wait for more conclusive scientific evidence before we adopt the necessary measures for confronting the problem of the increase in global temperature as a result of the greenhouse effect. It seems that both groups firmly believe that the increase in the global temperature is a serious problem which our society should regard as a top priority.