Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Many scientists accept a duty of ensuring that their science is used to help society. When we are publicly funded, we feel that we owe it to the public to offer Open Science for contributing to policy and action.

Some scientists take it a step further. Rather than merely making their science available for others to use, they interpret it for themselves to seek specific policies and actions. Open Science becomes a conduit for the scientist to become an activist. Positives and negatives emerge, as shown by the science of urban exploration and of climate change.

Urban exploration

‘Urban exploration’ (urbex), ‘place-hacking’, and ‘recreational trespass’ refer to people accessing infrastructure which is off-limits to the public, such as closed train stations, incomplete buildings, and utility systems. As per the third name, it sometimes involves trespassing and it is frequently dangerous, since sites are typically closed off for safety and security reasons.

Urbex research does not need to involve the infrastructure directly, perhaps through reviewing existing material or interviewing off-site. It can, though, involve participating in accessing the off-limits sites for documenting experiences through autoethnography or participant-observer. As such, the urbex researcher could be breaking the law. In 2014, one researcher was granted a conditional discharge, 20 months after being arrested for involvement in urbex while researching it.

Open Science for urbex research has its supporters and detractors. Those stating the importance of the work and publicising it point to the excitement of learning about and documenting a city’s undercurrents, creative viewing and interacting with urban environments, the act of bringing sequestered spaces to the public while challenging authoritarianism, the need to identify security lapses, and making friends. Many insist on full safety measures, even while trespassing.

Detractors explain that private property is private and that significant dangers exist. People have died. Rescues and body recoveries put others at risk. Urbex science might be legitimate, particularly to promote academic freedom, but it should neither be glorified nor encourage foolhardiness.

This situation is not two mutually exclusive sides. Rather, different people prefer different balances. Urbex Open Science as activism can be safe, legal, and fun—also as a social or solo hobby. Thrill-seekers for social media influence and income would be among the most troublesome and the least scientific.

Figure 1: Unfinished and abandoned buildings are subjects of ‘urbex’ research (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Climate everything?

Humanity is changing the Earth’s climate rapidly and substantively with major, deleterious impacts on society. Open Science on climate change has been instrumental in popularising why human-caused climate change is happening, its implications, how we could avert it, and actions to tackle its negative impacts.

Less clear is the penchant for some scientists to use Open Science to try to become self-appointed influencers and activists beyond their expertise. They can make grandiose public pronouncements on climate change science well outside their own work, even contradicting their colleagues’ published research. An example is an ocean physicist lamenting the UK missing its commitments on climate change’s Paris Agreement, despite the agreement being unable to meet its own targets, and then expressing concerns about “climate refugees” which legally cannot exist.

A meme distributed by some scientists states that cats kill more birds than wind turbines, yet no one tries to restrict cats! Aside from petitions and studies about restricting cats, the meme never explains how cats killing birds justifies wind turbines killing birds, particularly when kill-avoiding strategies exist. When a scientist’s social media postings are easily countered, it undermines efforts to suggest that scientists ought to be listened to regarding climate change.

Meanwhile, many scientists believe they can galvanise action by referring to “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” rather than to “climate change”. From the beginnings of this crisis/emergency framing, political concerns were raised about the phrasing. Now, evidence is available of the crisis/emergency wording leading to negative impacts for action.

In fact, scientist activism aiming to “climat-ify” everything leads to non-sensical phrasing. From “global weirding” to “climate chaos”, activist terminology can reveal a lack of understanding of the basics of climate science—such as climate, by definition, being mathematically chaotic. A more recent one is “climate obstruction”. When I asked how we could obstruct the climate since the climate always exists, I never received an answer.

Figure 2: James Hansen, climate scientist and activist (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Duty for accuracy and ethics

Scientists have a duty for accuracy and ethics, which Open Science should be used for. Fulfilling this duty contributes to credibility and clarity, rather than using Open Science to promote either subversive or populist material, simply for the sake of activism, without first checking its underlying science and the implications of publicising it. When applied appropriately, Open Science can and should support accurate and ethical activism.

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science reveals scientific disagreements to the public, with advantages and disadvantages. Opportunities emerge to demonstrate the scientific process and techniques for sifting through diverging ideas and evidence. Conversely, disagreements can become personal, obscuring science, scientific methods, and understandable disagreements due to unknowns, uncertainties, and personality clashes. Volcanology and climate change illustrate.

Volcanology

During 1976, a volcano rumbled on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe which is part of France. Volcanologists travelled there to assess the situation leading to public spats between those who were convinced that a catastrophic eruption was likely and those who were unconcerned, indicating that plenty of time would be available for evacuating people if dangers worsened. The authorities decided to evacuate more than 73,000 people, permitting them to return home more than three months later when the volcano quieted down without having had a major eruption.

Aside from the evacuation’s cost and the possible cost of a major eruption without an evacuation, volcanologists debated for years afterwards how everyone could have dealt better with the science, the disagreements, and the publicity. Open Science could support all scientific viewpoints being publicly available as well as how this science could be and is used for decision making, including navigating disagreements. It might mean that those who shout loudest are heard most, plus media can sell their wares by amplifying the most melodramatic and doomerist voices—a pattern also seen with climate change.

Insults and personality clashes can mask legitimate scientific disagreements. For Guadeloupe, in one commentary responding to intertwined scientific differences and personal attacks, the volcanologist unhelpfully suggests their colleagues’ lack of ‘emotional stability’ as part of numerous, well-evidenced scientific points. In a warning prescient for the next example, this scientist indicates difficulties if Open Science means conferring credibility to ‘scientists who have specialized in another field that has little or no bearing on [the topic under discussion], and would-be scientists with no qualification in any scientific field whatever’.

Figure 1: Chile’s Osorno volcano (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Climate change, tropical cyclones, and anthropologists

Tropical cyclones are the collective term for hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. The current scientific consensus (which can change) is that due to human-caused climate change, tropical cyclone frequency is decreasing while intensity is increasing. On occasion, anthropologists have stated categorically that tropical cyclone numbers are going up due to human-caused climate change.

I responded to a few of these statements with the current scientific consensus, including foundational papers. This response annoyed the anthropologists even though they have never conducted research on this topic. I offered to discuss the papers I mentioned, an offer not accepted.

There is a clear scientific disagreement between climate change scientists and some anthropologists regarding projected tropical cyclone trends under human-caused climate change. If these anthropologists publish their unevidenced viewpoint as Open Science, it offers fodder to the industries undermining climate change science and preventing action on human-caused climate change. They can point to scientists disputing the consensus of climate change science and then foment further uncertainty and scepticism about climate change projections.

One challenge is avoiding censorship of, or shutting down scientific discussions with, the anthropologists who do not accept climate change science’s conclusions. It is a tricky balance between permitting Open Science across disciplines, including to connect disciplines, and not fostering or promoting scientific misinformation.

Figure 2: Presenting tropical cyclone observations (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Caution, care, and balance

Balance is important between having scientific discussions in the open and avoiding scientists levelling personal attacks at each other or spreading incorrect science, both of which harm all science. Some journals use an open peer review process in which the submitted article, the reviews, the response to the reviews, all subsequent reviews and responses, and the editorial decision are freely available online. A drawback is that submitted manuscripts are cited as being credible, including those declined for publication. Some journals identify authors and reviewers to each other, which can reduce snide remarks while increasing possibilities for retribution against negative reviews.

Even publicly calling out bullying does not necessarily diminish bullying. Last year, after I privately raised concerns about personal attacks against me on an anthropology email list due to a climate change posting I made, I was called “unwell” and “unhinged” in private emails which were forwarded to me. When I examined the anthropology organisation’s policies on bullying and silencing, I found them lacking. I publicised my results. The leaders not only removed me from the email list against the email list’s own policies, but they also refused to communicate with me. That is, these anthropologists (who are meant to be experts in inter-cultural communication) bullied and silenced me because I called out bullying and silencing.

Awareness of the opportunities and perils of Open Science for navigating scientific disagreements can indicate balanced pathways for focusing on science rather than on personalities. Irrespective, caution and care can struggle to overcome entirely the fact that scientists are human beings with personalities, some of whom are ardently opposed to caution, care, and disagreeing well.

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science brings potential dangers to scientists and ways of managing those dangers. In doing so, opportunities emerge to show the world the harm some people face, such as the murder of environmental activists and investigations of child sexual abuse, hopefully leading to positive action to counter these problems.

Yet risks can appear for scientists. Even doing basic climate change science has led to death threats. Two examples in this blog indicate how to manage dangers to scientists.

Disaster diplomacy

Disaster diplomacy research examines how and why disaster-related activities—before, during, and after a disaster—do and do not influence all forms of conflict and cooperation, ranging from open warfare to signing peace deals. So far, no example has been identified in which disaster-related activities, including a major calamity, led to entirely new and lasting conflict or cooperation. An underlying reason to favour enmity or amity is always found, with disaster-related activities being one reason among many to pursue already decided politics.

The 26 December 2004 tsunamis around the Indian Ocean devastated Sri Lanka and Aceh in Indonesia, both of which had been wracked by decades of violent conflict. On the basis of ongoing, secret negotiations which were spurred along by the post-earthquake/tsunami humanitarian effort, a peace deal was reached in Aceh and it held. Simultaneously in Sri Lanka, the disaster relief was deliberately used to continue the conflict which was eventually ended by military means. In both locations, the pre-existing desire for peace and conflict respectively produced the witnessed outcome.

This disaster diplomacy conclusion is the pattern for formal processes, such as politicians, diplomats, celebrities, businesses, non-governmental organisations, or media leading the work. It is less certain for informal approaches: individuals helping one another in times of need or travelling to ‘enemy states’ as tourists or workers—or as scientists.

Openly publishing on disaster diplomacy could influence conflict and cooperation processes by suggesting ideas which decision-makers might not have considered. Or it could spotlight negotiations which detractors seek to scuttle. If a scientist had published on the closed-door Aceh peace talks, the result might have emulated Sri Lanka. The scientist would then have endangered a country as well as themselves by being blamed for perpetuating the violence.

Imagine if South Korea’s President, seeking a back door to reconciliation with North Korea, sends to Pyongyang flood engineers and scientists who regularly update their work online. They make social gaffes, embarrassing South Korea, or are merely arrested and made scapegoats on the whim of North Korea’s leader who is fed up with the world seeing what North Korea lacks. The scientists and engineers are endangered as much as the reconciliation process.

Open Science brings disaster diplomacy opportunities by letting those involved know what has and has not worked. It can lead to situations in which scientists are placed at the peril of politics.

Figure 1: Looking across the Im Jin River into North Korea from South Korea (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Underworlds

Scientists study topics in which people are in danger, such as child soldiers, human trafficking, and political movements or sexualities that are illegal in the country being examined. The scientists can be threatened as much as the people being researched. In 2016, a PhD student based in the UK who was researching trade unions in Cairo was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.

In 2014, a PhD student based in the UK was one of a group placed on trial in London for ‘place-hacking’ or ‘urban exploring’ (urbex), in which they enter or climb disused or under-construction infrastructure. Aside from potentially trespassing, these places are often closed for safety reasons. The scientist places themselves in danger to research this subculture on-site, in action.

All these risks are manageable and they are managed. Any such research in the UK must go through a rigorous research ethics approval process alongside a detailed risk assessment. This paperwork can take months, to ensure that the dangers have been considered and mitigated, although when conducted improperly, the process itself can be detrimental to research ethics.

Many urbex proponents offer lengthy safety advice and insist that activities be conducted legally. Nor should researchers necessarily shy away from hard subject matter because a government dislikes the work.

Open Science publishing on these topics can remain ethical by ensuring anonymity and confidentiality of sources as well as not publishing when the scientist is in a place where they could be in danger. This task is not always straightforward. Anonymity and confidentiality can protect criminals. Scientists might live and work in the country of research, so they cannot escape the danger. How ethical is it for a scientist to be involved in the illegal activities they are researching?

Figure 2: The Shard in London, a desirable  place for ‘urban exploring’ when it was under construction (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Caution, care, and balance

Balance is important between publishing Open Science on topics involving dangers and not putting scientists or others at unnecessary peril while pursuing the research and publication. Awareness of the potential drawbacks of doing the research and of suitable research ethics, risk assessments, and research monitoring can instil caution and care without compromising the scientific process or Open Science.

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science brings risks and opportunities regarding privacy. Making methods, data, analyses, disagreements, and conclusions entirely publicly available demonstrates the scientific process, including its messiness and uncertainties. Showing how much we do not know and how we aim to fill in gaps excites and encourages people about science and scientific careers. It also holds scientists accountable, since any mistakes can be identified and corrected, which is always an essential part of science.

Given these advantages, Open Science offers so much to researchers and to those outside research. It helps to make science accessible to anyone, notably for application, while supporting exchange with those inspired by the work.

People’s right to privacy, as an ethical and legal mandate, must still be maintained. If a situation might worsen by Open Science not respecting privacy, irrespective of it being legal, then care is required to respect those who would want or might deserve privacy. Anonymity and confidentiality are part of research ethics precisely to achieve a balance. Irrespective, Open Science might inadvertently reveal information sources or it could be feasible to identify research participants who would prefer not to be exposed. Being aware of possible pitfalls assists in preventing them.

Disaster decisions

Some research could be seen as violating privacy. Disaster researchers seek to understand who dies in disasters, how, and why, in order to improve safety for everyone and to save lives. The work can examine death certificates and pictures of dead bodies. Publicising all this material could violate the privacy and dignity of those who perished and could augment the grief of those left behind.

Sometimes, research hones in on problematic actions for improving without blaming, whereas society more widely might seek to judge. A handful of studies has examined the blood alcohol level of drivers who died while driving through floodwater, which should never be attempted even when sober (Figure 1). In many cases, the driver was above the legal limit for blood alcohol level. Rather than embarrassing the deceased by naming-and-shaming, it would help everyone to use the data as an impetus to tackle simultaneously the separate and unacceptable decisions to drive drunk, to drive drugged, and to drive through floodwater.

Yet storytelling can be a powerful communication technique to encourage positive behavioural change. If identifying details are used, then it must involve the individuals’ or their kin’s full and informed consent. Even with this consent, it might not be necessary to provide the full details, as a more generic narrative can remain emotional and effective. Opportunities for improving disaster decisions emerge in consensual sharing, so that it avoids violating privacy—while also being careful regarding the real need to publish the specifics of any particular story.

Figure 1: Researching the dangerous behaviour of people driving through floodwater, with the number plate blurred to protect privacy (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Small sample populations

Maintaining confidentiality and anonymity for interviewees can be a struggle where interviewees have comparatively unique experiences or positions and so are easily identifiable. Governments in jurisdictions with smaller populations might employ only a handful of people in the entire country who know about a certain topic. Stating that an interviewee is “A national government worker in Eswatini specialising in international environmental treaties” or “A megacity mayor” could narrow it down to a few people or to one person.

A similar situation arises with groups comprising a small number of people from whom to select interviewees, such as “vehicle business owners in Kiruna, Sweden”, “International NGO CEOs”, or specific elites. Even with thousands of possible interviewees, for instance “university chiefs” or “Olympic athletes”, quotations from the interview or locational details might make it easy to narrow down and single out a specific interviewee.

Interviewee identification can become even simpler when basic data on interviewees, such as sex and age range, are provided, as is standard in research papers. Providing interview data in a public repository is sometimes expected, with the possibility of full transcripts, so that others can examine and use those data. The way someone expresses themselves might make them straightforward to pinpoint within a small group of potential interviewees.

Again, risks and opportunities regarding privacy focus on consent and on necessity of listing details. Everyone including any public figure has some level of a right to privacy (Figure 2). Where consent is not given to waive confidentiality or anonymity, then the research process—including reviewing and publishing academic papers—needs to accept that not all interviewee details or data can or should be shared. With consent, care is still required to ensure that identifying individuals or permitting them to be discovered really adds to the positive impacts from the research.

Figure 2: Ralph Nader, an American politician and activist, still has a right to privacy when not speaking in public (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Caution, care, and balance

With caution and care, always seeking a balance with respect to privacy, any difficulties emerging from Open Science can be prevented. Of especial importance is not sacrificing many of the immense and much-needed gains from Open Science.