INVESTMENT IN
KNOWLEDGE
LJU4801
CLIMATE WARS AND FAT WARS
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Climate wars and fat wars: a new role for law1
1. Introduction
It is no secret that science is in trouble. More precisely, science is in trouble in terms of the
public's perception of science. The faith in science that was such a characteristic of the
Enlightenment has been seriously compromised and public mistrust of scientific findings is
particularly noticeable.2 This distrust comes to the fore in public debates but specifically on
social media3 and in popular science writing. 4 It is partly the result of false or misleading
reporting on scientific findings in the media where they are represented as contradictory or
short-lived.5 For example, not a week goes by without some reports on which foods are
good or bad for you.6 This results in people rejecting all findings on the basis of "oh, they'll
just change their minds again".7 This is frustrating but it is not the main focus of this paper.
Dealing with the intersection between climate science, nutrition science and law requires a
multidisciplinary approach. In fact, as will become clear in this article, climate science and
nutrition science are unavoidably multidisciplinary. And, as has been argued elsewhere,
legal practice and research are also multidisciplinary. 8 This multidisciplinarity inevitably
results in methodological differences between the various scientists and disciplines in this
type of research. These differences in research methodology will briefly be discussed in
section 2 of this article.9 And, usually, these differences will result in debates that most
1 Article based on a paper originally presented in slightly different format at a research morning,
University of South Africa on 18 October 2016.
𝗌𝗌 BA; Honns BA; LLB; LLM (Potch); LLD (Unisa). Professor, College of Law, Unisa.
𝗌𝗌𝗌 PO Box 392, Unisa, 0003. .
2 See Saltelli A "Science in crisis: from the sugar scam to Brexit, our faith in experts is fading"
https://theconversation.com/science-in-crisis-from-the-sugar-scam-to-brexit-our-faith-in-experts-is-
fading-65016 (Date of use: 2016-10-03).
3 For this reason this article will contain many sources not often found in law journal articles. This is to
illustrate how these debates and conflicts are playing out on social media.
4 See, for example, Olson R Don't be such a scientist: talking substance in an age of style Kindle ed
(Island Press Washington 2009).
5 See Brown AW et al "Unscientific Beliefs about Scientific Topics in Nutrition" 2014 Advances in nutrition
563 – 565.
6 See Hingston S "How the USDA screwed up the American diet – and deprived me of so much delicious
butter" http://www.phillymag.com/2016/10/01/usda-dietary-guidelines-butter/ (Date of use: 2016-11-1).
7 See Brown AW et al "Unscientific beliefs about scientific topics in nutrition" 2014 Advances in Nutrition
(5) 563 – 565.
8 See Kroeze IJ "Legal research methodology and the myth of interdisciplinarity" 2013 Potchefstroom
Electronic Law Journal 35 – 65 53: "Multidisciplinarity is not only possible in law, it is something legal
researchers regularly do, have done and will continue to do. Because law is a social artefact, the
consideration of legal issues and problems will always and necessarily require looking at socio-political
and economic factors, for example. This is a conscious or unconscious mirroring of what courts do."
9 This section will rely heavily on work previously done. See Kroeze 2013 PER 35 – 65.
1
, lOMoARcPSD|937 782 3
people outside the discipline will be unaware of.
But, as section 3 of this article will explain, certain events in the domain of climate science
and nutrition have resulted in the debates taking on the appearance of wars. And the further
developments following on these developments have now made it inevitable that lawyers will
have to become more up-to-date on the complexities of these debates or wars. If the
developments discussed below do become widespread, lawyers acting in these cases will
not be able to fall back on familiar, black-letter law concepts and constructs. Inevitably their
involvement will not only be about the law, but also about the science. It is this connection
that will be explained in section 3. Finally, section 4 will draw some conclusions from the
above regarding the way law is viewed and will explore the new role law and lawyers will
play in these conflicts.
2. "The" scientific method10
Many attempts have been made to account for the differences between disciplines and the
distinctions between sciences, namely the natural, social and human sciences. These
attempts are sometimes based on historical explanations, sometimes on the subject matter
of the different sciences and sometimes merely ascribed to convention. 11 However, it has
been argued elsewhere that the differences can best be ascribed to the methodological
approaches of these sciences.12 This argument will not be repeated here.
Generally speaking, methodological approaches in science can broadly be divided into two
groups, namely rationalism (or deduction) and empiricism (or induction). 13 Rationalism starts
from the idea that empirical observation alone cannot be the foundation of knowledge and
therefore scientific knowledge comes from rational thinking and logic. This is sometimes
followed by observation but not always. Empiricism takes the opposite view and requires
physical observation as the basis for knowledge.14 In short, rationalists argue that
10 This is a very complicated and complex debate in the philosophy of science, but this section will attempt
to simplify this as it is not the main focus of the article.
11 The division of faculties in universities (as indicative of different sciences) is of fairly recent origin and
traditionally everything was regarded as "Arts" so historical reasons are likely not sufficient. See Collini
S What Are Universities For? (Penguin London 2012) 23-26; Frühwald W et al (eds)
Geisteswissenschaft heute: eine Denkschrift 2nd ed (Suhrkamp Frankfurt 1996); Anderson RL "The
debate over the Geisteswissenschaft in German philosophy" in Baldwin T (ed) The Cambridge history of
philosophy (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2003) 219 – 234 224.
12 See Kroeze 2013 PER 42.
13 See Gorham G Philosophy of science: a beginner's guide (OneWorld Oxford 2009) 55. See also
Tarnas R The passion of the Western mind (Random House London 1991) 59: "While Plato distrusted
knowledge gained by sense perception, Aristotle took such information seriously, contending that
knowledge of the natural world derives first from the perception of concrete particulars in which regular
patterns can be recognised and general principles formulated".
14 This is the basic difference between Plato's Idealism (a form of rationalism) and Aristotle's Realism (a
more empiricist approach). See See Plato De republica (Loeb Classical Library London 1930-1939)
Book VII and Aristotle "Metaphysics" in The complete works of Aristotle (translated by Ross WD)
(Random House New York 1947) Book 1, chap 1, 980a – 981b.
2
KNOWLEDGE
LJU4801
CLIMATE WARS AND FAT WARS
E
I BL
O SS
P
IM E
S ON
EM D
SE ITS
S IL
AY NT
W U
AL
IT
, lOMoARcPSD|937 782 3
Climate wars and fat wars: a new role for law1
1. Introduction
It is no secret that science is in trouble. More precisely, science is in trouble in terms of the
public's perception of science. The faith in science that was such a characteristic of the
Enlightenment has been seriously compromised and public mistrust of scientific findings is
particularly noticeable.2 This distrust comes to the fore in public debates but specifically on
social media3 and in popular science writing. 4 It is partly the result of false or misleading
reporting on scientific findings in the media where they are represented as contradictory or
short-lived.5 For example, not a week goes by without some reports on which foods are
good or bad for you.6 This results in people rejecting all findings on the basis of "oh, they'll
just change their minds again".7 This is frustrating but it is not the main focus of this paper.
Dealing with the intersection between climate science, nutrition science and law requires a
multidisciplinary approach. In fact, as will become clear in this article, climate science and
nutrition science are unavoidably multidisciplinary. And, as has been argued elsewhere,
legal practice and research are also multidisciplinary. 8 This multidisciplinarity inevitably
results in methodological differences between the various scientists and disciplines in this
type of research. These differences in research methodology will briefly be discussed in
section 2 of this article.9 And, usually, these differences will result in debates that most
1 Article based on a paper originally presented in slightly different format at a research morning,
University of South Africa on 18 October 2016.
𝗌𝗌 BA; Honns BA; LLB; LLM (Potch); LLD (Unisa). Professor, College of Law, Unisa.
𝗌𝗌𝗌 PO Box 392, Unisa, 0003. .
2 See Saltelli A "Science in crisis: from the sugar scam to Brexit, our faith in experts is fading"
https://theconversation.com/science-in-crisis-from-the-sugar-scam-to-brexit-our-faith-in-experts-is-
fading-65016 (Date of use: 2016-10-03).
3 For this reason this article will contain many sources not often found in law journal articles. This is to
illustrate how these debates and conflicts are playing out on social media.
4 See, for example, Olson R Don't be such a scientist: talking substance in an age of style Kindle ed
(Island Press Washington 2009).
5 See Brown AW et al "Unscientific Beliefs about Scientific Topics in Nutrition" 2014 Advances in nutrition
563 – 565.
6 See Hingston S "How the USDA screwed up the American diet – and deprived me of so much delicious
butter" http://www.phillymag.com/2016/10/01/usda-dietary-guidelines-butter/ (Date of use: 2016-11-1).
7 See Brown AW et al "Unscientific beliefs about scientific topics in nutrition" 2014 Advances in Nutrition
(5) 563 – 565.
8 See Kroeze IJ "Legal research methodology and the myth of interdisciplinarity" 2013 Potchefstroom
Electronic Law Journal 35 – 65 53: "Multidisciplinarity is not only possible in law, it is something legal
researchers regularly do, have done and will continue to do. Because law is a social artefact, the
consideration of legal issues and problems will always and necessarily require looking at socio-political
and economic factors, for example. This is a conscious or unconscious mirroring of what courts do."
9 This section will rely heavily on work previously done. See Kroeze 2013 PER 35 – 65.
1
, lOMoARcPSD|937 782 3
people outside the discipline will be unaware of.
But, as section 3 of this article will explain, certain events in the domain of climate science
and nutrition have resulted in the debates taking on the appearance of wars. And the further
developments following on these developments have now made it inevitable that lawyers will
have to become more up-to-date on the complexities of these debates or wars. If the
developments discussed below do become widespread, lawyers acting in these cases will
not be able to fall back on familiar, black-letter law concepts and constructs. Inevitably their
involvement will not only be about the law, but also about the science. It is this connection
that will be explained in section 3. Finally, section 4 will draw some conclusions from the
above regarding the way law is viewed and will explore the new role law and lawyers will
play in these conflicts.
2. "The" scientific method10
Many attempts have been made to account for the differences between disciplines and the
distinctions between sciences, namely the natural, social and human sciences. These
attempts are sometimes based on historical explanations, sometimes on the subject matter
of the different sciences and sometimes merely ascribed to convention. 11 However, it has
been argued elsewhere that the differences can best be ascribed to the methodological
approaches of these sciences.12 This argument will not be repeated here.
Generally speaking, methodological approaches in science can broadly be divided into two
groups, namely rationalism (or deduction) and empiricism (or induction). 13 Rationalism starts
from the idea that empirical observation alone cannot be the foundation of knowledge and
therefore scientific knowledge comes from rational thinking and logic. This is sometimes
followed by observation but not always. Empiricism takes the opposite view and requires
physical observation as the basis for knowledge.14 In short, rationalists argue that
10 This is a very complicated and complex debate in the philosophy of science, but this section will attempt
to simplify this as it is not the main focus of the article.
11 The division of faculties in universities (as indicative of different sciences) is of fairly recent origin and
traditionally everything was regarded as "Arts" so historical reasons are likely not sufficient. See Collini
S What Are Universities For? (Penguin London 2012) 23-26; Frühwald W et al (eds)
Geisteswissenschaft heute: eine Denkschrift 2nd ed (Suhrkamp Frankfurt 1996); Anderson RL "The
debate over the Geisteswissenschaft in German philosophy" in Baldwin T (ed) The Cambridge history of
philosophy (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2003) 219 – 234 224.
12 See Kroeze 2013 PER 42.
13 See Gorham G Philosophy of science: a beginner's guide (OneWorld Oxford 2009) 55. See also
Tarnas R The passion of the Western mind (Random House London 1991) 59: "While Plato distrusted
knowledge gained by sense perception, Aristotle took such information seriously, contending that
knowledge of the natural world derives first from the perception of concrete particulars in which regular
patterns can be recognised and general principles formulated".
14 This is the basic difference between Plato's Idealism (a form of rationalism) and Aristotle's Realism (a
more empiricist approach). See See Plato De republica (Loeb Classical Library London 1930-1939)
Book VII and Aristotle "Metaphysics" in The complete works of Aristotle (translated by Ross WD)
(Random House New York 1947) Book 1, chap 1, 980a – 981b.
2
