Rhetorical Strategies for Scientific Authority: A Boundary-Work Analysis of ‘Climategate’

The term ‘Climategate’ refers to the episode in November 2009 when emails between climate scientists were stolen and published online. The content of this private correspondence prompted criticism from diverse commentators who cast doubts on the methods, claims, and members of the climate science community. In response, individual scientists and scientific institutions published statements responding to the allegations of scientific fraud. Gieryn's concept of ‘boundary-work’ can be used to analyse the rhetoric of scientists in situations where their legitimacy is disputed. More specifically, boundary-work can be used to analyse the responses of scientists in terms of: how they represent the attributes of science, what types of boundary-work they undertake (e.g. expulsion, expansion, and protection), and the professional interests that come into play. A boundary-work analysis of the commentaries published in the aftermath of Climategate reveals that scientists characterised climate science as consensual, asocial, and open. Scientists depicted climate science as consensual with the purpose of expelling dissenters and protecting areas of climate science from criticism. Scientists also described knowledge about climate as being ideally produced apart from society so that they could preserve their autonomy and exclude individuals who are accused of being ‘politically biased’. Scientists characterised climate science as necessarily open as the means to justify both existing and additional public funding for science and to avoid external corrective interventions against scientific opacity. Scientists and their critics alike interpreted the stolen emails as embarrassing deviations from the alleged social demands of a consensual, objective, and accessible science.