From CNSNews.com – Proponents of human-caused global warming claim that “cognitive” brain function prevents conservatives from accepting the science that says “climate change” is an imminent threat to planet Earth and its inhabitants.
George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley and author of the book “The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics,” says his scientific research shows that how one perceives the world depends on one’s bodily experience and how one functions in the everyday world. Reason is shaped by the body, he says.
Lakoff told CNSNews.com that “metaphors” shape a person’s understanding of the world, along with one’s values and political beliefs — including what they think about global warming.
“It relates directly (to global warming) because conservatives tend to feel that the free market should be unregulated and (that) environmental regulations are immoral and wrong,” Lakoff said.
“And what they try to do is show that the science is wrong and that the argument is wrong, based on the science. So when it comes back to science, they try to debunk the science,” Lakoff said.
On the other hand, he added, liberals’ cognitive process allows them to be “open-minded.”
“Liberals say, ‘Look seriously at the science and look at whether people are going to be harmed or not and whether the world is going to be harmed,’” Lakoff said.
In a Feb. 23 report on National Public Radio, reporter Christopher Joyce began his story by stating that recent polls show that fewer Americans believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, despite “a raft” of contradictory reports.
“This puzzles many climate scientists, but not social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs,” Joyce said.
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Read the entire piece here
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The explanations are getting desperate. I wonder then how Dr. Lakoff explains people like myself, who once accepted the scientific arguments presented on global warming, but who now reject most of the hype and urgency attached to it? Believe it or not, in the early 90’s I used to be a global warming activist. But that’s another story.
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Is that Dr. Lakoff, as in ‘rhymes with’ …
.
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Perhaps the good Dr. and his peers can come up with a solution to make sure those pesky deformed thinkers don’t get in their way in the future?
Here brain, atta boy, sit. Now look at the pictures and tell daddy which one proves global warming:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/WhatGlobalWarming.htm
-!!!!!!!!!!! !!!-
Good boy, you picked Sacramento 5 ESE, which has the Kiss of Giss.
“Fact’s are not as important as beliefs”. That actually scares me. This is why Christian Scientists (the religious group) don’t go to medical doctors when their children are gravely ill.
Yes the liberals got a brain, Abby-something.
“…whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs.” – Indeed, the religion of AGW as promoted by its high priest, Algore.
As someone I know said once, “it is possible to have your mind so open you brains fall out.”
“This puzzles many climate scientists, but not social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs,” Joyce said.
At least he got this one thing right. Sad, but true.
Isn’t this like saying that only liberals can detect phlogiston?
“Liberals say, ‘Look seriously at the science and look at whether people are going to be harmed or not and whether the world is going to be harmed,’”
Uh, excuse me but it seems they are a priori assuming that open minded people could not conclude from looking seriously at whether people are going to be harmed that they won’t be!
What a crock. But unsurprising, as this kind of crap research by political hacks is common, for instance:
http://brneurosci.org/nature.html
Another story indeed! That would make a very interesting post, Anthony. What made you change from advocate to [insert adjective here] – realist, seeker of truth, researcher…? What events transpired?
If scientists who believe the theory of anthropogenic global warming actually produced some science according to scientific principles that have been respected for centuries, and also respected the house-rules of scientific journals that insist on peer-reviewing, then maybe those of us whose brains are wired to assess the facts without ideological accretions could begin to look at the AGW case.
After 30 years of being bombarded with disastrous predictions about global warming (drought, heat, no more snow, etc.) it is just about as cold and wet and snowy as it always was. Sea level isn’t rising significantly, hurricanes aren’t increasing, polar sea ice hasn’t changed and is right at normal.
Lakoff confuses academia with intelligence. The lack of evidence for CAGW is overwhelming.
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,”
Only a professor of cognitive science could conclude that anyone who believes that AGW is a fraud must be a right-winger.
The fact is, I know a fraud when I see one. Whether its a false scientific hypothesis or a false left-right political paradigm, a fraud is a fraud.
This guy is a perfect example of what happens when you cut funding to mental health care.
Although I usually consider being open minded a good thing, but I also recall the line about being too open minded – anything can walk in.
Lakoff’s research has previously been directed toward explaining why “conservatives” are so fearful and why “liberals” are so adventuresome and debonair. From what I have read of his research he seems to be engaged in an “affirmation of the consequent.”
More dishonest science. Take this fool either a brain or a hand full of test results and measure cognitive processing ability and in a blind test he couldn’t guess if they were a liberal or conservative.
(I have both clinical psychology training and brain surgery experience)
“reason is shaped by the body” False in 2 ways. In a physical sense, reason has no shape. In another sense, Behavior is shaped. Cognitive processing doesn’t conform to shape.
Just a little sidbar on behavior. Capitialsim is a reward, reinforced behavior mechanism. If I work hard, it warms my body and lets me earn money and pay my utilities. In a welfare model, the people can have the state pay their bills and it rewards slothfullness.
Yeah. Those dirty scrubs are just incapable of understanding. How long does this go on before AGW proponents break out an ‘Air Rwanda’ type of dehumanization process? This is the beginning, claiming that skeptics are just incapable of comprehension. I am sure there are some people who comment here, that are skeptical, yet have very good comprehension of the arguments.
Of course, this is not the first time this argument has been advanced, albeit in different form:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm
haa haaa I was global warming activist in the 90’s too 😉
“facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs”?
Well, cognitive dissonance can work on both sides, I would have thought, even though it sounds a bit post-normal.
What if there was a left-wing, pinko bleeding-heart liberal who became a sceptic because she is a scientist and tends to try to understand the data rather than worry how she feels about global warming?
Does that person smash the paradigm or should she be committed to a mental insitution for some kind of split personality disorder? I need to know!
Hilarious.
Projection. Has anyone ever met a liberal with an “open mind”?
Somebody should have clued Lakoff in.
We Own the word OPEN.
1. We are the ones who link to our opponents sites
2. We are the ones who think data and code should be shared.
3. We are the ones who invite our opponents to TOP POST
4. We are the ones who let anyone civil comment
5. We are the ones who don’t care what most people think (consensus)
6. We are the ones who refuse to say the science is settled.
Hey Anthony, how open minded was Menne et al WRT to working with you?
I studied lakoff a long time ago and for the most part I agree with him that the way we thing is structured by the metaphors we believe. The problem he has here is that he’d so closed minded that he can’t even see that he made a great argument for us easy.
Leave it to a soft scientist to back up the soft climate science!
Liberals say, ‘Look seriously at the science and look at
What solar system did the author say he was from?
It all began in the 1960’s ….Those were the days my friend!…All that hemp and LSD made alchemy transformation possible, from conservatism to liberalism in just one single dosis. Just wonderful!
“Believe it or not, in the early 90’s I used to be a global warming activist.”
GASP!
as late as 2005, I was selling GHGV services…yet have never voted for a conservative candidate in any federal, provincial, or municipal election. I also don’t find Ann Coulter attractive.
Go figure.
Questioning bad science makes me a close minded conservative then?
Looking seriously at the science, it seems that more people will be harmed/disadvantaged by attempting to rectify purported AGW than if we let nature take its course. Wait, am I a liberal now???
There was a report on CNN (sorry can’t find the link anymore) showing that the average IQ of democrats was higher than that of republicans. I recall that they did their study on a University population, implying that most of the respondents would have been young adults.
As I pointed out in the ensuing family quarrel, there is an old saying.
“He who at the age of 20 is not a socialist has no heart. He who at the age of 50 still is, has no brain.”
What the intellectual snobbery of Lakoff et al fail to come to grips with is that even average intelligence informed by experience trumps high intelligence every time. In brief, it takes someone of high intelligence to understand that, for example, communism is superior to capitalism in every way. Yet even the dim witted amongst us can observe that every implementation in history has failed.
I imagine that if you took the IQ of the average victim of the Nigerian banking scam and compared it to the average, you would find out that to be truly suckered by complete bull, you have to be smart enough to think you can’t be conned.
Not to mention that there are two kinds of liberals in my experience. There are the ones who believe in the cause, and there are the ones who believe they can proft from the cause. Mr Gore likely is an example of the latter.