Press release from the National Science Foundation:
Why “Scientific Consensus” Fails to Persuade 
Individuals with competing cultural values disagree about what most scientists believe
Whether a scientist is seen as knowledgeable and trustworthy depends on a person’s cultural values. |
Suppose a close friend who is trying to figure out the facts about climate change asks whether you think a scientist who has written a book on the topic is a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert. You see from the dust jacket that the author received a Ph.D. in a pertinent field from a major university, is on the faculty at another one, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Would you advise your friend that the scientist seems like an “expert”?
If you are like most people, the answer is likely to be, “it depends.” What it depends on, a recent study found, is not whether the position that scientist takes is consistent with the one endorsed by a National Academy. Instead, it is likely to depend on whether the position the scientist takes is consistent with the one believed by most people who share your cultural values.
This was the finding of a recent study conducted by Yale University law professor Dan Kahan, University of Oklahoma political science professor Hank Jenkins-Smith and George Washington University law professor Donald Braman that sought to understand why members of the public are sharply and persistently divided on matters on which expert scientists largely agree.
“We know from previous research,” said Dan Kahan, “that people with individualistic values, who have a strong attachment to commerce and industry, tend to be skeptical of claimed environmental risks, while people with egalitarian values, who resent economic inequality, tend to believe that commerce and industry harms the environment.”
In the study, subjects with individualistic values were over 70 percentage points less likely than ones with egalitarian values to identify the scientist as an expert if he was depicted as describing climate change as an established risk. Likewise, egalitarian subjects were over 50 percentage points less likely than individualistic ones to see the scientist as an expert if he was described as believing evidence on climate change is unsettled.
Study results were similar when subjects were shown information and queried about other matters that acknowledge “scientific consensus.” Subjects were much more likely to see a scientist with elite credentials as an “expert” when he or she took a position that matched the subjects’ own cultural values on risks of nuclear waste disposal and laws permitting citizens to carry concealed guns in public.
“These are all matters,” Kahan said, “on which the National Academy of Sciences has issued ‘expert consensus’ reports.” Using the reports as a benchmark,” Kahan explained that “no cultural group in our study was more likely than any other to be ‘getting it right’,” i.e. correctly identifying scientific consensus on these issues. They were all just as likely to report that ‘most’ scientists favor the position rejected by the National Academy of Sciences expert consensus report if the report reached a conclusion contrary to their own cultural predispositions.”
In a separate survey component, the study also found that the American public in general is culturally divided on what “scientific consensus” is on climate change, nuclear waste disposal, and concealed-handgun laws.
“The problem isn’t that one side ‘believes’ science and another side ‘distrusts’ it,” said Kahan referring to an alternate theory of why there is political conflict on matters that have been extensively researched by scientists.
He said the more likely reason for the disparity, as supported by the research results, “is that people tend to keep a biased score of what experts believe, counting a scientist as an ‘expert’ only when that scientist agrees with the position they find culturally congenial.”
Understanding this, the researchers then could draw some conclusions about why scientific consensus seems to fail to settle public policy debates when the subject is relevant to cultural positions.
“It is a mistake to think ‘scientific consensus,’ of its own force, will dispel cultural polarization on issues that admit scientific investigation,” said Kahan. “The same psychological dynamics that incline people to form a particular position on climate change, nuclear power and gun control also shape their perceptions of what ‘scientific consensus’ is.”
“The problem won’t be fixed by simply trying to increase trust in scientists or awareness of what scientists believe,” added Braman. “To make sure people form unbiased perceptions of what scientists are discovering, it is necessary to use communication strategies that reduce the likelihood that citizens of diverse values will find scientific findings threatening to their cultural commitments.”
The Journal of Risk Research published the study online today. It was funded by the National Science Foundation’s division of Social and Economic Sciences.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Bobbie Mixon, NSF (703) 292-8070 bmixon@nsf.gov
Principal Investigators
Dan M. Kahan, Yale University Law School (203) 432-8832 dan.kahan@yale.edu
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“These are all matters,” Kahan said, “on which the National Academy of Sciences has issued ‘expert consensus’ reports.”
That’s where they are going wrong.
Institutions like the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society have decided that “consensus” is the thing, rather than ‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts’ as Richard Feynman put it.
(H/T Latimer Alder September 19, 2010 at 12:12 am)
And now they complain that (in effect) they aren’t managing to get the proles to accept their shroudwaving hype.
Instead of acting like a catspaw for Government policy and as a scientists’ Trades Union, the National Academy of Sciences should be trying to maintain scientific standards and promote healthy scepticism, especially when considering new and very uncertain science with huge policy implications, like Climatology.
They have gone out of their way to do precisely the opposite.
Theo Goodwin says:
September 18, 2010 at 9:14 pm
There is a larger truth that must be repeated at this time and all times. Scientific concensus fails to persuade today for the same reason it failed to persuade Galileo. The real motivation for this study is to resurrect the recently deceased scientific consensus on AGW. At least, they are trying to keep the concept alive so that we will not be tempted to rely on critical reason and scientific method. Good old NSF: “The consensus is dead; long live the consensus!”
Please provide some evidence for your assertion that the scientific concensus ‘on AGW’ is now dead. Thanks.
This bears oft repeating.
E M Smith
This is the tactic of Divide-And-Rule. Create false dichotomies. Goodies on both sides, pit them against each other. No, it’s not a matter of most people being somewhere in the middle between two extremes, it’s BOTH-AND.
Shame the true motto of the French Revolution was so misused. The actual motto contains real truth. Liberty in the intellectual sphere, Equality in the sphere of human rights and legislation, and Fraternity in the social sphere. BOTH-AND-AND.
Latimer Alder says:
September 19, 2010 at 1:12 am
Quiz question…name the Odd One Out:
Feynman
IPCC/Gore
Obama
————————-
easy! Feynman! he was a scientist. I won’t say what the others are or it will get…
the isn’t as bad as the press release. Not too much new here, just a study reconfirming what is already known.
What struck me most about the survey which the paper is based upon was the first statement: “Global temperatures are increasing.” Ask me about that statement when I’m thinking about the last decade and I’ll say most experts disagree, but ask me when I’m thinking about the last 3 or 4 centuries and I’ll say most experts agree. Depending upon where my mind is at the time I could respond either way, and I think I have a fairly decent grasp of the facts.
Stone the crows, as we Orstrayans say it, but heavens to Betsy, the “science” that this report reports on isn’t science – it’s Cargo-Cult Science as defined by the late Richard Feynman – it’s the predictable outcome of the post WWII progressive movement that now controls the West’s universities. An Australian perspective can be studied at http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/9/the-tenacity-of-the-liberal-intellectuals.
When the CAGW crowd start asserting that scepticism is a cultural bias, then the opponents we face are not those who do technically correct post-normal science, but the deeply ingrained post-modernist mindset which drives this mindset.
It is a philosophical battle between those who wish to control our behaviour in order to make us lead more sustainable lifestyles, and those who aren’t interested in imposing their beliefs on others. That’s the nuts and bolts of the fight.
I believe there is a causation here. However, it is the opposite of what the study authors think.
People have certain scientific beliefs in part because of their cultural beliefs. Emotion is more powerful than logic.
I believe I have found a deep cultural basis for a critical error in the models.
I will be addressesing the error and cultural basis at the time of my choosing. I believe it will suffice.
My mind must be slipping – mindset that drives the CAGW movement. Sigh.
Most of us, the “common” people, learn to be skeptics soon after we have to live on our own wages. If not, we’re soon broke, and trying to borrow money off “dear old dad”.
We are inundated with advertising that says “Experts have proven that vitamin x will —“. Or “23 Swedish doctors have found that —-“. Or “Independent lab. tests show that —-‘. Or “A scientific consensus proves that AGW will kill us all if we don’t stop burning coal and oil.”
They all sound like some salesman’s BS to most of us.
—
So we have an Ivy League law school professor (Dan Kahan of Yale University) stating:
First, what does this say about the attitude toward “scientific consensus” among the authors of this paper? Remember, two of them are law professors, and the third is a professor in political “science,” one of those blart-and-bonkus academic sinecure fields which survive only because larval lawyers have to major in some kind of academic subject area to get an undergraduate degree.
Anybody else flashing back on Michael Crichton’s observation (2003)?
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Second, what does it say about this troika of tenured thugs with regard to their contempt for conscious and considered decision-making?
They attribute to “psychological dynamics” and to “cultural polarization” – factors not generally considered to function at the level of reasoned analysis – what they have proclaimed to be robust tendencies to take “a particular position on climate change, nuclear power and gun control,” foreclosing appreciation of how their study subjects may be predisposed instead by education and by past experience with the facts of objective reality to come by their “individualistic values” and their “strong attachment to commerce and industry,” and thereby to those positions on the issues of anthropogenic “global climate disruption,” private-sector fission powerplant operation, and victim disarmament of which the entrenched professoriate so constipatedly disapprove.
This study tells us not so much new about people who approach purposeful human action (pace Ludwig von Mises) from a methodologically individualistic perspective as it serves yet again to demonstrate the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of periodicals like The Journal of Risk Research, its editors, contributors, and subscribers.
—
It’s one of life’s battles – that of intelligence v. intellect. The normally adaptive intelligent typically have little or no time for intellectuals. Intellectuals fear the genuinely intelligent and seek to control them. The problem for the intellectuals is that they are typically not as clever as they think they are… They only have standing within their own closed loop. Step outside the loop and they soon find their natural level…
So to all the campaigning academics and politicians who have spent their lives in their blinkered institutionalised worlds I have a message – you will never control me unless you kill me…
A key phrase from a quote in the article:
“issues that admit scientific investigation”
Try getting funding (from a mainstream source) for something that rocks the boat…
‘…it is necessary to use communication strategies that reduce the likelihood that citizens of diverse values will find scientific findings threatening to their cultural commitments.”
My cultural commitment is truth, transparency, integrity and proof.
Strategise that.
Surely the point is that scientists’ values can compromise their objective research.
This subject is well covered in Cordelia Fine’s amusing book “A mind of its own” – how the brain distorts and decieves. A very easy read and a good lesson to us all not to trust our brains ever to be honest to ourselves.
Tim Williams says:
September 19, 2010 at 1:20 am
“Please provide some evidence for your assertion that the scientific concensus ‘on AGW’ is now dead. Thanks.”
Well, Tim, it is not strictly correct to say that scientific consensus has died, for the simple question that it never existed in the first place. Ask yourself this question, how could a consensus be said to exist, when numerous scientists disagree. I can think of Lindzen, Loehle, Douglass, Spencer, Christy, Soon, Akasofu, Scafetta, Pielke sr, Happer, off the top of my head. There are many others who are less well known.
I suppose you have heard that ‘thousands of scientists agree we are dangerously warming the planet with manmade CO2’, so a few dozen sceptical scientists aren’t important. The truth is, those that have told you to believe in thousands of scientists are being economical with the truth. Pull back the curtain and take a look. Instead of thousands of scientists there are in reality, about 50. These are the authors of Chapter 9 of WG1 of the IPCC report. This chapter is the only place in the entire report that looks at the effect of greenhouse gases on warming the planet.
So, the consensus, for what it’s worth, never existed. It was manufactured for politcal reasons.
FLUSH…..Another pile of our money down the crapper.
Experts in the field due to the “Educate an Idiot” system.
Laundering bad science into a good theory.
“Consensus science” that is offered without scientific argument (proclaiming “its physics” doesn’t count) shouldn’t be very persuasive. But unfortunately, the “consensus science” has been corrupting for long enough that it pervades all levels of our educational system. It has progressed to the point that we now have Doctorates being conferred upon new “scientists” for their demonstrated ability to promote allegiance to the consensus. Some of these “scientists” get to be members of the NAS.
“We know from previous research, that people with individualistic values, who have a strong attachment to commerce and industry, tend to be skeptical of claimed environmental risks, while people with egalitarian values, who resent economic inequality, tend to believe that commerce and industry harms the environment.”
Obviously “matters, on which the National Academy of Sciences has issued ‘expert consensus’ reports” are based on judgment of a bunch of “experts”. I wonder what “cultural values” NAS experts tend to promote, irrespective of their particular field of expertise. Do the majority have a “strong attachment to commerce and industry” or hold “egalitarian values” and “resent economic inequality”?
It would be imperative to have objective knowledge on this issue, otherwise we can not measure possible cultural biases hidden in expert opinions. Do we have actual research on this subject?
Should we find the average NAS expert nourishes cultural values different from those of the general public, to make sure experts form unbiased perceptions of what scientists are discovering, it would be necessary to use communication strategies that reduce the likelihood that experts of diverse values will find scientific findings threatening to their cultural commitments.
JPeden,
“Or else the Authors need to explain why they have apparently avoided any discussion of individual rational thought and real Science in considering the matter of what people think…”
Exactly! There are a number of flawed assumptions underpining this study. Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes worth of research is aware that this assumed consensus never actually existed. Anticipating their next line of defense, they will then retort that as this is a study of beliefs, it doesn’t matter whether a consensus actually exists, but whether it is believed to exist. This might be valid, if it was true. But is it? But how can they prove the respondents believe in the consensus? On second thoughts, I am probably crediting the researchers with too much common sense here. I don’t believe for a second they doubt that the consensus exists. If they did, they would have questioned their subjects to ascertain their beliefs, which they did not do. They have taken it as axiomatic.
But for sake of argument, let’s assume there really exists a consensus that the vast majority of scientists believe in. They say that from previous research, they know that “people with individualistic values who have a strong attachment to commerce and industry, tend to be skeptical of claimed environmental risks, while people with egalitarian values, who resent economic inequality, tend to believe that commerce and industry harms the environment.” But as E. M. Smith has pointed out “since when are “egalitarian” and “individualistic” orthogonal?”
This begs the question, what proportion of these people described as ‘individualistic’ have egalitarian values? The only answer that fits into the study is zero. This is clearly nonsense. Most, if not all, of this group believe in equality of opportunity. Perhaps the researchers had something else in mind when they chose the word ‘egalatarian’. Perhaps they were thinking of ‘levellers’ – those that want to level the whole of society down to the lowest common denomiator. Or perhaps the idea they had in mind was socialism or statism, which is the political wing of the levellers. That would certainly fit on the end of their dichotomy, much better. Statists are people who believe in an idea that private individuals cannot run their affairs or the planet to the best benefit and levellers that everything should be taken from the rich and redistributed down, regardless of the net wealth effect this has on the economy as a whole. Only state control can do that. If wouldn’t seem surprising then, that those with these beliefs would also align themselves with a view that sees that the consequence of GHG mitigation is fortuitously, a world government controlling every aspect of of everyones life.
Viewed in this light, the report does make some sense.
The simple path to success is to judge the author on his/her track record.
When people blithly write “the experts are in agreement”, my nose smells spin, spin, spin. In an earlier life, if I put 50 geologists into a room and gave them a day to discuss (say) continental drift, I’d get 50+ duffering angles. That’s healthy, to have scepticism of each other. The moronic “science is settled” is written by people of lesser intellect for non-scientists like economists and politicians.
“individualistic – in·di·vid·u·al·ist. n. 1. One that asserts individuality by independence of thought and action. 2. An advocate of individualism. …”
“egalitarian – e·gal·i·tar·i·an adj. Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all …”
I don’t get it. I don’t see the connection. Individualistic is individualistic; egalitarian is egalitarian. Sounds like the average Yank, Brit, Aussy, Ivan, etc., etc. –know what of I mean?
??Now “scientific consensus” is about “cultural views”?? Sorry, but I don’t buy that pig in a poke. Who you trust in life is about a lot of funny little things that you pick up and put in your Memory Treasure Box (MTB) as you skip along down the Yellow Brick Road (YBR), alone or with your friends.
I’m getting a signal from my MTB that tells me these guys are trying to confuse me and steal my wallet. Oooooooooooooh Weeeeeeeeeeeeer Offffffffffffffffffff Toooooooooo Seeeeeeeee Theeeeeeeee Wizzzzzzzzzzzard………..
It looks as though they have conclusively shown that those with an “egalitarian” viewpoint are much more prone to group think than skeptics. Not exactly something I would be happy about were it to apply to me, but whatever.
The cry has gone out to protect the hive!
“people with individualistic values, who have a strong attachment to commerce and industry, tend to be skeptical of claimed environmental risks, while people with egalitarian values, who resent economic inequality, tend to believe that commerce and industry harms the environment.”
It is also likely that scientists have a strong tendency toward egalitarian values, which makes it tough for them to convince those with individualistic values.
Hence the direct move toward government support, another group of people with a strong tendency toward egalitarian values, especially where it serves them well.
If you are naturally skeptical, you will end up butting heads with scientists who are trying to advance their view of the world and politicians.
And don’t under-estimate the number of people in the world who believe scientists, just because they have a Ph.D and come from a well respected institute.
Unlike politics, consensus is worthless in science. Many times in the past, one man has toppled the consensus. Copernicus, Pasteur, Ernest Rutherford, and many more.
I’ve been a scientist for 27 years and never heard the expression “scientific consensus” until it was invented by the IPCC and their friends.