Dr. Roger Cohen, APS member, sends this via email commenting on this Dot Earth article.
Where do I start?
Well, maybe the most offensive part of this column is the use of psychobabble to distract and divert attention from the real issue, which is the science, and whether it has been corrupted. Of course Revkin will \”share Ropeik’s view.\” Would there be any doubt? This mumbo jumbo is a symptom of the burgeoning industry of treating global warming deniers as mentally ill, a stark reminder of how easy it was for the Soviet Union to throw dissenters into mental hospitals.
Am I exaggerating? Hardly. Take a look at this piece on a conference held in 2009 at the University of West England http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/6320/ . It was aimed at trying to understand just what affliction plagues those people who simply don’t see or can’t find the \”mountains of evidence\” for serious anthropogenic global warming. Evidently it has spawned a new field — \”ecopsychology.\” Lord help us.
As for the science, Lewis and many others who have bothered to actually look into it cannot find the purported strong case for serious anthropogenic global warming. Indeed the balance of evidence points to a small anthropogenic component, far smaller than IPCC summary conclusions. It will of course take time for this to be widely understood and broadly accepted, but it will. There will be a Kuhnian paradigm shift at some point. Meanwhile the tainted IPCC process and other shenanigans have caused public erosion in the trust it had invested in science and scientists. None of us know how this distrust, which is part of the larger decline of confidence in our key institutions, will resolve.
As for the APS and Dr. Lewis’s beef with it, readers may wish to review the information available at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/13/aps-responds-deconstructing-the-aps-response-to-dr-hal-lewis-resignation/ It sheds a bit more light on what is really going on.
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David Ropeik,
I perceive you through the Andy Revkin post at his blog. I suspect many other do too.
That is why it is best you come here and represent yourself. I have found people here very open and direct. It gets emotional sometimes, just like real people get in real life. But it is open and moderation is fair.
Respect gained here is earned. Stay. We need other paradigms help stay on track.
Unfortunately, in spite of your kind words, I sometimes can get a little too (what is the word) snarky/biased/attack-mode at times. I try to apologize when I do. : ) And other commenters can be guaranteed to point out when I do.
MY QUESTION TO YOU: In psychology isn’t there somewhat of a fundamental split of views on the nature/source of human behavior?
John
David Ropeik,
You unfortunately missed my point. I certainly don’t call all behavioral theories “babble”. In fact, Dick Thaler was one of the most impressive professors I have had the honor of studying under, and every year I wait hopefully for him to be awarded a much deserved Nobel prize. It is your comment that I denigrated. I have re-read what you said and I really see no need reason to change my mind. You are fitting a square peg in a round hole – applying a behavioral theory to a question where it has at best a tangential reference. Please don’t hide behind the impressive work of other to justify your own comments.
I am mystified by your comment on other people’s rudeness. Perhaps you should also re-read your commentary on Dr. Cohen and see how people could take it as unprofessional and inappropriate.
David Ropeik says:
October 18, 2010 at 10:31 am
Mr. Ropeik:
We do NOT “selectively believe the things we selectively believe”. The cognitive framework of the individual is a unity that is shaped by a cultural template that tells him how to categorize and interpret the impressions or perceptions he receives and how he is to react to them. “Facts” are not accepted or rejected based on how they “feel”, rather they are integrated into the cognitive framework and categorized, a fundamentally symbolic and evaluative process (1.e. it is rational). “Facts” do not carry their own meaning, they do not speak for themselves, rather they occur in an interpretive context. When some one says “the facts speak for themselves” what he is really saying is that he wants you to interpret the “facts” his way. While percveptions do carry an affect, fear is not one of the affects. Fear is an emotion arising from a sense of helplessness coupled with a lack of information. It is noteworthy that in many of your writings your advice to policymakers is to deal with fear by manipulating feelings of trust toward the decision makers. I’ve yet to read advice from you about real transparency, providing complete information and trusting the citizenry to make an informed decision.
The truth of the matter, Mr. Ropeik, is that the debate is not based on how the facts “feel” but rather on the realization that it is not about facts at all but a challenge arising out of the contradictions in our own culture that have given rise to a group that sees it itself as a cognitive elite that is better able to make decisions than the mass of the citizenry and is in fact bent on transforming their fellow citizens into a technological proletariat that will know its place and leave the decision-making to their betters. Your work, Mr. Ropeike, is dedicated to assisting that “cognitive elite”.
Yes, you can be sure I’m telling my students the truth.
To Cope; I think its a fair read that your attack on me, personally, not on the ideas I express, is rude. You said “You are a consultant on Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Management. So any time, you get a question, you talk your own book and put the answer in the context of your pet field, no matter how tangential it is to the question on hand.” First of all, that has nothing to do with discussing the ideas themselves, and second, the question of risk perception, and what various sciences (not me, the researchers) say about how we perceive things like climate change, is hardly tangential to the question. Finally, if I was just hawking my book, why did I recommend 4 others as among the sources I pulled from? Hardly solely self-promoting.
To Mr Phelan. As with Cope, I am taken aback by your personal invective as we discuss difference of opinion on risk perception (Note that I never took any position on climate change! None.) You accuse me personally of being “dedicated to assisting the cognitive elite”. Because I disagree with your ideas!?
The field of study known as Cultural Cognition, one of the social influences on risk perception that I note in my book and which I alluded to in my observations about Dr. Lewis, are quite similar to your observations “The cognitive framework of the individual is a unity that cultural template that tells him how to categorize and interpret the impressions or perceptions he receives and how he is to react to them that you note help speaks quite loudly.” So forgive my oversimplification is saying it’s about the facts and how they feel. As I understand the research I’ve cited, it seems to be that risk perception is an affective combination of the facts, seen through the lenses that shape our opinions about those facts.
Your comment suggests something far more profound than a disagreement about climate change, a passion about a suggested “cognitive elite that is better able to make decisions than the mass of the citizenry and is in fact bent on transforming their fellow citizens into a technological proletariat that will know its place and leave the decision-making to their betters. That sounds like some sort of threatened feeling, which seems to me to be evidence that more than just the facts of climate change are at work in your perceptions of the issue.
David Ropeik,
Perhaps you are not a finance guy, but do you know what “you talk your own book” means? From your responses, it appears that you do not. Quite surprising as this is a rather common term and should be quite familiar to anyone who purports to be an expert in risk management.
I do not see my response to you as rude. You do not see your essentially content-free comment about Dr. Cohen as rude (despite calling him irrational!) I guess we will just disagree on this.
Mr. Ropeik maintains that perceptions and belief systems determine interpretation of facts. Perhaps so, but the facts remain the facts.
The whole business of real science is to avoid subjectivity by insisting on openness of method and data to allow repeatability by anyone, regardless of belief system. The results of this approach to the world have been spectacular. An electron flows the same way through your transistor as through mine, regardless of our attitude towards it. Science understands that the universe doesn’t give a damn about your perception of it, a fact which “post-modern [i.e. non-] science” ignores in favor of Political Correctness and psychobabble.
Revkin uses a simple device in avoiding the central issue that underpins Lewis’s case for fraud and the illegitimate basis for AGWT. How can one hold up the overwhelming weight of evidence for this theory against criticism when we have learned from climategate, the foibles of IPCC and other recent sources that the peer review process was corrupted, criticism silenced, data corrupted and cooked, wiki entries on climate turned into a propaganda broadsheet by an awg control freak and the daily backtracking on once settled science on increasing hurricanes, no MWP, insignificance of UHI, etc. Why would all the manipulations and obfuscations be necessary if the signal is so robust and what level of deception and fabrication can be tolerated by Revkin and other unshakable supporters of CAGW?
David Ropeik says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:49 pm
That sounds like some sort of threatened feeling, which seems to me to be evidence that more than just the facts of climate change are at work in your perceptions of the issue.
Very good, Mr. Ropeik. You think I’ve proved your point when in fact you’ve proved mine. Obviously I have to get in touch with my feelings to understand how they are clouding my perception of the facts…. which happens to be the perception you favor. How convenient.
You’d be interested to know that it was my interest in climate that drove me to social conclusions I’d been resisting. I’ve regarded the work of Michel Foucault as the ravings of an angry, gay Euro-flake. I don’t any more. Ot would seem some one read him and said “What a marvelous idea.”
When you get a clue just how demeaning and condescending your remarks are… forget it. You won’t. They’re your stock in trade.
Here’s something interesting — President Obama speaking the day after Revkin’s column:
This is the same accusation Roepkin threw at Hal Lewis, even including the term “hardwired.” Apparently this is the new talking point that liberals and climate change advocates use to dismiss their opponents without answering challenges.
It’s almost as if Obama reads the NY Times for material.
But it’s closer than that. Turns out Roepkin is a consultant for the Obama White House, as well as a former Harvard instructor.
Revkin, as most here know, is a pro-warming journalist who was part of Climategate.
What we are seeing is not experts, journalists, and politicians who happen to speak their minds in similar ways. This is something planned and coordinated at high levels.
Sigh. Ropeik not Revkin in my previous comment.
Huxley. In fact, I have worked for only one administration in any capacity, George W Bush. Who I advised in the months following 9/11. And for which folks on the political left excoriate me, despite the fact that I am a devout independent and like to think about issues as they come, rather than through one particular ideological lens or another, which feels to me like letting somebody else do my thinking for me.
Here’s an example, and implicit definition, of what cope means. It’s a quote from a finance site:
Oops, I should have outdented that last paragraph, not indented it.
That’s how the curia saw Luther’s note.
No one ever claimed that was a Luther-like moment! (I hope.)
I wrote a couple of posts above, “I.e., “talking his book” means “preaching the doctrines he is famous for.””
Another more succinct synonym would be “riding his hobbyhorse.” E.g., if you asked Karl Marx about the price of peas in Peru (or any topic under the sun), sure as shootin’ you’d get some leftist screed.
Roger,
Thank you – that is very well put. Hopefully your explanation will be better understood by David Ropeik as he clearly had difficult with my original comment (somewhat surprising for someone with a masters in journalism from a very good j-school). I thought I made my view quite clear with my quote from Maslow (“He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.”) I never accused Mr. Ropeik of trying to hawk his book.