From the SOCIETY FOR PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
San Antonio, Texas – Psychological researchers are working to understand the cognitive processes, ideologies, cultural demands, and conspiracy beliefs that cause smart people to resist scientific messages. Using surveys, experiments, observational studies and meta-analyses, the researchers capture an emerging theoretical frontier with an eye to making science communication efforts smarter and more effective.
Protecting “Pet Beliefs”
One striking feature of people who hold science-skeptic views is that they are often just as educated, and just as interested in science, as the rest of us. The problem is not about whether they are exposed to information, but about whether the information is processed in a balanced way. It manifests itself in what Matthew Hornsey (University of Queensland) describes as “thinking like a lawyer,” in that people cherry-pick which pieces of information to pay attention to “in order to reach conclusions that they want to be true.”
“We find that people will take a flight from facts to protect all kinds of belief including their religious belief, their political beliefs, and even simple personal beliefs such as whether they are good at choosing a web browser,” says Troy Campbell (University of Oregon).
Dan Kahan (Yale University) agrees, finding in their research that “the deposition is to construe evidence in identity-congruent rather than truth-congruent ways, a state of disorientation that is pretty symmetric across the political spectrum.”
Changing Minds
Merely talking about “evidence” or “data” does not typically change a skeptic’s mind about a particular topic, whether it is climate change, genetically modified organisms, or vaccines. People use science and fact to support their particular opinion and will downplay what they don’t agree with.
“Where there is conflict over societal risks – from climate change to nuclear-power safety to impacts of gun control laws, both sides invoke the mantel of science,” says Kahan.
“In our research, we find that people treat facts as relevant more when the facts tend to support their opinions,” says Campbell. “When the facts are against their opinions, they don’t necessarily deny the facts, but they say the facts are less relevant.”
One approach to deal with science skepticism is to identify the underlying motivations or “attitude roots,” as Hornsey describes in his recent research (American Psychologist, in Press).
“Rather than taking on people’s surface attitudes directly, tailor the message so that it aligns with their motivation. So with climate skeptics, for example, you find out what they can agree on and then frame climate messages to align with these.”
Kahan’s recent research shows that a person’s level of scientific curiosity could help promote more open-minded engagement. They found that people who enjoyed surprising findings, even if it was counter to their political beefs, were more open to the new information. As Kahan and his colleagues note, their findings are preliminary and require more research.
Hornsey, Campbell, Kahan and Robbie Sutton (University of Kent) will present their research at the symposium, Rejection of Science: Fresh Perspectives on the Anti-Enlightenment Movement. The talks take place on Saturday, January 21, 2017, at the SPSP Annual Convention. More than 3000 scientists are in attendance at the conference in San Antonio from January 19-21.
###
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Instead of “framing the message” better they might actually try using The Scientific Method. I hear good things about it.
Just look at how they frame the study !
People are “resist scientific messages”. Science is about detailing end explaining observations. If there is a “message” it is politics.
Why does “science communication” need “making science communication efforts smarter and more effective”? Because “communication” is not about science it means PR and more politics. The only “communication” that science needs is publishing papers.
That does not need to be “smart” or “effective” , those are political and social engineering aims.
These psychologists need to start by examining their own biases, not those of others.
“Why does “science communication” need “making science communication efforts smarter and more effective”?” Because it affects policy. If people do not know the science behind vaccinations it will result in people avoiding vaccinations for spurious reasons. If people do not understand the science behind evolution then there might end up a generation of mis-educated children.
Somewhat off-topic, but I need help.
My friends are asking about an article at Bloomberg today.
This is cited as NOAA data.
I say the graphic is misleading.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/hottest-year-on-record/
Religious arguments need no proof. They become true by endles repetion and threats. The believer has a big lead: if opposed by a heretic the answer is simply: “you can’t proof that my thesis in untrue”.
(COP21 was a religious council)
That is not correct. We are charged as believers to constantly be searching the Scriptures to check what people are claiming, because just as their are teachers, their are false teachers, and just as their are prophets, there are false prophets, and just as there are visions, there are lying visions.
Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.”
Long robes, white lab coats — dressed to deceive and seize what belongs to others. They are filled with so much covetousness that even though they have more than enough, they want to own and rule all.***
It might be interesting to know that our Primary Source gives this unfortunate truth about human nature and trusting experts:
“For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face.” 2 Cor 11:20
The arrogant and abusive find their way into any profession you can name, in science and academia as well as in the church. Or do you not have any problem with academic arrogance and hubris? Have you never recognized the use of science as a weapon for social and political opposition before AGW? Did you notice anything about the use of science and government to destroy agriculture and land owners during China’s Great Leap or the Holodomir? How about the use of genetic science and social Darwinism in population control/eugenics policies during the 30’s and 40’s in pre-war Germany? Brain science — did you know that the doctor who invented the lobotomy received a Nobel Prize? Did you know that ECT which uses high voltages of electicity to induce traumatic brain damage is covered in Medicare? I don’t care who you are, science has a dark side and a dark history.
***By the way, covetousness of private homes and possessions is a sin and you can be saved from that by trusting Y’shua, who died on the cross for you and loves you.
1. I am not religious but I recognize the influence of religion and it’s values. 2. I respect others ideas as long as these are not forced on me. (not freedom of religion but freedom from religion) Please read here how I see the relation of science-religion: http://www.davdata.nl/math/mentalclimate.html where I explain that climate hysteria might be the result of secularization.
Thanks David Dirkse, I’ll be happy to have a look.
That was one of the most thoughtfully explored and beautifully illustrated commentaries on the subject I have ever read. Thank you.
“The Spiritual Climate”
Seaice1 – the primary goal of our public education system is to mis-educate (indoctrinate) our youth.
ECT works. I agree with everything else you said. But I have witnessed people in catatonic states for months become “normal” after ECT. It’s like a reset button on a computer. Brain is shocked into something like a reboot.
This is in response to Zeke.
Let the objective reader consider ECT:
“Electroshock is a psychiatric procedure that involves the production of a grand mal convulsion, similar to an epileptic seizure, by passing from 70 to upwards of 600 volts of electric current through the brain for one-half second to four seconds. Before application, ECT subjects are typically given anesthetic, tranquilizing and muscle-paralyzing drugs to reduce fear, pain, and the risk (from violent muscle spasms) of fractured bones (particularly of the spine, a common occurrence in the early history of ECT before the introduction, in the mid-1950s, of the muscle-paralyzing drug succinylcholine [Anectine]). The ECT-induced convulsion usually lasts from thirty to sixty seconds and may immediately produce disorienting, painful, and even life-threatening complications, such as apnea (temporary suspension of breathing) and cardiac arrest. The convulsion is followed by a period of unconsciousness of several minutes’ duration. Electroshock is usually administered in hospitals because they are equipped to handle emergency situations that often develop during or soon after an ECT session.
Brain Damage
The brain naturally operates in millivolts of electricity, and ECT administers on average between 150 and 400 volts of electricity to the brain, a force sufficient to induce a grand mal seizure, rupture the protective blood-brain barrier and incite glutamate toxicity (glutamate is a powerful neurotransmitter released by nerve cells in the brain and is responsible for sending signals between nerve cells. In glutamate toxicity there is too much glutamate that leads to over-excitation of the receiving nerve cell, which can cause cell damage and/or death). It is prima-facie, common sense obvious fact that ECT causes brain damage.”
If people do not understand the science behind evolution, it won’t affect anyone anywhere.
David, what do you consider “forced on you”?
I’ve seen people go so far as claiming that the mere existence of religious programming on TV, or the singing of a religious hymn during an otherwise secular “Christmas” celebration counts as “forcing”.
With “forced on you” I mean that your freedom is actually limited by others on the basis of their religion. Not at all by singing or religion related clothing etc. So, if others are intolerant to you. Say some people do not shop on sunday. Then closing shopping mals on sunday by law is intolerant. Also the right to have an abortion should not be made on religious but on health factors.
+1
Maybe a good look at the data would be a better idea than trying to plumb the depths of skeptics’ psychology. Ad hominem argument at its core.
Yes, rather than wasting time framing the message, simply do a normal scientific research report. Make sure all of your data and methods are available so that others may attempt to replicate your research. If you do those things, Bob’s your uncle.
As soon as an error is pointed out, the data changes. Looking at the data in an honest debate is the best solution. However, the skeptics aren’t the ones changing the data or in charge of the official record keeping.
Chucky 77 The Bloomberg graph is a good tool for looking at temperature changes. However, the graph seems to use the adjusted data that has reduced past temperatures and increased recent temperatures recalculating for an urban heat island effect. Unfortunately there seems to have been an increase in rural temperatures to match urban areas rather that the other way around. These recalculations are controversial for ground based temperatures. There are more complete global records, the UAH and RSS satellite temperature data and the radiosonde balloon data that are reasonably consistent with each other do not show the present year statistically warmer than 1940’s and 1997. Scroll through the data and you will see some pretty cold years in the 1970s and 1980s. There is a lot of variance.
There has been a warming from the early 1880s but not as dramatic as stated in this Bloomberg article. Note the bias in the article with the misleading expensive forest fires in Canada (there are always large fires, have been for hundreds of years, but this one hit a big town), the hurricanes (they have been killing people for hundreds of years) and the high 51ºC (one temperature does not a climate make). Doom and gloom sells, good news not so much. Even the anthropologically oriented IPCC does not see or predict changes in rate or scale of storms and droughts.
Well…
This is like the Soviet Propaganda Department attempting to scientifically ascertain the best ways to sell a lie. For the greater good, of course. “Hey, Dmitri, why isn’t our propaganda working?”
This describes the mindset of the AGW crew. It is a religion and so mere facts will not sway the faithful. Owever they in turn accuse us of similar bias.
This is very similar to the compulsive liar never seeing anyone as telling the truth or an adulterer constantly seeing everyone else as cheaters. It is known as Psychological Projection. They take the worst in themselves and see it exhibited in others
Alternatively it may si ply be that other aspect legal process, thinking like a jury, where it is the credibility of evidence and the testimony of witnesses that is central to the verdict.
Take one hockey stick and use it to homogonise raw temperature data taken from instruments never intended for the purpose of contributing to a global temperature measure. Conceal the process behind claims of professional privilege or equivalent and accuse anyone demanding access to the raw data and homogenising methodologies of nefarious intent and being ‘deniers’ and voila’, all credibility is shot to bits in the mind of a reasonable person.
Add a dash of narcissism, groom with media atention and the lure of future funding, allow to brew in a groupthink environment with a now established hostile world and there it is, complete paranoid delusion.
it also describes the mind set of the women marching here there and everywhere, concerned about What?
I notice a clash of different social classes. Prosperous people Judge (exclude) others by applying high ethical / moral standards. However these standards are meaningless if people lose their job and security. The election of mr. Trump is true democracy.
They are concerned over the right to choose what happens with respect to their bodies and lives
They are concerned over the right to choose what happens with respect to their bodies and lives
Uppermost they are concerned that overturning Roe v Wade could lead to women being treated like second class citizens again, similar to the way Sharia Law indicates women must be treated.
There are a number of factors that show that an embryo is not merely a part of the mother’s body. “My Body, my choice,” is a lie.
I should add that this is another example of “progressives” ignoring the science.
Your equating the right to life with sharia law? No wonder y’all lost. i’ve got news for you bryan:
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES (trump won)…
Sorry Afonz but you misread my words and the person posting them, I didn’t loose. My vote went to Trump and will again in 4 years provided he proves his worth and doesn’t do something to destroy society or make some of it’s members take a huge step backwards
Well, good… Then you should have no problem with him appointing pro-life judges to the supreme court (who will overturn roe v wade) as he said he would. It would be nice if your definition of “some of it’s members” were to include those who have yet to be born…
Women not being allowed to kill their babies will make them nothing more than property?
Exaggerate much?
So:
1) If your wives or daughters were raped and a pregnancy was the result you would be perfectly happy forcing them to carry that baby to term.
Or:
2) if your wife or daughter became pregnant and going to term could mean they would die, you would be morally satisfied with forcing them to give their life for that baby?
Or:
3) If your son sews some wild oats in high school and the girl gets pregnant, you are fully comfortable with him stepping up and being the father and marrying her at 17 or 18 to raise the baby?
Do you strongly believe that kids won’t have sex before marriage?
Do you likewise believe adults won’t have sex outside of marriage?
Or do you believe in sex for all consenting adults (almost adults)?
You surely can’t deny it for some cases but allow it for others can you?
Either it is allowed at least up to the first trimester or it isn’t allowed period.
Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly against late term and some of the more barbaric forms like partial birth
but I am also against going back to the back alley abortions that can and did destroy many of the females involved
HAHAHA…it is too early for April’s Fool day but that piece about these ‘scientists’ wondering why people dispute them is too funny.
@ur momisugly emsnews
I will 2nd your “HAHAHA” and add a few more HAHAHAs.
It never ceases to amaze me with the rhetoric being touted by the “psychobabblers” (Psychiatrists, Psychologists, etc.).
The “psychobabblers” should not be telling another person or groups of persons, …… ”why they think what they think”, ……. ”why they believe what they believe” ….. or “why they act or re-act the way they act or react” …….. when those silly arsed “psychobabblers” really don’t have a “clue” as to the actual reason(s) that they themselves “think, believe and/or act or re-act” the way that they do.
If one doesn’t know the actual cause or reason that explains their own behaviors …… then they sure as ell don’t know the actual cause or reason that explains another person’s behavior.
“You are what your environment nurtured you to be”.
And all nurtured info/data is stored in the neurons in the brain …… where is was stored by …. and is only accessible by, ….. the functioning of the subconscious mind ….. via stimuli transmitted by the sense organs. The functioning of the conscious mind is subservient to the subconscious mind and its primary purpose is to “make choices” …. if or when the subconscious mind presents it with two (2) or more entities to choose from.
Sam: And I will contribute a few HARHARHARs.
Not to mention a few Ho, Ho, Hos.
behavior modification….
How to make people believe lies
It worked for Goebels. Or whatever the infamous propagandists name was. They are just copying him.
Like this article equating resistance to GMOs and vaccines (ignoring the body of science confirming their safety) with skepticism on Global Warming (questioning dubious studies and conflicting data) with opposition to gun control (asserting Constitutional rights).
And…the gravy train for global warmists is leaving the station and taking them all to the North Pole to sit in puddles of melting water only it isn’t all that warm, is it?
And there are lots of polar bears there too!
The gravy train may well be ground to an unceremonious halt beside the Russian icebreaker
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/19/russian-icebreakers-stuck-in-the-arctic-global-warming/
There’s a whole of lot of liberal ‘psychoanalysis’ of what is behind a climate skeptic. Why don’t we look at the actual evidence behind the leftist theory, and realize instead it’s the AGW theory instead that’s messed up, not the psychology of skeptics.
As far as that AGW theory I can’t emphasize enough that the very foundation of it was removed when in 2003 the IPCC finally agreed that … the ice core evidence which they had been using to trumpet a causal correlation between CO2 and climate temperatures showed no such evidence. The whole anti-CO2 hysteria was whipped up on the alleged causal correlation between CO2 and temperature. But that was false. There’s ZERO evidence of it. This 4 minute video makes that obvious:
Thank you Eric, beautiful 4 minutes of video
say putting the sensor real close to a volcano releasing co2 might impact the readings?????
They only take readings when they are upwind.
In truth, nobody knows for sure whether CO₂ leads or lags. The “gas age” calibration depends on assumptions (a.k.a. models) on the rate of snow compaction. As usual in climate science If you fit the temperatures and the CO₂ levels over the 800k years in the EPICA record, CO₂ leads or lags in different parts of the record. As usual in Climate Science™, the uncertainty equals or exceeds the signal.
A premise I’m willing to entertain. However, if we decide that the level of accuracy of all paleoclimate records cannot be relied upon then we have only modern instrumental records to use. In which case, the record is far too short to draw any useful conclusion.
The error bars on just about all of them are larger than the purported signal. And if they’re not, they’re probably fraudulent studies.
Right on, Michael, but I think you meant “Climate Change(tm).”
If not for the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 ppm data record that began in 1958, …… the per se “climate scientists” that are studying, researching and/or measuring the quantity of CO2 that is entrapped in glacial ice cores …… wouldn’t “have a clue” as to what those calculated “entrapped CO2 quantities” actually represent in actual atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities.
In other words, the measured/calculated ice core CO2 ppm quantities …. are multiplied by a Mauna Loa CO2 ppm “fudge factor” …… to obtain a reasonable guesstimate as to what the atmospheric CO2 ppm was at the time said CO2 was entrapped in the snowpack that eventually became glacial ice.
That maybe true but a more recent analysis shows that the ppm per year follows the temperature anomolies per year. Since NOAA has become aware of this in the last year and a half, both the co2 record and temperature record have been adjusted in the name of better science. As the you tube presentation correctly points out its just the opposite of what CAGW says. Because the evidence is so persuasive, I have to believe that there has been some warming, despite the adjustments, which otherwise would lead me to think that has been no warming at all.
The one thing I am concerned about is the sink of co2. In spite of constant production of co2, the rate of increase of ppm per year has not. If the analysis on this is correct and co2 follows temperature, the conculsion is that temperatures are falling. I don’t know if I can emphasize that strongly enough.
@ur momisugly rishrac – January 22, 2017 at 8:08 pm
Exactly right you are, that is iffen you meant ….. “the yearly rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 ppm has not increased”.
Which is proof-positive that the exponentially increasing human emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere has had no effect whatsoever on the …… “yearly average increase of +-2 ppm/year in atmospheric CO2”.
It is my learned opinion that the only thing in the natural world that could account for the past sixty (60) years of a “steady and consistent” yearly average increase of +-2 ppm/year in atmospheric CO2 is the “steady and consistent” warming up of the ocean waters that were severely “chilled down” during the LIA.
And one should not be surprised if the aforesaid “yearly average increase of +-2 ppm/year in atmospheric CO2” ….. begins to increase to say, +-3 to 4 ppm/year, ….. simply because, ….. the warmer the ocean waters become, ….. the greater their outgassing of CO2 will be.
Just like the contents of an opened can of COLD Bud Light beer outgasses CO2 iffen the beer drinker permits it to WARM up.
Cogar, i ran a notion by bart a while back… when it comes to the thermocline, the co2 enriched waters that come up from the depths are NOT part of the carbon cycle. There is not a dimes worth of difference between digging co2 up out of the ground (and burning it) and digging it up out of the ocean (via the thermocline). Therefor, when analyzed, they should both be treated equally. Bart added that those flows from the thc greatly exceed that which we burn. What say you? (thanx)…
Might add also that if SSTs cool in the near future, then the carbon growth rate will drop with it. And if that cooling is maintained for a long enough time, that would certainly put our “belgian waffle” in a box. Exciting times ahead…
@ur momisugly Cogar.. about 15 years ago CAGW response was that they knew where the co2 was coming from by the isotope ratio of co2. Over time that has become uncertain. I’m sure there is a combination of natural and anthropogenic. What those percentages are is in doubt. But whatever it is, the rate of increasing of co2 per year seems to be disconnected from anthropogenic. If … if anthropogenic co2 was the cause of the increase as CAGW contends, then there is a tremendous amounts of co2 that is missing. The co2 increase per year should be higher. For 2016, the rise, including el nino and a declining solar cycle, the increase should have been at least 5 + ppm . Either NOAA is lying, or there is something that we should be worried about.
Temperature wasn’t the only factor. Solar activity and cosmic rays also influence co2 rates. That was… WAS.. clearly evident in the record as of March 2015 going back to 1960, then NOAA changed the record in the name of better science. There was clearly an inverse relationship peak to peak levels for each of the solar cycles. In 1962/63 the cosmic ray influence is also evident where there was some type of divergence from the solar cycle and cosmic ray activity.
I will be very curious what co2 level increase ppm will be for 2017. If there is ever a negative number it won’t be a variation. By the way, since 1850 there have been no negative numbers. Nobody but me thinks that’s strange ? The sinks should have been much larger than today. It took 30 years to produce as much as we produce in one year. And no negative numbers ? That tells me that there has been an underlying warming trend not from co2.
@ur momisugly afonzarelli – January 23, 2017 at 5:07 am
Afonz, when compared to the quantity of atmospheric CO2 outgassing from the surface waters of the earth, …….. or the CO2 outgassing due to microbial decomposition of dead biomass, …….. or the CO2 outgassing due to termite ingestion/digestion of dead biomass, …… the total quantity of human emissions of CO2, from all sources, ranks a distant fourth.
@ur momisugly rishrac – January 23, 2017 at 5:59 am
Rishrac, there is no “seems to be” about it, ….. the “steady & consistent” yearly increase in atmospheric CO2 ….. NEVER WAS connected to or associated with anthropogenic CO2 emissions. DUH, it is reasonable to assume that rainwater “washes” as much or more CO2 out of the air than humans emit into the air.
And “NO”, I do not believe that NOAA is lying about the Mauna Loa data. But on the contrary, it has been the proponents of CAGW that have been doing the lying, ….. either intentionally, unintentionally via their ignorance, stupidity or devious dishonestly and their “fuzzy math” calculations. Yes, employing “fuzzy math” calculations in a futile attempt to determine the quantity of CO2 that humans have been emitting each and every year for the past 130+ years. Such “numbskullry” boggles the mind of sensible thinking people.
Those deviously dishonest proponents of CAGW had been “on a roll” for quite a few years, touting their “fuzzy math” calculations of human CO2 emission quantities as being directly correlated to BOTH the average increase in surface temperatures and the yearly increase in atmospheric CO2 ,,,,,,, but then they ran headlong into “The Pause” ……. and all hell broke loose among the ranks of CAGW proponents because their “fuzzy math” calculations could not explain the “missing heat”.
rishrac, here is 26 years of max-min Mauna Loa data
year mth “Max” _ yearly increase ____ mth “Min” ppm
1991 _ 5 _ 359.09 …. +1.80 __________ 9 … 352.30
1992 _ 5 _ 359.55 …. +0.46 Pinatubo ___9 … 352.93
1993 _ 5 _ 360.19 …. +0.64 __________ 9 … 354.10
1994 _ 5 _ 361.68 …. +1.49 __________ 9 … 355.63
1995 _ 5 _ 363.77 …. +2.09 _________ 10 … 357.97
1996 _ 5 _ 365.16 …. +1.39 _________ 10 … 359.54
1997 _ 5 _ 366.69 …. +1.53 __________ 9 … 360.31
1998 _ 5 _ 369.49 …. +2.80 El Niño __ 9 … 364.01
1999 _ 4 _ 370.96 …. +1.47 __________ 9 … 364.94
2000 _ 4 _ 371.82 …. +0.86 __________ 9 … 366.91
2001 _ 5 _ 373.82 …. +2.00 __________ 9 … 368.16
2002 _ 5 _ 375.65 …. +1.83 _________ 10 … 370.51
2003 _ 5 _ 378.50 …. +2.85 _________ 10 … 373.10
2004 _ 5 _ 380.63 …. +2.13 __________ 9 … 374.11
2005 _ 5 _ 382.47 …. +1.84 __________ 9 … 376.66
2006 _ 5 _ 384.98 …. +2.51 __________ 9 … 378.92
2007 _ 5 _ 386.58 …. +1.60 __________ 9 … 380.90
2008 _ 5 _ 388.50 …. +1.92 _________ 10 … 382.99
2009 _ 5 _ 390.19 …. +1.65 _________ 10 … 384.39
2010 _ 5 _ 393.04 …. +2.85 __________ 9 … 386.83
2011 _ 5 _ 394.21 …. +1.17 _________ 10 … 388.96
2012 _ 5 _ 396.78 …. +2.58 _________ 10 … 391.01
2013 _ 5 _ 399.76 …. +2.98 __________ 9 … 393.51
2014 _ 5 _ 401.88 …. +2.12 __________ 9 … 395.35
2015 _ 5 _ 403.94 …. +2.06 __________ 9 … 397.63
2016 _ 5 _ 407.70 …. +3.76 El Niño __ 9 …
There is NO “anthropogenic signature” to be found anywhere within the 58 years if the Mauna Loa Record.
Actually I do. Co2 follows temperature. Michael.
The first thing NOAA has done with that information was to change the record on temperature and co2 levels.
You don’t have to go back in the far distant past, this is the last 60 years.
Great video E, thank you!
Eric, anther part of the way the hysteria was originally whipped up was that what is happening, re rate of warming, is unprecedented.
It is not, clearly.
As you said…end of story.
Or at least it should have been.
That is when political propaganda took over from science.
Years ago I lived in Iowa and a fervent “bible-basher” tried to convert me. When I resisted and refused to accept her religious message and story, I was told that I just was not listening to her hard enough because, if I was listening right, I would already be converted. It was not in her ken to understand that a person can and will simply refuse what is being pushed.
She was wrong, to be sure. Her wrongness arises from her conviction that she, herself, could convert you. Christian doctrine holds that one’s faith is not one’s own doing, let alone that of another human being, but is the work and gift of the Holy Ghost (modern wording: Holy Spirit), the third person of the Holy Trinity. The lady should have simply handed you a Bible, asked you to read it, and left.
Atheists are exactly the same way. Stop pretending only religious people are stubborn and impossible to deal with. That is a huge falsely held belief.
Confirmation bias does not apply to EVERYONE ELSE. That is the lie and error. I hear the “if you only read enough or listened right” coming from atheists, AGW believers, natural foods people, etc, etc, etc as well as religious people. It is NOT about religion, it’s about BELIEF in whatever one holds near and dear.
However, John Ware’s idea that Christians should just hand you a Bible and let you decide has merit. Same for climate change and everything else. If the “product” doesn’t sell itself, maybe it shouldn’t be “sold at all”.
John and Sherri: I respect the views of both believers (there must be a first cause, whatever or whoever you call it) and atheists (natural explanations are rational). As an agnostic, I might add the query: Who laid down the natural laws?
Sound about right, especially if you switch from skeptics to alarmists
The argument clearly applies to both sides.
However, as the society supported viewpoint will have more uninformed adherents and have greater societal costs for questioning it…
It is clearly more relevant for alarmists.
Amazing that it does not occur to them that perhaps they should simply tell the truth. They need to acknowledge the uncertainties about our understanding of what drives weather. I think the AGW advocates biggest shortcoming is in their attribution of weather events to carbon emissions knowing fully well that mother nature will prove them wrong shortly thereafter.
So true! And these communicators’ message is further hampered by their complete acceptance of the 97% of climate scientists, all the professional societies, the science is settled, you can see it happening, the president said so,etc etc etc without checking any of it.
The truth can set them free.
This is the false premise which makes this entire article a piece of junk:
Science realists do not resist science. They resist and utterly reject conjecture masquerading as science.
Or bs masquerading as science.
Or leftist propaganda masquerading as science.
Remember, any “consensus” is actually a consensus of ideology, not of science. Indeed, if you correct for ideology in any survey you won’t find a consensus at all on AGW, and in fact among self-identified conservative scientists the consensus goes overwhelmingly the other way. End of story: there’s NO effective consensus on the ‘science.’
Generally correct, except there pretty much is a consensus that gravity sucks.
“among self-identified conservative scientists the consensus goes overwhelmingly the other way.” Can you provide the evidence for this? It sounds interesting, but it seems unlikely that there are so few scientists that are self identified conservatives.
As Rob R says there is pretty much consensus on a great many things in science. gravity sucks, evolution, plate tectonics, electromagnetic waves, quantum mechanics, relativity, solar centric system, conservatio of momentum etc etc etc. Science requires this consensus to make progress, otherwise every paper would have to demonstrate everything from first principles. Some things are accepted and can be referred to without proof every time they are mentioned.
Rob R: Yes, but is there a consensus that it doesn’t exist?
Consensus on physical, provable ideas in science is acceptable—gravity, conservation of motion. Others aren’t physical but circumstantial (inductive) like evolution, etc. Some are mathematical. Many of the inductive and mathematical ones don’t matter in the course of one’s daily lives. Only evolution was contentious because it sought to “prove” there is no God. Had it not done that, I doubt anyone would have cared about it either. However, climate science strives to create a world ruled by dictators telling one how much energy they can use while the dictator lives the high life. THAT matters. Inductive science is generally a problem only when it’s used to rule over someone. Which is why consensus must be invoked and all doubt removed concerning the “science” via calling those who don’t agree bad people.
A “consensus of opinions” among a group of scientists, be they conservative or otherwise, is only necessary whenever the “members” of said group of scientists “don’t have a clue” what the actual factual science is regarding the “subject” of the consensus ……. or ……. is only necessary whenever the “members” of said group of scientists refuse to believe, accept or acknowledge the actual factual scientific evidence and proofs that are presented in contradiction to their “consensus of opinions”.
Actual factual scientific evidence and proofs are literal “truths” ……. and “truths” do not require a “consensus of opinions” to confirm their believability “status”.
Regardless of whether “truths” or “lies” were presented, ….. Jury trials require a “consensus of opinions” to prevent a mistrial being declared.
Thus the misnurtured and the ”junk” scientists prefer to base their beliefs on a “consensus of opinions”, ……. whereas the better-than-average nurtured and the ”real” scientists prefer to base their beliefs on the, per se, “actual factual scientific evidence and proofs” that are presented for their approval and/or acceptance.
the hidden premise is that you will be giving up your property and other rights.
the other premise is that the collective trumps the individual.
the fraud is that science is involved or that a debate concerns anything else than your submission to their desires.
these people understand that robbery is work and uneconomical but that if you can be talked out of it, then it’s not even robbery and the agent responsible for the harm is your own self so they won’t be responsible.
what they don’t want and can’t win against is you insisting on your rights regardless of anybody’s thermometer or po folks or dead babbies or haley’s comet or the man in the moon.
There are plenty of false premises. One is in the very first sentence.
Essentially, the premise is that the “scientific truth” is known for all scientific fields, AND they know what the truth is. Therefore, any skeptic is deluded, but can be brought to see the truth with the appropriate “messaging” and “surprising findings” (whatever they are). Social psychologists are not scientists. They’re pseudoscients at best, a waste of their parent’s money at worst.
The last phrase of the paragraph should read, “as the rest of us, who know and believe the truth while the skeptics continue in their deluded, antediluvian superstitions.”
science is not what we know but what may be researched, quantitized, measured. Some things we know well such as mechanics, energy…but other things are in the stage of advancing insight. So when dealing with science we honestly have to emphasize this stage with all uncertainties and assumptions.
In this day and age, when paradigms drop like flies, it is only reasonable for “smart people to resist”. i can still remember the definitive party line about the incredible edible egg; that if you eat more than 1 or 2 of them a week, THEN YOU WILL DIE. Were we wrong back then to resist the message? What do these arrogant researchers expect us to do? Sure, there is a personal bias and many people don’t do a very good job of fighting through that. But the idea should be to work on those biases and not to blindly accept as these authors are expecting us to do. When even the scientists themselves are raising concerns (yes even ipcc contributors such as hans von storch), then maybe it’s the authors of a study such as this who are guilty of what they themselves are talking about. There’s a name for that, you know, it’s called PROJECTION…
“Projection” is what everyone else does. No matter what side you’re on.
Tom Nelson @tan123 20h20 hours ago
No one knows more about bigfoot than bigfoot experts; 98% of bigfoot experts believe in bigfoot. Therefore, bigfoot is real! https://twitter.com/tan123/status/822771782369349632
So “98%” of leftist climate scientists believe their politicized climate science! Lol!
J. ★ Right Smarts’ article:
The 3 Powerful Reasons All Intelligent People Know Climate Change Is Fake Science: http://rightsmarts.com/3-powerful-reasons-intelligent-people-know-climate-change-fake-science/
WARNING (at start of the above link): If you are a climate change alarmist, or merely an overbearing left-wing hack, this post could do severe damage to your pseudo-scientific worldview. Liberal discretion is advised.
Is climate change legitimate, or is it bad politics pretending to be good science?
The latter.
J. ★ Right Smarts continues:
Climate science is built around climate change. A near-necessary component of being a climate scientist in the 21st century is accepting climate change as fact. It’s the magnum opus of the field. If believing in climate change is a prerequisite for being a climate scientist, as is the case, then why should we be surprised that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists do just that?
~
I would take that one step further: because today’s climate scientists are in almost all cases pre-selected for belief in the leftist climate science any ‘consensus’ among these pre-selected climate scientists is absolutely worthless.
.
Question to Dr. Richard Lindzen: Is it possible for a young person today to get tenure in one of these institutions (universities) if they disagree with global warming alarmism?
Dr. Richard Lindzen: NOT OPENLY.
Very true. How often are conclusions, opinions, hypothesis derived from observations of facts presented as the “facts” themselves? Even to the point of adjusting what was observed to fit the “facts”?
Questioning such “facts” means one is “resisting scientific messages”?!?
Kahan found that skeptics were generally better informed than AGW believers. He then tied himself into knots trying to explain that while keeping his own AGW belief. Too bad his great partner Amos Tversky died young–Amos might have been able to help Dan draw the obvious conclusion.
Tversky’s collaborator was Daniel Kahneman not Dan Kahan. The later is a law professor, who has somehow or the other wangled himself an appointment in the Psychology Department as well as the law school. Kahan does not have a degree in psychology.
“Kahan does not have a degree in psychology.”
Apart from him being a lawyer, that is probably a good thing.
The best analysis I’ve read on how people come to believe weird things and/or become totally committed to a particular idea is Anthony Pratkanis’s “How to Sell a Pseudoscience.” It’s a step by step-by-guide, easily read, fascinating — and humbling.
http://tinyurl.com/h7qgwvm
Aw, never mind. This is OBVIOUSLY a parody of the AGWers. lol
It doesn’t get any funnier than this:
D*mn, should have read further first. You already caught this.
Jumped out at me too. If so informed why are they not equally true? I am a scientist, geologist and can read most climate papers. But few provide more than vague charts and little support or are dependent upon massaged data; or, minor statements are taken out of context by the popular press. Does New Orleans have rising seas or is sinking? Obvious to any hydrologist or geologist was sediment is shooting far out to sea because of channelization starving the delta of sediment. New Orleans was under water 2,000 years ago and a submarine collapse could take the entire end of the delta in a matter of minutes, not to mention create a huge tsunami.
O.K., THAT’S IT, I’M A MOVIN’!
(i live in the french quarter)…
i might add to what you’re saying that off shore drilling seems to have been a culprit. Back in the 80’s during the gulf oil boom subsidence rates were accelerated. (at least that’s what’s been said in the press) So we are indeed sinking. Comparisons with maps from the past are quite striking…
Dear Terri, buy on the north side of Highland Ave in Baton Rouge. Just in case.. they are pumping the oil out, which is causing the ground to sink.
Geeze, ris, no place is safe! (maybe i should move to texas… ☺)
I thought the French quarter at least was on bedrock.
“…. a flight from facts”, eh? Whose facts?
” …. conspiracy beliefs ….. resist scientific messages”? Whose scientific messages? Whose conspiracy?
” ….people cherry-pick which pieces of information to pay attention to “in order to reach conclusions that they want to be true.”” Talk about the Pot calling the Kettle ‘black’
“Rather than taking on people’s surface attitudes directly, tailor the message so that it aligns with their motivation. So with climate skeptics, for example, you find out what they can agree on and then frame climate messages to align with these.” George Orwell at al .. you were right!
“Rejection of Science: Fresh Perspectives on the Anti-Enlightenment Movement”…. Again, what is “Correct Science”? By default, these desperate sinecure-seekers and Charlatans are trying to smear *us* as “Anti-Enlightenment”. For every finger they point at *us*, there are 3 fingers pointed right back at them.
Yeah …. put ’em against the wall for egregious tendentiousness.
The problems with “tailoring the message so it aligns with their motivation” is for AGW, you would have to say free market development should be allowed to deal with reducing CO2 output. That is impossible for the AGW crowd to do. They simply cannot fathom anything other than a dictatorship “fixing” the problem. Throw in the “we’re all going to die if we don’t act soon” prophecies and there is no possible way to tailor the message to match conservatives beliefs. One must be in favor of socialism/communism/dictatorships in order to “care” about the planet and save it.
(Not all skeptics are conservatives, but why worry about that minor detail?)
As I like to say,
Not all leftists are AGW alarmists but almost all AGW alarmists are leftists.
Being born sceptical I read this article and thought that these folk are accusing me of the very things they themselves do. They cherry pick data, select start points that verify their hypothesis, ignore adverse data and so on. They assume that we do what they do whereas that is not true.
That seems to be the game plan – accuse the opposition of doing what you are doing to deflect from what you are doing. In the recent interview of Soros he accused Trump of being a billionaire who wants to take over the world. He’s actually describing himself.
SJWs always project. It’s so obvious now that any sane person takes what they say and assumes the SJWs are describing themselves.
Alinsky 101…
Well, admittedly, we sometimes do. No one is immune to confirmation bias. I would like to think that I work hard to avoid it, but to some extent, it can’t be avoided.
A skeptic would freely admit to having some level of bias. It is the unskeptical believers who know they don’t. The good psychologists ought to investigate why smart people believe questionable hypotheses, not waste time imagining why others automatically consider all hypotheses testable.
How many are going to jump out of windows now that the money won’t be pouring in anymore? That is the real question the climate alarmists must ask themselves.
I was so depressed the other day that I jumped out a window.
Fortunately I was on the first floor and the only thing that died was a couple of flowers.
Problem is thinking like a lawyer. Yeah, well I am a Harvard trained lawyer. And welcome riping warmunists to shreds using every tecnique taught. Kahan’s Yale nonesense is just that: look at his methodology.
The message is ineffective? No, the message is factually wrong. Not fixable with all the psychobabble from Yale in the world.
Kahan is a Harvard trained lawyer too. The field he is not trained in is psychology.
Beat me to it. Everyone expects a “lawer” to be an advocate. That’s their job. Some lawyers the voters develop respect for are elected Judges. Judges have the responsibility to balance (the scale of justice) the weight of evidence provided by the advocates on both sides of a case.
Scientists, and anyone else wishing to escape the tyranny of preconceptions needs to “Think like a Judge”. They need to weigh the evidence and come to their own conclusion. Science and Law are essentially the same in this regard. The best work in both is beautiful testimony to the potential power of human logic.
The tragedy is that we are groupthink critters. All new ideas are sociopathic when they deviate from the norms. Great scientists and Judges must be skeptics, essentially sociopaths.
“….that cause smart people to resist scientific messages.”
The full sentence implies that all scientific messages are truth/fact, thus to be believed. People have learned that the Gov’t most always lies to its citizens. We also have learned that corruption exists wherever gov’t funding is present; Education comes to mind.
Science is rife with false paradigms, especially the “softer” sciences. Their stance is, simply put, unreasonable. (it should be the other way around)…
Since it is impossible to conduct a controlled experiment on planet Earth’s climate (one Earth where the CO2 is increased and a second, identical one where it is not) any assertions that CO2 causes a given level of temperature increase must of necessity be a conjecture. The scientific method cannot be applied in such a case.
I totally agree. You hit the nail on the head. Without another earth exactly like this earth and in the same orbit around the sun, but with no humans burning fossil fuels, it is impossible to separate natural climate temperature variation from the temperature variation caused by humans. This leaves only one alternative and that is adaptation. Apparently the impact of higher temperatures is thought to impact nighttime temperatures and temperatures in the northern latitudes. This may in fact produce a benefit providing longer growing seasons. While sea level rise may happen, it will take a very long time for melting “continental” ice (melting ice over water, like at the north pole, will not raise sea levels very much, if at all) to raise sea levels which would provide plenty of time to adapt.
Separation of logical domains. Acknowledgement that the scientific domain is established with the self-evident knowledge that accuracy is inversely proportional to the product of time (forward and reverse) and space offsets from an observation frame.
Damn straight!
One approach to deal with science skepticism…
Gotta love it. They begin with the premise that the skeptic is wrong. Unlikely a single one of them can explain correctly GHE theory, but they nonetheless know it is right and wring their hands over how to explain to the people who have actual knowledge that they are wrong.
Can Dan Kahan and Campbell, say “projection” much?
What is a scientific message?
As opposed to an ordinary message?
A narrative cunningly packaged using all the “skills” of the social scientist?
Or as we dummies say, “Propaganda”.
Sceptics run toward genuine science and tend to draw their own conclusions.
Comparing and contrasting such information with what we already think we know.
The people who consider themselves wise, because they accept the recommended wisdom of the moment, are apparently suckers for authority.
One day the arrogance and condescension of these people will be a subject of study.
And mirth.
These guys are confounding the notion of observational bias in a layperson with epistemological criteria in science. Maybe they should do a bit more to understand the latter, then they could realize that the former is irrelevant to the point they are trying to make.
I am not sure what you said, but it sounds correct and smart.
Where is my dictionary?
🙂
(i think it’s the way he says it… ☺)
Mark, you sound suspiciously like one of those people that might apply these “epistemological criteria” to all things scientific and religious. Shame, shame on you educated people…you shouldn’t be trusted with “scientific communication”
Yes, I remember that part of the scientific method from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: “now, once you have confirmed the hypothesis by experiment, ignore everything and look for a way to frame the narrative your patrons pay for in a way that it sounds scientific to the masses.” I think that was in Episode 666.
Sagan is probably a bad example, since he was part of the ‘Nuclear Winter’ scare, one of the first uses of computer models for political ends.
He was also part of the global warming scare . .
Yes, but Sagan had a real knack for saying “billions and billions” in a very dramatic way.
So, there is that.
(yes, it’s the way he said it… ☺)
Course, that was back when a billion was a large number.
As Cork Hayden says : Warmists will do anything — except take a course in physics .
From Texas? really? Common core is fruiting copiously, everywhere.
Certainly no child has been left behind there (from a a progressive vista, anyway).
What am I thinking, Texas produced the perma drought scare, too. Never mind…
Every place in a long drought has produced one of those perma-drought scares.
I think Australia may have been first, then Texas, and most recently, California.
Hey, has California gotten any rain recently?