Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Cartoonist John Cook has attempted to employ his personal expertise on strange aberrations to help our old friend Stephan Lewandowsky create a psychological “vaccine”, to reduce the influence of climate skeptics.
Scientists are testing a “vaccine” against climate change denial
“Inoculating” people against misinformation may give scientific facts a shot at survival.
Updated by Michelle Nijhuis May 31, 2017, 8:30am EDT
In the battle between facts and fake news, facts are at a disadvantage. Researchers have found that facts alone rarely dislodge misperceptions, and in some cases even strengthen mistaken beliefs.
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But two recent, preliminary studies suggest there’s hope for the facts about climate change. Borrowing from the medical lexicon, these studies show that it may be possible to metaphorically “inoculate” people against misinformation about climate change, and by doing so give the facts a boost. What’s more, these researchers suggest, strategic inoculation could create a level of “herd immunity” and undercut the overall effects of fake news.
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John Cook, a cognitive scientist at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University in Virginia, recently tested the strength of inoculation messages against the notorious Oregon Petition, which uses fake experts to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change.
In the journal PLOS One, Cook and his colleagues reported that when about 100 study participants were presented with the misinformation alone, their views did further polarize along political lines. But when another group of participants were first warned about a general strategy used in misinformation campaigns — in this case, they were told that fake experts had often been used by the tobacco industry to question the scientific consensus about the effects of tobacco on health, and were shown an ad with the text “20,679 physicians say ‘Luckies are less irritating’” — the polarizing effect of the misinformation was completely neutralized.
“Nobody likes to be misled, no matter their politics,” says Cook. He suggests that inoculation messages may serve to put listeners on alert for trickery, making them more likely to scrutinize the information they receive.
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Read more: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/5/31/15713838/inoculation-climate-change-denial
The abstract of John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky’s study;
Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence
John Cook , Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich K. H. Ecker
Published: May 5, 2017
Misinformation can undermine a well-functioning democracy. For example, public misconceptions about climate change can lead to lowered acceptance of the reality of climate change and lowered support for mitigation policies. This study experimentally explored the impact of misinformation about climate change and tested several pre-emptive interventions designed to reduce the influence of misinformation. We found that false-balance media coverage (giving contrarian views equal voice with climate scientists) lowered perceived consensus overall, although the effect was greater among free-market supporters. Likewise, misinformation that confuses people about the level of scientific agreement regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW) had a polarizing effect, with free-market supporters reducing their acceptance of AGW and those with low free-market support increasing their acceptance of AGW. However, we found that inoculating messages that (1) explain the flawed argumentation technique used in the misinformation or that (2) highlight the scientific consensus on climate change were effective in neutralizing those adverse effects of misinformation. We recommend that climate communication messages should take into account ways in which scientific content can be distorted, and include pre-emptive inoculation messages.
Read more: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0175799
The climate wrongthink psychological vaccine idea has been kicking around for a while.
John Cook’s attack on the Oregon Petition is amusing. Back in 2012, PBS News embarrassed themselves trying to attack the reputation of the signatories to the Oregon Petition, when they pulled out a signature at random and displayed it on air. At the last moment someone in post-production realised the signature was that of Edward Teller, one of the giants of 20th Century Physics. PBS then compounded their embarrassment by allegedly trying to conceal their mistake – somehow the image of Edward Teller’s signature was blurred.
I’m sure some fakes have slipped through the process of vetting 30,000+ signatures, but there is no doubt many of the signatories to the Oregon Petition have serious scientific reputations.
Two can (and should) play this game.
JS apparently said that ‘everyone is entitled to be stupid, however there people who abuse this privilege far too often.’
Well this is exactly what WUWT has been doing for over a decade: exposing the unscientific “consensus” promoted by the IPCC and the fake 97% promoted by none other than J Cook and friends.
Apparently Cook does not realise that the “20,679 physicians” and his bogus 97% is the same thing.
Yes, exposing this kind of thing apparently is very effecting in disarming the propagandists.
It would be interesting for someone to conduct the same experiment of “innoculation” before presenting the subjects with Cooks 97% BS paper.
Fake experts? Riiiight.
In my Yiddish phrasebook, the word ‘chutzpah’ simply has a picture of a failed Aussie cartoonist, with an BS in solar physics* from last century hanging on his wall, busily writing A CLIMATE SCIENCE TEXTBOOK.
No wonder even Naomi Oreskes mocks John Cook so mercilessly.
*And as we all know, climate change is Not The Sun—so this qualification doesn’t even count.
When it comes to “inoculating” people against misinformation concerning Cook et al’s 97% figure it is worth mentioning that out of nearly 12,000 abstracts they reviewed only 0.3% said that man was mainly responsible.
To spell it out, that means that 99.7% did not claim that man was mainly responsible.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-013-9647-9#page-1
Or else maybe Lucky Strikes are less irritating?
Have you bothered to read the Cook paper Greg? Probably not. And if you did, I doubt you would understand the simple statistics in it.
The 97% figure has been shown to be robust in multiple studies (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002). The 97% figure is accurate because Cook et al emailed the studies’ authors and asked them.
Most laughable thing about the Oregon Petition Project- it’s show piece research paper:
http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf
is published in the “Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons”…
Bwahahahaha… seriously how stupid do you have to be?
Bruce, I think he was referring to the first 97% paper by Lewandowsky, the one that took a survey of 2000 people and only reported that 75 out of 77 that they selected as “most qualified” said the Earth was warming.
The Abstract selection one done by Cook has two parts. One: select your group. This is done very neatly because we have shown any disagreement can prevent you from being published no matter your qualifications. Two, interpret neutral answers as agreement. With these extremely simple tools, you can manufacture consensus on absolutely anything.
FInally, Editor! can we not use that picture anymore? I know that Cook made it himself, but anyone who doesn’t know that will be completely off-put, and it doesn’t provide anythign to the discussion.
Ben,
That “first” paper was by Doran and Zimmerman.
Equally flawed.
(I believe they announced AHEAD of time that their aim was to prove Oreski’s WAG of high 90% consensus was correct.)
the self-hoisting petard! i don’t think they have any idea what they might unleash if people were sensitized to recognize b.s.
I understand Lewandowsky already has a patent on an an anti-Seepage prophylactic helmet based on mylar, alfoil and space blankets.
Given the high bar for originality/inventiveness if a patent is challenged, though, my friendly advice to Lew would be stick to vaccinating people against Islamophobia.
The market’s bigger.
“But when another group of participants were first warned about a general strategy used in misinformation campaigns — in this case, they were told that fake experts had often been used by the tobacco industry to question the scientific consensus about the effects of tobacco on health, and were shown an ad with the text “20,679 physicians say ‘Luckies are less irritating’” — the polarizing effect of the misinformation was completely neutralized.”
Hey! That’s sounds like a tactic we could use against the 97 percent lie. Given to us by one of the people who created the 97 percent lie. Looks like irony to me.
97% of anonymous dentists recommend Colgate????
No, 97 per cent of anonymus hairdressers like Head and Shoulders.
No
97% of dental scientists recommend Colgate.
But they are only qualified to say this while wearing rented white lab coats.
Now I’m even more disturbed than usual.
Anthony, why is John Cook dressed as Prince Harry??
Brad,
John Cook suffers from a nazi wishful thinking syndrome.
It does give some explanation of how he thinks.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/06/skeptcial-science-takes-creepy-to-a-whole-new-level/
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
My take on Cookie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zFJYzo6G0
And my take on dear, dear Lew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbkKwNLBb7Y
Cook’s 97% study should be used in high schools as an example of research bias and bad design of a study.
– gives credence to the saying, “Cooking the books.”
Cook doesn’t still wear that uniform does he?
Validity of the model is what counts. Not appeal to authority.
Yes. But its fun to attack the appeal to authority as well.
John Cook, a cognitive scientist at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University in Virginia. The same one as used to be in Queensland University?
This is nothing new, he has been writing about how to change people’s legitimate views by using dodgy, illegal and unethical strategies for a long time.
He was a cartoonist but now seems to be a cartoon,
Caricature might be a bit more descriptive,in my humble opinion.
I was always curious about the familial link between Freud and Bernays.
What the heck is a “cognitive scientist”?
One who thinks about doing science?
Fake smarts for fake issues!
Welcome to the new reality.
Well, duh…it’s called “propaganda”. They are literally discussing the creation of propaganda. The real question is whether they even realize it or not.
Exactly. And their “innoculation” is an example of priming the research subject with a bias to get a desired response.
Yes, brainwash the research subject first, then subject them to the information. It’s well understood how religious and otherwise cults do this effectively. Call it what you want…….in this case, creatively as “inoculation” which is exactly what cults do to disguise their brainwashing……using creative techniques to capture the brains of their subjects, who accept the brainwashing.
Once this has been accomplished, the brain processes realities that relate to the “inoculation” differently. If they line up with the inoculation, they are stored as knowledge in the subjects head……to reinforce that brainwash. If information does not line up with the inoculation, it gets rejected because the brain’s new reality processes it as false.
John Cook is the quintessential example and master of this technique. Just go to his site and its everywhere. Even the name, “Skeptical Science” sends a message to the visitor that his site promotes skepticism, when in reality, it is devoted to exactly the opposite………..defending group think, settled science with convincing sounding arguments that fall apart if you do some homework to check on the actual facts.
If one were to objectively analyze information at various sites and give those sites a name that reflects what they espouse, John Cook’s site would get called: ANTI Skeptical Science.
But that is one of the defining traits of an individual like this…their ability to convince you that up is really down and down is really up. In this report, the topic of vaccinating subjects is once again presented in a way that suggests that he is protecting them from bad information but in reality……….he is the source of the bad information that people need to be protected from(and skeptical of his fake skeptical site)
Used to call it “poisoning the well”.
very very silly thing to do.
to start people questioning what they read….
Didn’t we previously call this propaganda?
It should be called that. It’s a bit of a complicated story to tell, but to the best of my knowledge, there was only one fake name entered into the Oregon Petition Project, and it was put in there by people in the old Ozone Action organization (before it was merged into Greenpeace USA), and they did it in order to create a story that there were fake names, plural, in the petition which thus invalidated the entire petition. I detailed that here: “Lahsen’s Spice Girls” http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=3765
There were actually 3-4 more, but they were soon discovered and taken off the list.
Meanwhile Cook and Lew show signs of mental illness, because their choice of words in that hilarious abstract (pun not intended) are so childish and stupid, as if their brains were lacking oxygen flow during the time they wrote it up.
This is going BEYOND propaganda,because real propaganda often has a kernel of truth in it,but done to mislead people into a different desired direction. But the way they write has undertone of suggesting obedience and compliance to CONSENSUS paradigm,it is an early step that would later become more physical than literary.
Come on,does these words show rational thinking at all?
“We found that false-balance media coverage (giving contrarian views equal voice with climate scientists) lowered perceived consensus overall, although the effect was greater among free-market supporters. Likewise, misinformation that confuses people about the level of scientific agreement regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW) had a polarizing effect, with free-market supporters reducing their acceptance of AGW and those with low free-market support increasing their acceptance of AGW.”
Free Market supporters?
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
They simply can’t understand that many rational thinking people, will not agree with their idiotic AGW hyperbole (hypothesis), because is found to be continually wrong.
This is a sign of pure desperation,fortunately they are hilariously bad at it.
I do find it interesting how being a supporter of free markets seems to make one more immune to left wing propaganda.
But Mark W,
I don’t think about about that at all,just make a response according to the facts. I doubt most skeptics think about being a Free Market supporter,or even is one at all.
The point is that Cook/Lew,are trying to label people into groups, they themselves despise,which deeply taints their gibberish papers,as it is heavily biased.
Sunset:
Picking on another phrase from that irrational paragraph
“We found that false-balance media coverage (giving contrarian views equal voice with climate scientists) ….”
– When was the last time you read a major newspaper or TV broadcast that gave “equal voice” to “contrarian” (pejorative much?) views. Both PBS and BBC have virtual policies AGAINST airing skeptical opinion or commentary.
– Why does amount of “air time” become more important than the facts in the message? (see Clinton, Hillary).
You see the problem easily, George Daddis. It is why Cook and Lew latest gibberish, was dead on arrival for me.
Trump Tweets
“I will be announcing my decision on Paris Accord, Thursday at 3:00 P.M. The White House Rose Garden. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
I think that’s 5.00 A.M AEST.
These guys are just creepy with their megalomaniac delusions.
From the language it appears they are trying to develope a combination vaccine that inoculates against “free-market preference” disease as well.
That’s Dr John Cook (PhD Cognitive Psychology UWA) if you don’t mind!
So, nothing relevant to “climate science”.
So the uniform is not the only thing he shares with Dr Goebbels.
You are alluding to the good looks?
Piled High and Deep ?
Here is a vaccination that helps against all kinds of fake News or dubious science:
See Science or Fiction´s principles of science (v7.5):
§1 A scientific argument consists of clearly stated premises, inferences and conclusions.
§2 A scientific premise is verifiable. Premises and their sources are identified and readily available for independent verification.
§3 A scientific inference is logically valid.
§4 A scientific conclusion is deduced by application of axioms, definitions and theorems or measured properties and scientific concepts that have already been verified or validated.
§5 A scientific concept consists of statements that are logically valid conclusions deduced from premises that are themselves logically valid conclusions, axioms, definitions or theorems.
§6 A scientific concept is well-defined and has a well-defined capability of prediction within a well-defined context.
§7 A scientific concept can only be validated by comparison of predictions deduced from that concept with measurement results. Whenever predictions differ from measurement results, by more than the combined uncertainty of the measurement results and the claimed capability of the concept, there must be something wrong with the concept – or the test of it.
§8 A scientific concept can only be referred to as validated for the context covered by the validating tests.
§9 A scientific statement is based on verifiable data. Data and precise information about how that data was obtained are readily available for independent verification. Whenever data are corrected or disregarded, both uncorrected and corrected data are provided together with a scientific argument for the correction.
§10 A scientific measurement report contains traceable values, units and stated uncertainty for well-defined measurands in a well-defined context.
§11 A scientific prediction report contains values, units and claimed capability for well-defined measurands in a well-defined context.
The problem for activitsts and advocates is that by these principles a concept can no be propounded by:
– appeal to consensus
– appeal to authority
– appeal to expert judgement
Science or Fiction, plus lots. You and Karl Popper.
https://principlesofscience.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/the-principles-of-science-v7-5/
Thanks for that Feedback, it counts a lot. 🙂
Thank you, Science or Fiction for yer contribution ter
the open society. Serfs like that.
Kathy Griffin, second rate wanna be at CNN, recently held up a fake blood soaked head of Donald Trump — calling it her “art”.
For that she just got fired from her job of hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve show.
I have a picture in my mind of Joe Zucker, boss over CNN, holding up the blood soaked head of Kathy Griffin.
Eugene WR Gallun
If people have an emotional attachment to an opinion, contrary facts may cause them to harden their opinion. They will find reasons that the contrary facts are wrong or actually bolster their position. Lewandowsky is correct about that.
If people’s opinion is not entrenched, they can be swayed by facts. Lewandowsky is also right about that.
The trouble with Lewandowsky’s inoculation theory is that it probably won’t create an emotional attachment. The effect of the inoculation will wear off over time. You know that from your own experience. If someone tells you something complicated, you will forget how it works unless the lesson is reinforced a few times.
If Lewandowsky tells someone why there was no MWP, the logic of the lesson will be forgotten by the time that you patiently show that person the evidence that it did, indeed, exist.
Every reasonably experienced teacher, with even a smattering of knowledge of pedagogy, will recognize the problem with Lewandowsky’s theory.
[That is why, when an adult changes “religion,” the act is called “conversion” or “a new faith”… .mod]
…and Goebbels had no balls at all.
+1,000
But April 1st was two months ago. There must have been a delay in getting it published.
Tee hee. For Dr Lew and Cookie, it’s always April 1st.
Continuing my futile effort to beat up on pond scum I added another stanza to my John Cook-The-Books poem which plays off fairy tales.
(I)
Like Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Art and Science create a sum
Each with the other constitute
Each for the other substitute
(II)
Solid Science is oversold
Appearance is as good as gold
I am the goose of the golden shell
With Art the inner gooey jell
(III)
Art and Science a warning carry
A principled precautionary
The earth may burn and all will die
So WOLF is always what I cry
Eugene WR Gallun
(IV)
The hare is quick, the torotise slow
Art and Science exactly so
And Art will always set the pace
When politicians judge the race
Eugene WR Gallun
My Art will always set the pace
Eugene WR Gallun
Psychological Vaccine, is this another example of brainwashing? I believe the USSR tried this on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn without much success.
“Who ever gets there first with the best propaganda wins!” is what I got out of their ‘pre-emptive inoculation’ message.
highlight the scientific consensus on climate change
Does he cite his own consensus study to support this? The one that was debunked by (among others) an IPCC lead author?
LOL. There is no consensus.
As for attacking the Oregon Petition, well that’s not science. It is a petition signed by many scientists. When it comes to the actual science, I am content to go with the IPCC’s ACTUAL science which is quite contrary to all the alarmism.