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.
Questionairre preceded by vaccine:
The vaccine
Fake scientists with vested interest have claimed falsely that genetically modified crops are harmful to human health, without scientific evidence. 300 million Americans have lived for a whole generation largely on GMO foods with no clear evidence of harm and much benefit from efficiently produced food.
Fake scientists with vested interests have also claimed that acid rain from industrial smoke emissions was destroying the world’s forests, but that scare fizzled out when it turned out to be a false alarm.
Fake scientists with vested interests have falsely claimed that nuclear power stations cause leukemia to those living near them, while in reality even the Chernobyl accident, while causing some excess thyroid cancers, caused no excess of leukemia in surrounding populations. Again, a fake scare. These fake scientists deny overwhelming published evidence in thousands of studies showing a threshold radiation dose below which there are no harmful effects.
Fake scientists try to prove that vaccines are harmful, and they are causing damage to public health by reducing levels of child vaccination. Muddle-headed chattering class luvvies willingly suck up any anti-establishment sciency-sounding scare story as yet another way of making themselves feel morally superior. The falling rates of vaccination resulting from this are now resulting in outbreaks of diseases like measles in which children are needlessly dying. Fake science is not just a game – it can be deadly.
Fake scientists habitually create scare stories to gain funding for their research and to gain media attention for themselves. Most often their scare stories turn out to be exaggerated or false.
The question
Now another group of “scientists” are claiming that human emissions of CO2 will dangerously warm the planet. They insist that everything you learned at school about photosynthesis is actually oil industry funded misinformation and that actually there is nothing good at all about CO2, it is not used by plants to build their tissues, it is not the foundation of the food chain at all, it is toxic and responsible people should stop emitting it from factories, from cars and from themselves, by not breathing out.
Do you agree with this proposition to “black-label” carbon dioxide – which of course is, as we all know, a black gas?
My ‘vaccine’ is an understanding of the physics and chemistry of gases.
I know that the conditions required for a ‘greenhouse effect’ (notably a barrier that is transparent to IR but effectively prevents convection) cannot exist in an open atmosphere.
I also know the main contribution to the atmosphere made by a slight net increase (~0.01%) in the CO2 concentration is a nearly immeasurably small increase in specific heat and certain transport phenomena such as viscosity and thermal conductivity.
What they are doing is not “inoculation”, but “indoctrination”. And it is effective! Goebbels used it very well. His followers still do as well.
“For me, the protection of planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma [the path of righteousness].”
— Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Is science now the enemy of science? Who gets to decide what is true and what is fake?
Climate Study:
“Hoffman et al. compiled estimates of sea surface temperatures during the last interglacial period, which lasted from about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago. The global mean annual values were ~0.5°C warmer than they were 150 years ago and indistinguishable from the 1995–2014 mean. This is a sobering point, because sea levels during the last interglacial period were 6 to 9 m higher than they are now….”
“…reconstructions of [last interglacial period] global temperature remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures. …”
Study cite:
Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation
Jeremy S. Hoffman1,*,†, Peter U. Clark1, Andrew C. Parnell2, Feng He1,3
Science 20 Jan 2017:
Vol. 355, Issue 6322, pp. 276-279
DOI: 10.1126/science.aai8464
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6322/276
I am not sure I understand the point of your citation. The Hoffman quotation makes little scientific sense. For example, yesterday the sun shone for over 15 hours where I live near Boston. Today between 3:30:00 AM and 3:30:05 AM the sun did not shine at all! Time scale of measurement is important. Mixing long and short time periods like Hoffman does is plain ridiculous and certainly not scientific.. My example reflects roughly the same time scale comparison as Hoffman speaks to.
Perhaps I misunderstand but I believe the indication is that natural variation within the present interglacial has brought us to a very similar climatic condition as the peak temperatures of the last interglacial. I believe this is correct.
The further implication is that temperatures will probably not increase much more but sea levels could continue to rise. This is taking place at a very manageable rate of around 2mm per year on average.
We should be happy about this because the next step is probably off the cliff into the next glaciation which may be fairly imminent. This will mean the deaths of literally billions of people and it is what we should really be worrying about.
Guten Tag; my name is Dr. Mengele, but you can call me Joe. You are very fortunate because I have a very special vaccine for you. Now, please role up your sleeve.
These warmists spend far more time trying to convince a scientifically illiterate public than they do
to convince literate scientists. Cook’s degrees in Psychology, aside from being , like most Psych degrees, pure BS, have zero relevance for climatology. I wonder why an illterate climatologist such as he can claim such certainty about the views of a position which has failed utterly in producing even plausible arguments predicting a coming climate catastrophe. Cook is just plain dumb – even his 97% study was pure junk science, so stupid even an elementary school child can point out its ridiculous methods, which apparently were designed solely to allow Cook to inject massive his massive bias. I am embarrassed that George Mason U would create a propaganda center for Cliamet Change Communication. I don’t think even the old Stalin Communist Russian universities ever went that far in pushing an agenda.
Where do I go to get inoculated? Is this covered under ObamaCare or NHS? Do I need any booster shots later? Is this a live virus vaccine? If so, can I be contagious and if so for how long?
After I get my shot, how much longer will I believe that northern Illinois was under a mile of glacial ice less than 25,000 years ago, that large mammals in Siberia were frozen alive with leaves and flowers still in their mouths ess than 12,000 years ago? Will I still believe that Vikings raised barley in Greenland less than 1,100 year ago? I am told by a large number of very progressive people that these thoughts should trouble me greatly. I know that mentioning any of them results in a triggering and their fleeing to safe spaces. Where is my safe space?
Inoculation? Let’s call this what it really is: indoctrination. I’m getting really tired of people like John Cook.
Another thing that is getting on my nerves: terms like “scientific facts”. There are facts, speculation, and lies. No qualifier is necessary; these words are topic neutral. “Science” is a process, not a religion or magical pixie dust. Words have meaning. If you wish to communicate effectively you must use the correct words in the proper context.
You must consider the source. John Cook, ha!
I think that these guys inoculated themselves with LSD before coming up with this!
Moderator —
Again I can’t seem to post. Yesterday i tried twice for the same post (logging out and in between attempts) and got nothing. (No message about moderation.) Each time I clicked the back arrow — and my post was sitting in the post squared area but all buttons to post and everything else were gone.
I came here again today to this article and nothing has yet appeared.
I had posted something earlier here about the head of CNN holding up the bloodied severed head of Kathy Griffin and it appeared fine.
Thankyou
Eugene WR Gallun
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If you used some banned words, or excessive links (simulating spam attempts) it goes into trash, which we routinely check. No need to remind us.
So Cook thinks he can make people doubt facts. Cook finds facts unhelpful.
And he thinks that will lead people to the truth?
Obviously not.
Cook cares nothing for the truth. He just cares about pushing his own agendas.
Obviously, John Cook and Mosher own a lot of stock in Unicorn Fats and Fairy Dust !!
“… inoculation messages may serve to put listeners on alert for trickery, making them more likely to scrutinize the information they receive.”
Nothing wrong with that. Isn’t that what’s going on here, on this site.
Put the tricksters and propagandists out of business. If he wants to hurt himself let him.
I smell an innoculation message!
The denial-as-illness meme has been around for a while, see: http://blackjay.net/?p=151
Any doubts that this paper is faked?
Always freaks me out when I see that image. Some serious mental issue going on there.
Wow, the imminent collapse of the foundering main stream science deceit is going to mean millions of changes in the names and tasks of government departments, agencies, university faculties, task forces, MSM columns, news categories, blogs, …. and a re-education of 100s of thousands of scientists whose redundant theses and advanced degrees are in irrelevant skills.
“Nobody likes to be misled, no matter their politics,” says Cook.
Really? I think most people prefer to be misled so long as it confirms that they are virtuous do-gooders.