From the UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE and the “I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn” department. These fools really believe the horrendously flawed 97% consensus argument, which has been refuted by other scientific papers, wins over conservatives in the climate change debate. I’m reminded of this quote from Mark Twain:
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain
Presenting facts as ‘consensus’ bridges conservative-liberal divide over climate change
In the murk of post-truth public debate, facts can polarise. Scientific evidence triggers reaction and spin that ends up entrenching the attitudes of opposing political tribes.
Recent research suggests this phenomenon is actually stronger among the more educated, through what psychologists call ‘motived reasoning’: where data is rejected or twisted – consciously or otherwise – to prop up a particular worldview.
However, a new study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour finds that one type of fact can bridge the chasm between conservative and liberal, and pull people’s opinions closer to the truth on one of the most polarising issues in US politics: climate change.
Previous research has broadly found US conservatives to be most sceptical of climate change. Yet by presenting a fact in the form of a consensus – “97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused global warming is happening” – researchers have now discovered that conservatives shift their perceptions significantly towards the scientific ‘norm’.
In an experiment involving over 6,000 US citizens, psychologists found that introducing people to this consensus fact reduced polarisation between higher educated liberals and conservatives by roughly 50%, and increased conservative belief in a scientific accord on climate change by 20 percentage points.
Moreover, the latest research confirms the prior finding that climate change scepticism is indeed more deeply rooted among highly educated conservatives. Yet exposure to the simple fact of a scientific consensus neutralises the “negative interaction” between higher education and conservatism that strongly embeds these beliefs.
“The vast majority of people want to conform to societal standards, it’s innate in us as a highly social species,” says Dr Sander van der Linden, study lead author from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.
“People often misperceive social norms, and seek to adjust once they are exposed to evidence of a group consensus,” he says, pointing to the example that college students always think their friends drink more than they actually do.
“Our findings suggest that presenting people with a social fact, a consensus of opinion among experts, rather than challenging them with blunt scientific data, encourages a shift towards mainstream scientific belief – particularly among conservatives.”
For van der Linden and his co-authors Drs Anthony Leiserowitz and Edward Maibach from Yale and George Mason universities in the US, social facts such as demonstrating a consensus can act as a “gateway belief”: allowing a gradual recalibration of private attitudes.
“Information that directly threatens people’s worldview can cause them to react negatively and become further entrenched in their beliefs. This ‘backfire effect’ appears to be particularly strong among highly educated US conservatives when it comes to contested issues such as manmade climate change,” says van der Linden.
“It is more acceptable for people to change their perceptions of what is normative in science and society. Previous research has shown that people will then adjust their core beliefs over time to match. This is a less threatening way to change attitudes, avoiding the ‘backfire effect’ that can occur when someone’s worldview is directly challenged.”
For the study, researchers conducted online surveys of 6,301 US citizens that adhered to nationally representative quotas of gender, age, education, ethnicity, region and political ideology.
The nature of the study was hidden by claims of testing random media messages, with the climate change perception tests sandwiched between questions on consumer technology and popular culture messaging.
Half the sample were randomly assigned to receive the ‘treatment’ of exposure to the fact of scientific consensus, while the other half, the control group, did not.
Researchers found that attitudes towards scientific belief on climate change among self-declared conservatives were, on average, 35 percentage points lower (64%) than the actual scientific consensus of 97%. Among liberals it was 20 percentage points lower.
They also found a small additional negative effect: when someone is highly educated and conservative they judge scientific agreement to be even lower.
However, once the treatment group were exposed to the ‘social fact’ of overwhelming scientific agreement, higher-educated conservatives shifted their perception of the scientific norm by 20 percentage points to 83% – almost in line with post-treatment liberals.
The added negative effect of conservatism plus high education was completely neutralised through exposure to the truth on scientific agreement around manmade climate change.
“Scientists as a group are still viewed as trustworthy and non-partisan across the political spectrum in the US, despite frequent attempts to discredit their work through ‘fake news’ denunciations and underhand lobbying techniques deployed by some on the right,” says van der Linden.
“Our study suggests that even in our so-called post-truth environment, hope is not lost for the fact. By presenting scientific facts in a socialised form, such as highlighting consensus, we can still shift opinion across political divides on some of the most pressing issues of our time.”
###
The paper (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0259-2
It should be noted that the authors, listed below, are well known for trying to enforce the consensus with “studies” like these.
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Department of Psychology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Sander van der Linden
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Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- Anthony Leiserowitz
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Center for Climate Change Communication, Department of Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
- Edward Maibach
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Anyone who doubts that CAGW is a political movement needs to take a step back and simply observe that this science is decided by popular vote..
As a normal human being I would have to agree that human nature leads us toward agreement with a consensus position. But on the other hand, natural skepticism causes us to challenge a “consensus”. Mark Twain was a famous contrarian – so his view of the matter would be predictable.
Also, the “consensus” argument, I would agree, is very powerful with lazy people and naturally accepting people. That’s what makes the consensus position so dangerous. Let’s remember that the warmist position is a political view as much as anything else, and politics is about salemanship and propaganda. The warmists were very clever in adopting the consensus argument. Among many people it’s very difficult to resist.
And let’s look carefully at the consensus statement presented above – “97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused global warming is happening”. Wouldn’t most folks here be tempted to agree with this, taken on its own without the usual qualifiers?
So let’s remember what we’re arguing about before getting riled up with the usual climate wars stuff. Seems to me that the study cited is pretty harmless. So let’s move on.
I’ve been “debating” climate change since the 1970’s and on the Internet since 2004. I’m not sure if my BS in Earth Science and the fact that I’ve never voted for a Democrat make me a “highly educated conservative”… But I learned in Philosophy 101 that an appeal to consensus (argumentum ad popluum) was not a valid argument.
Furthermore, since the beginning of my days of debating climate change on the Internet, almost every Warmunist leads off with argumentum ad popluum, like this moronic sort of mantra…
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
97 percent or more of actively publishing UFO scientists agree that flying saucers are spacecraft flown by space aliens… So what?
If these social science bozos think that after losing the argument about the science, resorting to argumentum ad popluum will turn the tide and win over scientifically literate conservatives, they don’t know jack schist about basic logic or the fact that Warmunists generally lead off with argumentum ad popluum.
As a geologist, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what any scientific organization’s position statement says about anything. These are written by a handful of politically active members of the societies. Although the AAPG did conduct a survey prior to crafting the current (2007) statement…
http://dpa.aapg.org/documents/GCCSurveyReport.pdf
Even if I did give a rat’s ass about consensus, the consensus among geologists is that most of recently observed climate variation is natural. There’s an 85% consensus that less than half of the warming is anthropogenic.
Which dovetails with my own general caveat: “Beware of stupid people in large numbers.”
Especially when their pride is directly in the line of fire –
(True whether he said it or not.)
BEV owners come to mind.
A “consensus of opinion” is not fact—it’s opinion.
The “consensus” argument hasn’t worked up until now, but all of a sudden, presto, it’s working!
Their delusions are getting sadder and sadder.
This seems a discussion about how to destroy scientific and societal progress. Fortunately there are enough folk who think for themselves, are not swayed by arguments based on consensus, and know there is no “scientific norm” except for the basic rules of how science is done – objectively seeking evidence of natural truths while purposefully diminishing the influence of bias and error on the outcome. Much of climate science as far as the “consensus” is concerned seems to proceed by a process that is the exact opposite.
So if only the media and “science communicators” would use the 97% consensus meme. Gee, no one has ever thought of throwing that propaganda out there to change anyone’s mind. Why didn’t they think of it before?! What a bunch of geeeniuses.
To review (for anyone believing the 97% “consensus”):
* There is NOT and there has NOT ever been a 97% consensus on the science of human caused climate change.
* If you have not read the research demonstrating this lack of “consensus”, then you have failed to become educated about the facts.
* If the suggestion that you are uneducated about the facts of this statement anger you, then prove me wrong by actually READING the research on this claim.
* If, after reading the research and reconsidering my suggestion about your former ignorance, you STILL believe in a 97% consensus on the science of human-caused climate change, then you have failed to understand what you have read, … you have solidified your attitude based on emotional reactions to your prior ignorance I pointed out, … and you clearly make critical determinations on the basis of emotional reactions rather than on the basis of rational judgment.
I agree totally with your comments however, as with most people who have dental problems, until it hurts enough they won’t take any action no matter how much they understand why they should.
So the real question is how do we make people understand how painful it is going to be if they blindly follow the fake consensus.
The 97% consensus meme is so easily and best refuted in simple terms that Dr. Curry gave in an interview about a year ago.
Her argument basically was, “I am part of the 97% consensus on climate change, yet I’m also called a denier at the same time.” The same can be said about basically all other denier labeled scientists, i.e. Soon, Lindzen, Tol, etc. When presenting this fact to climate cultists, they either tend to run and hide or flat out deny it, either way it might be the start of their long road to deprogramming.
Basically what I’m saying is, instead of trying to explain to them how logically flawed their meme is, or how it doesn’t exist or mean what they think it does, play along with it steer them into seeing it is a logical paradox.
Something that you claim as untrue (D-word) cannot be used to argue that something is true (97% consensus), the most basic type of logical paradox from contradiction.
You can’t deprogram a mind by telling them what they think is wrong or telling them how to think, present questions and facts to them in a way that leads them to the conclusion that their belief is flawed. They’ve got to come to this on their own.
So by saying that the 97% consensus on climate science is true and a large portion of the 97% consensus of scientists that publish research is wrong, you come to a contradiction so obvious that the most steadfastly programmed mind begins to question its beliefs.
I don’t think that this is the way to go at all. Calling 97% of climate scientists wrong seems like a far more impossible position than saying that the 97% statistic is wrong.
People who regard “scientists” as gods will merely think that you are arrogant Then they will say, “So I guess you think 100% of the people who think the Earth is round are wrong too.” “I guess you think that the majority of people on Earth who believe that air is vital for life are wrong too.”
If the statistic is wrong, then it is wrong. Establish this, argue this. THEN move to arguing the fact that of those people who DO believe that humans are a major cause are wrong. So, now you have TWO wrongs — the statistic AND the fewer-than-97% scientists.
Thus, to hold to the 97% claim is worse than you might think. It’s a “both-and-situation” — both the statistic about the majority AND the less-than-majority are WRONG … on two different levels of “wrongness”.
Consensus, huh? Perhaps, a consensus of special and peculiar interests.
The flat-Earth society is projecting its deeply held dream to conflate logical domains.
OK, the paper is pay-walled, and maybe that saves me some time.
Having said that, I see no evidence that these people don’t fall at the first hurdle, just like so many of the f-wits publishing on the topic: If they can’t even be bothered to carefully define the various incantations (spelling quite deliberate) of “climate change”, why on earth should anyone take the trouble to read what they imagine about the people who disagree with them?
Such slovenliness should not be acceptable in any branch of the arts & humanities. That they attempt to ply their trade in the sciences is beyond laughable.
Seeing as they are at Cambridge, I will repeat to the authors what they undoubtedly heard many times before sitting their school exams for “O” and “A”-levels (or whatever they are called these days): “READ THE QUESTION”. Don’t answer the question you like to think the examiner asked, just answer the question that was actually asked.
Silly fools. The “Backfire effect” cuts both ways.
Good point! 🙂
There is no consensus. Scientists nevr registered and voted on the AGW conjecture. Such a consensus would be meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some form of legislation. Scientific theories are not verified by a voting process.
The AGW conjecture is based upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmopahere with LWIR absorption bands. I radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction hence the AGW conjecture is sceince fiction. No consensus can turn science fiction into science fact.
I might have believed this was a serious psychological study if they had divided their subjects into 3 groups: the control group, the group told that the consensus was in favor of anthropogenic climate change and the third group told that the consensus was that anthropogenic climate change is false. As it is, this paper is little more than “How to succeed at propaganda.”
I do not think it is even that.
It is just more made-up babbling.
So if they now know how to “change deniers into believers” the meme should soon be a 100% consensus.
Ain’t “social science” great?
I just wrote the summary piece below on how this science gets done, and the reality of statistical models versus factual data and deterministic models. I hope it’s useful here, it took a while for me to uderstand what was being done in the name of science, but a great scientist made it so,
START: As a few members liked this, I edited it after I wrote it, for greater effect. it’s now too long:
Re the use of software and computers in science. I defer to but, try to summarise !*? Richard Feynman, who helped me understand the problem, rather than believe in it. It’s not the software or the hardware, it’s the class of model it hangs around with that determines what is real science and what is pseudo science, today’s “fake science”.
A STATISTICAL model that effectively tries to guess correlations by projecting manipulated inputs forward in time, using assumed but partial and unproven relationships, cannot “prove any laws”. It can ONLY prove correlation, which is not causation. Climate models are STATISTICAL, hence the very stuff of Feynman’s pseudo science, and share the characteristics of other peseudo sciences like economics, social science, weather forecasting, Cargo Cult science or bookmaking. Guesses you can’t prove, that may not happen. There is no real difference in the use of mathematics in all these subjects, just in the very different intent. Maybe even that is the same in the case of climate science – control and profit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo
So any pretence that STATISTICAL software models can prove new scientific “laws” is the most fundamental of science denials, as may also be many of the bases and assumptions of multi variate non-linear numerical models, which may never be provable either way. Some are, but some are not. GIGO. This is simply an unnatural act with computers performed by religious scientists to demonstrate unprovabel beliefs, to this physicist. The philosophy of Deep Thought re the meaning of stuff springs to mind. Douglas Adams also nailed philosophers. You can debate an unprovable hypothesis for ever, so it’s a great carreer, IF certainty can be avoided. The priesthood as was.
STATISTICAL models can only suggest further unprovable hypothesis, about which you can have all the consensus you like. But NO proof is possible without validated scientific hypotheses, that must be provable by the hard facts from serial sceptical experiments, using DETERMINISTIC computer models of cause and effect where appropriate, designed to find flaws in the hypothesis, not to prove it. Scientific method.
These are VERY different models, cultures and processes. And why politicians have hit on pseudo/fake science they can debate for ever. Like lawyers, their PPE degree skills are good at debate but find facts inconvenient, so they ayyach teir tellers while being economical with the truth to win arguments. So they are well trained to deceive and exploit pseudo science as a rich vein to justify any old money making scheme they care to legislate, as it can never be proven wrong. We must have faith in their propaganda rather than question the threats they claim to address, and the effectiveness of the supposed solutions. But the problem can never be proven either way. because “you cannot prove a vague theory wrong” – or right. See religion and philosphy above, and the expanation here
THE INCONVENIENT FACTS: The data we have suggests there is NO significant correlation between CO2 level and global temperature across the AGW industrial transition, and mass extinction is likely below 150ppm or so of the CO2 “pollutant” that humans and plants depend upon for life. So even the REAL STATISTICAL FACTS deny the assertions of STATISTICAL climate models. Physics is forever, not just a fast climate change buck. J’accuse!
I disagree…the models have proven themselves to be wrong by being wrong.
I’ll just say ditto to what everyone else has said. The facts r the facts, no consensus changes that.
David Middleton. I can’t figure out whether you agree or disagree with me.
Like you, I’ve been a climate warrior for a long time. Articles like this don’t upset me. It’s the stuff in the NYT that gets my goat, because they should know better. They intentionally distort scientific results and cherry pick articles that help them support their political position. The NYT does a lot of things well, but their climate change coverage belongs in the op-ed section and should be a major embarrassment to those at the paper with honest journalistic principles.
But I also find myself trying mightily to be more philosophical about the climate wars, rather than always getting angry about it. So if a bunch of researchers want to perform a survey and tell us how it reinforces the obvious, then that’s OK with me as long as my money is not funding the survey.
The New York Times is good at disseminating propaganda. That is all. As someone else said (sorry I forget who) the nyt is an anagram of The Monkey Writes.
“The NYT does a lot of things well, but their climate change coverage belongs in the op-ed section and should be a major embarrassment to those at the paper with honest journalistic principles.”
The only thing they do well is push leftist propaganda.
Whatever used to be true of the NYT is no longer true…it is now a rag, written by political hacks and dupes.
And there is no one there with honest journalistic principles, or they would not be there…not anymore.
When you sleep with dogs you wake with fleas.
If the “scientific consensus” wasn’t artificial then it might be clearer to both liberals and conservatives that the CAGW meme is also artificial.
Pushing The Hockey Stick would be clearly exposed as using the wrong lever to push for political gain.
[Quote]Researchers found that attitudes towards scientific belief on climate change among self-declared conservatives were, on average, 35 percentage points lower (64%) than the actual scientific consensus of 97%. Among liberals it was 20 percentage points lower.
There was never an “actual scientific consensus” of 97%. Before the temperatures started leveling off, when global-warming alarmism was at its peak, someone had performed a “push-poll” of cherry-picked “climate scientists”, and found that 97% of a sample of less than 100 agreed that human emissions of carbon dioxide caused global warming.
This was before the hockey stick had been debunked, and before the 1999 “hide the decline” scam had been exposed. Over the years, many former “believers” in global-warming had become skeptics, and the 97% consensus is nowhere close to being true.
This is equivalent to claiming that “97% of Venezuelans approve of the policies of Nicolas Maduro”. That may have been true when Maduro was first elected, but after starving for several years, lots of Venezuelans now disagree, although they may fear to say so out loud.
Consensus science is for those with a lazy mind.
I agree in-part that the phony 97% consensus did and does sway people; speaking from personal experience, the gagging of skeptic scientists and blocking of their research to the public also has a big effect on people believing the AGW lie. When I use to believe in AGW I never even knew there where scientists who disagreed with this view. When i started researching and looking for scientist with a different or opposing work on climate; it took real effort to find them and their work. I really dug through the web to find papers and lectures of skeptic scientists. When I studied their work it was eye opening and exciting to see. Getting the science out there makes a huge difference… at least it did for me. I have notice the last three years it is much easier to find work from scientist who disagree with AGW. I believe education is the key, though i may be naive but it worked for me
Does anyone think they will also try the experiment the OTHER way?
Take 6000 believers and expose them to the ACTUAL information about the 97% papers and see what happens to THEIR beliefs?
I’m torn between betting nothing would change, because beliefs are not malleable to facts, or betting they’d come towards the sceptic position, because even beliefs would fade in face of such terrible manipulation of the truth.
Leftists political hacks are notorious for using nefarious brainwashing techniques to get the masses to accept often immoral and illogical Leftist government policies.
Regarding Leftists’ CAGW agenda, the bogus “97% consensus” lie has been used with great success by using a brainwashing technique called the Asch Effect.
In 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch (rhymes with “hatch”) conducted experiments showing groups of students 3 lines, and asking them to choose which 2 lines were of the same length.
Unbeknownst, to the students being studied, there were confederates in the group that purposefully chose the wrong 2 lines…. It was found that because of the human tendency for social conformity, the target students would often go along with group consensus, knowing full well the consensus was wrong… The experiment also showed that the social conformity tendency is so strong, some students eventually got to the point where they actually couldn’t discern which 2 lines were of the same length; REALLY scary stuff…
The “97% consensus” lie isn’t “bridging the gap”, it’s merely brainwashing people into believing an obvious falsehood, and for many, no amount of contradictory empirical evidence is sufficient to override the Asch Effect…
Excellent points, SAMURAI.
It’s sad to say, but to be knowledgeable about climate science today, one also now has to be knowledgeable about human psychology and propaganda.