From the UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT and the “that’s going to leave a mark” department comes this bit of news that’s sure to cause some heads to explode.
Regardless of political affiliation, people are more likely to believe facts about climate change when they come from Republicans speaking against what has become a partisan interest in this country, says a new University of Connecticut study.
In fact, Republicans are even more persuasive than scientists when it comes to correcting misinformation about climate change, researchers found.
“Unfortunately, correcting misinformation is much harder than simply providing ‘facts’,” says Lyle Scruggs, professor of political science at UConn, who co-authored the paper with Salil Benegal, a recent UConn Ph.D. graduate, now at DePauw University. The study is published in Climatic Change.
“For science issues such as climate change, we might expect scientists to be a credible and neutral authority,” says Benegal. “However, partisanship increasingly influences perceptions of scientific credibility.”
The study included 1,341 people, data collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and focused on a specific partisan issue on which scientific consensus has been widely adopted by Democrats but challenged by Republicans. Participants included those who self-identified as Republicans, Democrats, or Independents.
As expected, study authors found a partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans in their stated opinions on climate change, with Democrats expressing the highest level of concern and scientific agreement. The partisan gap diminished, however, with corrective information.
In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.
All participants, regardless of partisanship, received factual corrections after reading a statement denying climate change. The corrections were randomly attributed to Republicans, Democrats, or non-partisan climate scientists.
Overall, participants found the most effective corrections came from Republicans rather than non-partisan scientists or Democrats. This transcended partisan leanings, researchers found.
“This may be because Republicans who make such statements are engaging in more potentially costly behavior that lend them additional persuasive value,” the authors say.
Republican political identity is now perhaps associated with climate change denial. As such, Republicans engaging in pro-climate change discourse is more “surprising” to all citizens, the authors say.
The researchers examined the issue in an attempt to determine which sources of information are the most effective in persuading individuals to reject misinformation on the topic of climate change.
The findings have implications for environmental communication strategies that seek to improve awareness about climate change.
“Citing Republican elites who endorse the scientific consensus on climate change may be the most effective way to persuade citizens that climate change is a real and important problem,” says Scruggs. “That may be a step forward in reducing the partisan gap in public opinion on the subject.”
###
The study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2192-4
Correcting misinformation about climate change: the impact of partisanship in an experimental setting
Abstract
Misperceptions of the scientific consensus on climate change are an important problem in environmental policy. These misperceptions stem from a combination of ideological polarization and statements from prominent politicians who endorse information contradicting or misrepresenting the scientific consensus on climate change. Our study tests a source credibility theory of correction using different partisan sources of information in a survey experiment. We find that corrections from Republicans speaking against their partisan interest are most likely to persuade respondents to acknowledge and agree with the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The extent of these effects vary by the partisanship of the recipient. Our results suggest that the partisan gap on climate change can be reduced by highlighting the views of elite Republicans who acknowledge the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.
Replication materials for this study are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/KV6S5V
So what I get out of this is that people believe that Republicans are more trustworthy than Democrats. Other than that I call bravo sierra on the whole meme.
I take it as simple confirmation of what I think even the most resistant to the idea have had to accept – this is no longer a scientific issue, in fact it probably was never an actual “scientific” issue. This is a political issue, dressed up by the left in pseudo-scientific terms in order to mask their desire to use it to seize political power.
Since it is now purely a political issue, it makes sense that dealing with in on a political basis will be most effective. Voters don’t care about scientific debates; they never did. But from experience most of them have a strong sense that when one party is screaming “Fire and Eternal Damnation for you all, unless you pay up!” then they had better grab hold of their pocketbooks tightly.
Control and capital. There are trillions of dollars in redistributive change at stake. A prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global cooling/warming/climate change is enough to put the fear of mortal gods in many men, women, and children.
“So what I get out of this is that people believe that Republicans are more trustworthy”……republicans gave a different set of “facts”
….Or you trust people more that have something to lose or are impartial vs. something to gain (research grants / CO2 tax revenues / more control and power). As well when the same ‘democrats’ are still flying the world between their seven different mansions, hotels and tax funded dinners. Does it really take a study or a genius to realize there is a credibility issue at play here?
Republicans tell fewer lies. Obama’s lies were obvious: hiis mouth was open.
“Republicans tell fewer lies.”
Republicans only lie when they promise they will do something (they most don’t and sometimes do the exact opposite). Dems lie about pretty much everything. Their program is a lie in itself: how can you promise higher minimum salary AND more immigration to fill in the low qualification jobs that no American would do because of the ridiculously low pay?
Well, you aren’t reading it very well, then. The conclusion is that people are more likely to trust a Republican because it’s so unusual for Republicans to come out in favor of CAGW.
I wonder what the results would be if they reversed things and had Democrats coming out as sceptics.
It’s too bad people are not more willing
to trust their own senses, and celebrate
the wonderful climate in recent years,
except for this cold winter,
and the greening of our planet,
from more CO2 in the air.
When it comes to climate change,
there is 1% science (simple lab experiments)
and 99% wild guesses, speculation,
unproven theories, and much BS,
with haphazard / biased data collection,
to compile an average global surface temperature
which is meaningless, because it doesn’t even
match weather satellite and weather balloon data.
Maybe it’s + 1 degree warmer than in 1880,
+/- at least 1 degree C. margin of error.
So what ?
If any of the warming was caused by CO2,
then it’s night time warming in the colder,
drier latitudes — and the few people living there
are thrilled with the change !
Only $#@&% leftists like you, Silber,
(based on many of your comments here),
would promote climate scaremongering
for political (Democrat Party)
and financial gain (govt. bureaucrat
“scientists” get job security)
Only a person with a limited ability
to think for themselves would take
climate change scaremongering
seriously, and believe the smarmy leftists
after over 30 years of their grossly inaccurate
average temperature predictions,
from the expensive computer games.
And just be thankful
I was in a good mood today !
My climate blog —
leftists and other climate change parrots
must stay away:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
That is what the researchers conclude, but that is not necessarily the reason the respondents formed the opinion. Studies do not always ask the subjects why they formed an opinion or acted in a certain way, because that makes it harder for the researchers to code things in their preferred/planned/intended categories. Even if subjects are asked, their responses may not be disclosed or used in the study, or they may be stuck in the “closest” category. Qualitative data is easy to spin.
I suspect that people tend to be less suspicious when someone expresses an opinion/idea/belief that seems to contradict the “usual” or “approved” opinion of “their group”, be it race, political party, sex, college major, profession, etc. That does not mean that people are actually going to accept an idea simply because the person is going against the grain.
Got it. You believe you are the smartest person in the room. In any room.
Richard Greene,
“Only $#@&% leftists like you, Silber,
(based on many of your comments here),
would promote climate scaremongering
for political (Democrat Party)
and financial gain (govt. bureaucrat
“scientists” get job security)
Only a person with a limited ability
to think for themselves would take
climate change scaremongering
seriously, and believe the smarmy leftists
after over 30 years of their grossly inaccurate
average temperature predictions,
from the expensive computer games.”
It’s too bad the skeptic movement has been poisoned by rhetoric like this. It is this prevalent attitude that detracts from the credibility of the scientific argument.
(The “movement” is not cohesive, I know, but it has a common denominator: policy.)
You are so completely off base in your assumptions about me that I know how biased your general ideas are. It makes your attack on me completely absurd and harmless. Perhaps you’ll take these things into account next time you want to hurt, and you’ll do a better job.
Sickening to see you have a site of your own. I can only imagine the lies it spreads.
BTW, being on the left does not make one a leftist. Different connotations, you see. Or do you? Usually the term “leftist” is associated with communism or at least socialism.
I’m sick to death of smug little slimeballs like you with your foolish assumptions. I’m a person, get it? I’m complex. I can think for myself. I don’t think it’s sensible or ethical to do nothing about climate change, but that’s not my main concern. People like you are waging war on science, and that is not good for the country. I care about America. There is something terribly wrong when people think their scientific community is corrupt, a tool of government, and that it is so back-asswards that laymen can do better.
It is this I am fighting. It is you I am fighting, Richard Greene.
@Kristi Silber
You are not “defending science” by making appeals to authority or implying that only a credentialed guild of experts is capable of analyzing data to test a theory. On the contrary, that’s how you demonstrate that you are defending a political agenda or a faith-based proposition. Consensus is not science, it is politics. “Settled science” sounds like religious dogma to me. Scientists do not need to appeal to their authority, they appeal to the data. If 99.9% say the earth is flat, the 0.1% who deny that dogma are no less right even if they are far “out of the mainstream”. Scientists do not alter the data to fit the preconceived theory. If the data disprove a theory, they are skeptical of the theory and they alter the theory to fit the data. They are not emotionally invested in the old theory. They should not be financially interested in a particular outcome. It shouldn’t be a consideration that certain politicians won’t like the new theory that fits the data.
Every day on this site, evidence is presented to argue for or against falsifiable theories. That is what the scientific method looks like in action. That is how science is being defended here. It seems to me that you provoke the sort of regrettable attacks that you sustain here from time to time. You ought to be more appreciative of the leeway that the moderators grant to you for your trollery.
On many issues, a layman, or a child, can do better than the “scientific consensus” (that never was).
One issue is the risk of low dose radiation. Another is the need for various vaccines. A child could see that the CDC is full of it, and needs to be dismantled.
Many things should be obvious to a moderately intelligent 11 years old. That “Science” is a massive failure (not self cleaning) is one.
Elite Republican? Are we talking Maverick here? I thank John McCain for his service but the guy was the goat at the Navy School for Boys and has never exhibited elevated intellectual capacity. Other Elite Republicas in favor of AGW? Who cares, it’s Reality that matters. The AGW crowd still has not detected any signal exceeding the normal noise, ie, there is no measured variance exceeding the variance shown in the Geologic Record. Sea Level is useful to show glacial and inter-glacial epochs, so when the sea level is at least 50 meters higher or 100 meters lower we can talk. Otherwise it’s just noise.
Anthony Watts, “that’s going to leave a mark”, really on who? Are you just doing the bait and switch? You got me to read the article but the title is misleading. “Republicans more persuasive than scientists”, yeah when they AGREE WITH CLIMATE ALARMISTS”:
The mark is on me after reading this load of crap.
Yeah, I noted that too. Made me sad that this was being touted as a win for rationality, when it’s a win for IPCC manipulation efforts.
The mark is on those who insult conservatives every day!
It’s really kind of sad, McCain’s “life” now, such as it is, has become an extended version of “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
WWS: Ouch! I think that comment is what Anthony was referring to when he said “that’s going to leave a mark!”
Scruggs means:
“Citing RINOS …”
Problem? Um, not any more of a problem than it ever has been.
…In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity….
“…In the study, information was undermined by propaganda from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity….”
There. Fixed that for you…
That was my first thought reading it…whose idea of “misinformation”. Most of the time the “corrected” information is so obviously WRONG as to be laughable.
More importantly, the “corrective” information didn’t really correct or contradict the starting statement. For example, in the first example question they have, the starting statement was one by Inhofe, and asserted that there was no real scientific proof that CO2 would cause the catastrophic harms hypothesized, and that the Earth was then in a cooling period. None of the following three corrective statements contradicted either of these assertions. They only indicated that scientists had opinions and estimates that CO2 caused most of the warming seen since 1950, that up to 4C temperature increase was forecast, etc. IN other words, the “corrective” information was a combination of the appeal to authority and straw man fallacies.
This kind of study says as much or more about the sloppy thinking of the researchers than it does about the participants of the study.
“This kind of study says as much or more about the sloppy thinking of the researchers than it does about the participants of the study.”
Nope, you aren’t getting the point. It’s about the effect of who made the statement. The researchers may even have made the issue/response intentionally illogical, since often replies don’t actually address the subject.
How easy it is for people to dismiss science for the wrong reasons. That’s what wrong with this whole site; it nurtures the drive to mindlessly distrust. It is not skepticism, it’s doubt and ridicule and assumption….and politics.
Yeah – as in, the very idea of a “broad consensus” being anything “scientific” is a joke to begin with, and the fact that they keep harping on their 97% BS (and it IS BS, 2/3 didn’t even take a “side”) just tells you that this IS NOT about SCIENCE at all.
“Consensus” is a creature of politics, NOT science. The fact that they keep talking about “consensus” tells you that AGW is all politics, all the time. “Science” my a$$.
I think what they claimed they found was that the argument against a skeptical view was more persuasive when made by a Republican. They did not claim to find that Republicans making skeptical arguments were more persuasive.
This.
By my reading, the ‘corrections’ were the same in each case and in favor of the Warmist dogma, the study simply changed the names of those presenting the arguments.
People are more likely to believe an argument from a person who is arguing against his own self-interest. One doesn’t need a study to confirm this.
I am deplorably conservative beyond republicanism and I dispute AGW and doubt/disrespect progressives.
I’m worse than you. I believe the US Constitution is an Act of God.
Hopefully not in the sense that an insurance company uses. 🙂
“All participants, regardless of partisanship, received
factual corrections propaganda after reading a statement denying climate change. Thecorrections were propaganda was randomly attributed to Republicans, Democrats, or non-partisan climate scientists.”There, now that statement is factual. Words and meanings, they matter.
Damn, html code typos – anyways, dodgy geezer beat me to it.
Wearing a lab coat at a conference does not make you a scientist.
it doesn’t make you so, but it helps you appear as if you were so.
“I’m not really a Scientist, but I play one at Climate Conferences.”
~¿~
Lab coats? The only people that wear lab coats these days are actors in TV commercials, green activists at protests, and the occasional student TA sweeping the floor. A lab coat is not required to fudge statistics or read the printouts from climate models. I seriously doubt that Mann has EVER worn one, unless it was for a photo op.
Well, what about the scientists showing off the doomsday clock?
Whoops! It went past midnight, no problems.
I’m not a scientist, but I play one for political reasons?
I suppose these clowns might wear a lab coat to program their computer models. They wouldn’t want to be contaminated with any actual facts or raw data.
I use a blue fire resistant lab coat when working on electronic systems or doing soldering. Keeps my clothes clean. 🙂
Pathetic – “factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.”
Because these clowns didn’t bother to check their facts, they were presenting lies to their subjects. That makes the entire study worthless.
Worthless can go below zero. This study does show something, however. Democrats’ credibility is lower than Republicans. If the study’s authors would pull their heads out of The Bubble, they’d see this.
The tipping point was always when it no longer mattered that “the science” was full of holes and didn’t stand up to the rigor of the scientific method. This study highlights how it was to be achieved and is instructions to useful idiots/greedy bastards.
“You should be embarrassed for not believing when all these great minds have done the thinking for you” is not a bad thing until its hijacked by BS artists.
Remember that only a third of all peer-reviewed papers on psychology are replicable; i.e. two thirds are wrong.
Also note that these 2 “scientists” are doing well out of the climate change scam:
https://www.depauw.edu/academics/college-of-liberal-arts/political-science/faculty-staff/detail/1859382699129/
https://polisci.uconn.edu/person/lyle-scruggs/
Its not that we trust Republicans all that much, its that we’ve learned through hard experience not to trust partisan pronouncements from our universities anymore. Sad state of affairs all the way round.
Roger that.
+10
David, this is misleading. You wouldn’t count the “no position” papers with the other percentages if you are trying to get an estimate of agreement. That’s like including all the people who didn’t vote as ballots for one candidate.
The authors combines the red orange and yellow. Most papers would have no need of quantifying the warming attributable to humans. It is worth adding that this is not an estimate of how many scientists are CAGW, but how many think AGW is likely.
I don’t like this study, or how it was framed by they media. 97% of papers doesn’t not mean 97% of scientists. The “97.5%” is stupid – it’s not so precise, and not set in stone. The whole idea has been overblown. That doesn’t mean, though, that in essence it’s incorrect; the vast majority of scientists support AGW theory. Just ask one of the poor rebels whose life have been destroyed by speaking out against the mob.
Silber:
I’m the most skeptical climate change skeptic
you’ll ever (not) meet … yet even I believe some
of the warming since 1880 is caused by humans:
Urban heat island effect.
Al “blabbermouth” Gore’s hot air.
“Adjustments” to raw temperature data,
Warming biased “infilling” of more than
50% of the grids in the global surface average
Bias by people who compile the surface data,
who do not care that satellite and balloon data
are different than surface data,
but do correlate with each other.
Dark soot from burning coal and wood
deposited on ice and snow
in the Arctic, increasing albedo
Maybe some nighttime warming from CO2 too.
I’d be shocked if anyone though humans had
absolutely no effect on the climate …
… but science does not progress by a vote —
the history of science is one “consensus”
after another being thrown in the dust bin
of history, replaced by better science.
Ms Silber,
Let’s be careful – the study was of papers written by climate scientists who have been publishing in the peer-reviewed climate science literature.
The population of authors of the 11,000+ papers reviewed hardly constitute all scientists. It is likely that universities in the PRC graduate more scientists per year than the total number of authors of the 11,000+ papers. Plus, there are all the other scientists in the world, whose beleifs weren’t reviewed in Cook, et al.
So, when talking about the 97% of Cook, et all, let’s make sure that it is “97% of climate scientists who have been publishing in the peer-reviewed climate science literature”. That is a much smaller group of people than “scientists.”
Kristi, the whole “study” is misleading and was cynically used to create another meaningless meme. The simple fact is consensus is not how real science is done. the fact that they keep talking about “consensus” tells you that they’re not talking about science.
And I agree with Richard Greene 100% (except I think he meant DEcreasing albedo).
Greene,
I am not at all interested in anything you have to say.
Retired Engineer Jim,
The point was to assess those scientists who know about climate science, not all scientists. Expertise should matter in an assessment like this. The consensus is within the climate scientist community. I know the message has gotten warped by the media, and I hold the researchers partly accountable for it. They wanted to do something that would convince, that would put the issue in the spotlight. This was dumb, and it backfired. The data aren’t bad, but they doesn’t say what the media propagated. The researchers weren’t climate scientists, were they? Can’t remember. Poor science.
There are several reason to complain about this paper and its methods, but the cutoff at published papers about climate science was not one of them, IMO. The problem came when it wasn’t made clear that’s what’s being measured.
“the climate scientist community”, I guess, is those paid to study the problem of man made warming?
Do you trust the “consensus” of the “medical community” (aka drug dealers) on the effects of drugs? Or the need to use drugs?
“Correcting mis-information” is used by these hacks as a euphemism for reinforcing mis-information, repeating the fraudulent “consensus” line.
From the article: “Citing Republican elites who endorse the scientific consensus on climate change may be the most effective way to persuade citizens that climate change is a real and important problem,” says Scruggs.”
No, that will just get the Republican Elites ridiculed by other Republicans. Maybe the scientists haven’t noticed that Republican Elites are associated with The Swamp in most Republican’s minds. In other words, the Republican Elites are not held in high regard by the Deplorables.
This study is just another example of how the Alarmists are losing the battle for the hearts and minds. And they know it. That’s why they do these kinds of exercises.
Winning!
These idiots will never convince me of any human-induced climate catastrophe via CO2 emissions, even if they got Ronald Reagan to come back from the dead to tell me about how “misinformed” [THEY think] I am. They have NO empirical evidence to back up their claims, NONE. Produce THAT, or STFU.
The way I see it, despite the best efforts of the AGW proponents to cast all rejection of their theories as being sponsored by Big Oil, it’s become obvious to the general public that the people who are claiming that there is an imminent climate crisis are those who stand to make money from increased funding to study climate. The climate alarmists are coming across as salesmen, not scientists. It’s like listening to a salesman at an electronics store trying to warn you of the dangers of not buying the extended warranty package. Since you know he’s looking to increase his commission, it’s easy to ignore him.
Never seen you over here, Misha… Welcome! This is another fun place. (On which, alas, I spend far too much time some days. Back to work…)
Good one! I’m adding it to my tag lines and smart remarks file.
oh that reminded me of the reports of how when ohbummer was supposed to have made some law /tax thing..everyone loved it.
when they were told it was from trump they hated it
and it was a trump idea i gather;-)
same thing
lie/mislead and see the sheepies amblealong
This study is actually reporting that the established consensus and the Democrats have no credibility left on climate change, and that claiming the report is endorsed by a Republican makes the assertion more credible. Much more a statement of how little credibility the green blob still has.
Politicians have no credibility on any subject.
Just like used car salesmen.
Unfortunately, thanks to government
bureaucrat “climate scientists”
playing computer games and making
wrong climate forecasts for decades,
I’d never buy a used car from a scientist !
Um…
What a confusing study. For a start, what does this quite from the methodology mean?
…In an effort to rely on actual quotes from real politicians, the details of corrective messages differed in this pilot study. This sacrificed some degree of internal validity for external validity, as the intensity and phrasing of messages differed by group. …
Secondly, the main finding is that Republicans change more than Democrats. Unsurprising. Democrats are 100% behind AGW under all circumstances, so ANY change can only be on the part of a group who are thinking a bit.
Finally, the questions include the hoary old “Do believe in climate change?” To which the answer depends crucially on how you interpret that phrase….
‘quite’ = ‘quote’. When will we get an editor?
So here is a study that, at its foundation, is based on the already disproved “scientific consensus”. It then slides into sociology in attempting to determine the effectiveness of the climate change message. I think we have seen a number of these studies and assessments recently. AGW proponents continue to believe that changing the message delivery will win the day for them, even when the facts are not on their side. I seem to recall from history that this approach is called “propaganda”.
I hope taxpayer dollars were not spent on this “study”, but I suspect otherwise.
The authors of the “study” don’t seem capable of believing that the CAGW credibility problem is the credibility problem they somehow have to overcome before their barrels of bullwash will be ‘believed in.’
Doesn’t it have to be believable before it can be ‘believed in?’ If it makes no sense then it just may be thought to be nonsense, don’t ya know?
Over 20 years ago, when the global warming issue first started leaking into the mainstream hive-mind, I knew immediately that it was probably a sham. The first red flag was that the hard sell was coming from a lifelong politician (Al Gore). The second red flag was the blatant lie that the ‘science is settled.’ Anyone that knows anything about science knows that there’s no such animal as ‘settled science’. The one thing that I didn’t realize at the time was how long this foolishness would survive. The reason that it has is not because of any observational evidence (there’s not a shred), but that there’s a huge multifaceted propaganda machine at work on this planet. This machine never sleeps and never relents and it’s very, very effective.
Wow, the climate fanatics who sre not immolating themsrlves literally are immolating their ethics and souls metaphorically to push their magical thinking agenda.
When consensus itself becomes evidence to a scientist, be confident in the fact that that person is not a scientist.
In the words of the great Michael Chricton, “If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.”
Written from Ohio where it is snowing on April 19:
Global warming
Global warming
Where are you?
Where are you?
Are you just from Michael Mann’s imagination?
Please come soon
Please come soon!
I wish “they” had interviewed me. I would have cleared up many of their questions in their “research”.
Then their paper may have been about “researchers” investigating their own research.