Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Edge Hill University Professors Geoff Beattie and Laura McGuire, the way to prevent people ignoring climate change and Covid-19 messages is to “avoid presenting both sides of the argument”.
Coronavirus shows how to get people to act on climate change – here’s the psychology
July 29, 2020 8.22pm AEST
Geoff Beattie Professor of Psychology, Edge Hill University
Laura McGuire Research Fellow in Education, Edge Hill University…
With COVID-19, the early messaging attempted to circumscribe the nature of the threat. In March, the WHO announced that: “COVID-19 impacts the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions most severely.” Similar statements were made by the UK government.
A reasonable interpretation of this would be that the virus does not “affect” young people. But as new clinical data came in, this message was changed to emphasise that the virus could affect people of all ages and doesn’t discriminate.
…
The initial positive message for young people also created an “optimism bias”. This bias is very powerful – we know of various brain mechanisms that can ensure that a positive mood persists. One study found that people tend to have a reduced level of neural coding of more negative than anticipated information (in comparison with more positive than anticipated information) in a critical region of the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in decision making. This means that we tend to miss the incoming bad news and, even if we don’t, we hardly process it.
…
To make climate change messages more effective, we need to target these cognitive biases. To prevent temporal and spatial biases, for example, we need a clear message as to why climate change is bad for individuals in their own lives in the here and now (establishing an appropriate affect heuristic).
And to prevent optimism bias, we also need to avoid presenting “both sides of the argument” in the messaging – the science tells us that there’s only one side. There also needs to be a clear argument as to why recommended, sustainable behaviours will work (establishing a different sort of confirmation bias).
We also need everyone to get the message, not just some groups – that’s an important lesson from COVID-19. There can be no (apparent) exceptions when it comes to climate change.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-shows-how-to-get-people-to-act-on-climate-change-heres-the-psychology-143300
I guess big tech shutting down dissenting voices on Coronavirus was just a test run, for what these two professors from Edge Hill University want to inflict on us.
Things have sure changed since I went to school. I remember my professors arguing for logic, debate and reason, rather than an authoritarian shutdown of dissent.
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Aren’t they already doing that? The “progressives” want to control language and thought while accusing Trump wanting a dictatorship. Projection. It works on some people.
You have to remember that Edge Hill University was basically a teachers training college until recently.
…. and remember the old saying: “if you can’t do the job then teach!”
They, like the BBC, exhibit the practices of the Inquisition: denying others any right to differ, or even consider, an alternative belief – the very opposite of the scientific method! Scientists from Galileo, Newton, onwards must be turning in their graves!
A pathetic performance!
“…. the old saying: “if you can’t do the job then teach!”
…and if you can’t teach, then lecture on the ‘Sociology of Education’ course….
Those who can’t do, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach in universities.
All this “prefrontal” crap is basically psychological manipulation. It says everything about the so-called “scientific basic” of the climate scare that they have to abandon the fundamental truth seeking and open debate of science and resort to macheavellian, psychological manipulation.
I heard it as:
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, criticize.
As the article shows clearly, these profs cannot teach and have limited themselves to criticizing.
Unable to conceive of there being a wealth of scientific proofs that their climate alarmist position is unsustainable, they have decided, as they say, to “look on the bright side” which requires that they suppress all scientific arguments contradicting their unsupportable assertions, which exist only in their computer models.
This article may become a classic example of “how not to think”, and better, “how not to speak” when commenting on a controversial matter.
The thing reads like a joke, the output to some dare dreamed up at a party to see how gullible the public is and how little attention they pay to such matters.
You guys all forgot the full sequence.
If you can, then do.
If you can’t, then consult.
If you can’t consult, then teach.
I heard it as:
Those who can, do
Those who can’t, teach
Those who can’t teach, teach theory of Education
…like these professors
That at least explains the reason teachers are so indoctrinated these days then .
What kind of so called University calls for abandonment of alternate view?
We are living in increasingly dystopian times.
Back in the early ’60s the Department of Education was the department of last resort. If you were flunking out somewhere else you could always go there to get a degree. As far as I know that’s the only research area where new theories (actually just proposals) are widely implemented before being tested or verified. But, ‘Climate Science’ may be catching up.
A so called university
That’s what kind.
Our American friends need to know that most (the majority?) of British so called Universities are nothing of the kind.
Most are what we used to call Technical Colleges or Polytechnics. If i remember rightly it was wassicks like Harold Wilson who was a teacher at a Yorkshire college before he became Prime Minister, who started the rot of British academia by calling every tin pot college a University.
So these so called expert Professors are on a par with every plumber who is now an engineer in Britain.
The University has three faculties: Arts and Sciences, Education, and Health and Social Care; these teach at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
About this ‘seat of learning’, Wikipedia says it all for me.
I left Liverpool over 50 years ago and didn’t know this establishment existed, but seeing the name made me smile.
Edge Hill was the penultimate train station before the terminus at Lime Street. When I was a young man in Liverpool, the expression “to get off at Edge Hill” referred to coitus interruptus as a form of contraception.
Thanks. Love it.
Now getting off at Edge Hill means not being smart enough to get a place at a proper university.
My mum grew up on Tunnel Road just above Edge Hill station. Stop sniggering at the back.
A man is a woman is a man.
A rioter is a peaceful protester.
Police are always violent and racist.
Orwell has been my favorite author since the early ’70’s for a reason. We see it all coming to culmination today in real-time.
1984 is arriving 36 years late.
Me too, but I also favor Yuri Bezmenov:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&w=640&h=480%5D
What am I doing wrong?
Why is the “]” (square end bracket) converted into HTML notation?
Is it because of Unix line endings (\n) instead of Windows line endings (\r\n)?
Anything on the same line as a utube link screws up display of the player here. Has to be on separate line by itself.
just type the URL
Soviet citizens endured 75 years of propaganda, but in the end it didn’t work.
And we have been warned by Yuri and others so we have nobody to blame but ourselves if we let this happen here. And yes it can happen here.
Until traditional minds accept that the Liberal-Progressive mind is INSANE, and acts accordingly, things will not improve.
I agree. They are insane, too. Just listen to them.
The Left has created a huge false reality in which they all live. And a horrible false reality it is, too, going by their rhetoric. Thankfully, that false reality only exists for them (unless you watch CNN), and the rest of us can carry on about our business as soon as we vote these maniacs out of office in November.
“to prevent optimism bias, we also need to avoid presenting “both sides of the argument” in the messaging – the science tells us that there’s only one side.”
Absolutely and patently a lie, as their junk science does not support anything real. They are just plain anti-science and pushing their political agenda based on the ignorance and gullibility of the public.
What is indeed amazing is they do not have a single piece of real evidence to show what they claim, absolutely indefensible. Thus, they have to cancel debate of all kinds in all places. They have the media and politicians in their pockets and can say anything they want in their echo chamber.
Garold ~ “Aren’t they already doing that? …”
“They” have been doing that for a rather long time . . Consider please;
Christian intellectuals initiated what we call science (in the modern sense of the word) and continued to dominate it right on into modern times (as evidenced by about two thirds of all Nobel prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine having been awarded to people who self identified as Christians, for instance).
And, a prediction was made/recorded many hundreds of years earlier, long before the predictor could have possibly foreseen such a thing by strictly “natural” means~
“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”
On what logical grounds can such blatantly obvious and well documented empirical evidence that we are not in a strictly “natural” universe, be dismissed entirely by a “they”, so as to justify “forcibly” taking money from many millions of people to pay for their own children’s indoctrination into a religion-like belief system (Grand Origin Story Evolution) that they don’t share, while disallowing so much as any mention of a “counter argument” . .
I suggest many here are “they” too.
This is far and away the best summary I have seen on where we really are with Covid 19 around the World even down to just why the new infections/deaths are way higher South of the 35th parallel than North of it. https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2020/7/27/lockdownlunacythree
High UV index and the subsequent high heat index is the reason southern states have more cases and deaths than northern states.
Relaxed CDC COVID-19 Probable Case Definition Leads to Widespread Misdiagnosis from Deaths from Extreme UV Index and High Heat Index; US 2020 Reported COVID-19 Mortality Rate 9% of 2019 YTD.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/ssta_c.gif
In a free world blog posts like the above deserve to be available.
If you have no confidence in the facts of the matter, you have to silence dissent. Your insecurity and weakness force you to that as the only effective response.
Excellent read indeed.
The last referenced article (1973) on the coronavirus outbreak in an Antarctic station after 17 weeks of complete isolation – beside questionning the lockdown or border closure effectiveness – raises the issue of what can cause such an outbreak and how.
It also reminds me of the Film The Thing (Carpenter) 🙂
Richard Binns I read the summary and used the article graphic for deaths in Arizona in a plot of the UV index for Phoenix, one of 58 US stations listed here in the uvi_map gif:
The article you cited didn’t give a specific reason why the cases are declining. I addressed that recently in the following abstract submitted to the AGU yesterday, explaining how the CDC messed everything up with their change in case definitions by allowing for the misattribution of heat stress symptoms to COVID-19, masking the true reason for the second wave:
Relaxed CDC COVID-19 Probable Case Definition Leads to Widespread Misdiagnosis from Deaths from Extreme UV Index and High Heat Index; US 2020 Reported COVID-19 Mortality Rate 9% of 2019 YTD.
Since yesterday the number of US deaths has surpassed 150K. I think your article is right, US cases will continue to decline as summer insolation decreases reducing the heat index.
This is nothing short of evil and totalitarian. These professors should lose their jobs immediately for disseminating propaganda, mass dishonesty, attempting to undermine, both freedom of speech and democracy.
Never trust academics and experts who only want one narrative…theirs. That is your first indication that something isn’t right. I have had to search for the other points of view in the US for 5-10 yrs now. They don’t make it easy. I want the other side, even when I agree with the official narrative. Banned articles and videos and websites become new information sources and even favorites. Your lists to ban become mine to give a thumbs up, even if I disagree with them. I am an absolute first amendment kind of person. The subject you ban another from speaking about should be forbidden to you. Any subject you can discuss with your thoughts, I can give mine.
Is there any other sort of academic or expert in the modern world? The long march through the institutions has just about succeeded. Their journey to the Dark Side is almost complete.
Jamie,
Just be aware they are simply endorsing the current BBC and Guardian official editorial position.
Those organisations have said in writing, they will not allow any dissenting voice about the causes of man made climate change, to be heard on their programs or publishing.
The word is clearly going out, how to censor dissent out of the picture.
There is no such thing as a one sided debate, those one sided events are called instructions or indoctrination.
Someone should tell the Universities….
Christ – these people are INSANE.
He is a professor of psychology explaining how to use psychological techniques to manipulate public opinion.
He is well with in his competence to talk about that.
He should probably be hauled up in front of the ethics committee for what he suggesting doing with this knowledge. Although the head of the “ethics” committee is probably a Peter Gleick clone who will pat him on the back and say “we’ll cover for you”.
His new degree course is called Goebels for Beginners.
“He is a professor of psychology explaining how to use psychological techniques to manipulate public opinion.”
Yes, that’s what he is doing. Brainwashing 101.
We’ll find out how well brainwashing works, or not, on November 3.
We’ll have a lot better picture of where we stand then.
“Just be aware they are simply endorsing the current BBC and Guardian official editorial position.
Is that why the English translation of the Latin words on the horrid stone carving by Eric Gill on the exterior of the BBC building is “Listen and Obey”?
Sommer,
Classic isn’t it, Eric Gill whose self confessed incest with his sisters and his daughters, plus sexual activity with the dog thrown in for completeness, was a natural choice of sculpture artist the BBC would have been seeking out. An ideal character profile, perfect to fashion something sensible for their front door.
they are acting like the catholic church , ” the world is flat ” ,the iniverse revolvea around the earth ” BECAUSE WE SAY SO .
Except the Catholic Church never said that.
Thanks for the reporting! I love your website!
That would take years for them to agree what their position is on Climate Change and COVID-19
“..And to prevent optimism bias, we also need to avoid presenting “both sides of the argument” in the messaging – the science tells us that there’s only one side….”
No, Big Brother and the Orwellian thought police tell us that there is only one side. This usually comes from the side which knows it will never win a debate.
So here we have yet another psychologist who doesn’t recognize the characteristics of a cult when he sees one, and doesn’t even realize he is a member. He has anointed himself to be the active keeper of the Holy Faith for the cult and probably thinks he is properly applying psychology here.
The level of arrogance and scientific illiteracy on display here is — as Spock would put it — fascinating.
I am 68 and I am telling all you nice young folks that there is absolutely nothing new or modern about suppressing dissent from orthodoxy. There has never been a time in my life where people in power were in any way tolerant of opposing viewpoints, or did not aggressively punish their expression.
That said, I do not understand why media outlets like The New York Times censor dissent from the climate change narrative. Like most of us who post here, I just can’t understand how so many people have been hoodwinked into believing in the existence of a problem for which the evidence is so weak and the solution so costly. You have to want it to be real to believe in it. Why would anyone want it to be real?
Walter Lippmann, Walter Duranty, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Carlos Slim Helu. Why does the New York Times publish or slant toward one side of any issue? Begins with In, ends with fluence.
Or fashionable.
Living in Ice Age, and worried about warming.
Seems fashionable.
And fashions change.
Their owners dictate what their editorial slant is to be to the editors and the editors funnel that info down the chain.
There are 6 people who control 95% of the media in north america. There are 3 others who control 90% of the internet media. 9 people control what the vast majority of the people hear, see and read.
” I do not understand why media outlets like The New York Times censor dissent from the climate change narrative.”
It’s not obvious that the New York Times is politically biased to the Left? The New York Times is the megaphone for leftwing ideology and has been for decades. Expecting the truth from them is expecting too much. What you get from them is “leftwing” “truth”.
The New York Times uses it pages to promote every leftwing cause out there including Human-caused climate change. It’s as simple as that.
“There also needs to be a clear argument as to why recommended, sustainable behaviours will work”
Kind of like the underpants gnomes on South Park, whose business plan was:
1) Steal Underpants
2) ???
3) Big Profits!!!
Great episode!
I’m an optimist. I would love the opportunity for them to try and convert and prevent my temporal and spatial biases of optimism. I want this ‘in person’ so I can give their neurotic ass a complete breakdown or a much better outlook on life! I’m quite optimist of the results either way!
“…the science tells us that there’s only one side.”
I can’t argue with that. The science tells us very clearly that there is no climate crisis, that human emissions cannot cause dangerous global warming and that additional CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing.
That’s why they want to silence dissenting voices, because they know they can’t make their case using science.
The Left’s strong urge for suppression of dissent arises because all of their agenda is based on lies, deceptions, and half-truths.
Examples:
Climate change alarmism.
Affordability of wind and solar as major power sources.
Normalized transgenderism.
Effectiveness of COVID lockdowns.
Existence of systemic racism in police departments.
All the above are based in lies and half-truths that cannot withstand an open challenge by knowledgeable experts.
Hence, cancel culture and suppression of dissent with bully tactics.
… and half-truths.
You are generous.
Taking money from those who work and using it to buy the votes of those who would rather not work, will perfect society.
I didn’t know you were Canadian.
OMG Beattie and McGuire have discovered that some people like to think for themselves. See son that’s what 12 years of university education can do for you.
Ah universities! I’ve seriously been considering universities in Japan or India for my grandson, maybe Moscow State uni, very good ones there. I would never send him to Ivy League, or Oxford/Cambridge or the once famous California universities. Their graduates are burning down Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, shutting down free speech, democracy, free enterprise, erasing history, scholarship, diversity of ideas…
Seriously, what are people here doing about this very serious issue?
Western Universities have debased and ruined themselves in their lust for money and influence. The Higher Education bubble is going to burst one day.
If Trump gets elected higher education is going to be in for some reforms. If the Democrats win, then higher education will continue their leftwing brainwashing of the populace.
Science is not scientific if it cannot be challenged with experiments and debate using empirical data. You cannot say “Science” is fact or settled when over 1000 refereed journal articles are withdrawn or retracted in most years.
https://retractionwatch.com/
They list 30 COVID-19 related articles retracted and several more have noted concerns.
Peter Ridd pointed out the lies and mistakes of others and was persecuted by his employer, James Cook University, for doing so. The removal of his rights to freely speak regarding his field of expertise became advantageous to JCU due to the research grants & donations they could obtain for supporting the AGW theory.
The usual AGW climate models shown all have the assumption of CO2 causing significant warming as part of their inputs. You cannot use the output of a model to prove the assumptions used as input because that is circular reasoning. They become less useful when those same models vary greatly and deviate significantly from reality. But that and many other disagreements have been debated many times before in WUWT threads and elsewhere.
We are left with shouting matches until all sides can compromise to clarify the truth or closer to it. This is not a poor little AGW group vs climate deniers backed by fossil fuel. These are big AGW groups supported by trillion dollar industries (and emotion) vs everyday scientists of limited means trying to debate using empirical evidence and practicalities. Communism doesn’t like free speech and disagreement to threaten their created false perception of perfection. You can’t fool all the people all of the time.
i wonder how Beattie and McGuire would have reacted when Marshall and Warren proposed the hypothesis that helicobacter pylori was responsible for stomach ulcers.
There was a lot of original scepticism from the medical establishment until Marshall infected himself with helicobacter and cured himself with antibiotics, showing that their hypothesis was correct.
No doubt Beattie and McGuire would have shut down the discussion as the hypothesis went against standard medical opinion.
This reminds me of the controversy over hdroxychloriquine. The medical establishment and the MSM have latched onto the meme that HCL is ineffective as a cure for covid. Of course that is based solely on studies where HCL was given late in the progression of the disease and not accompanied by anything else. The establishment medicine and the MSM aren’t exactly lying but they aren’t telling the complete truth either. The only study that I know of that looked at HCL as an ameliorative early in the progression of the disease when coupled with a Z-pac and zinc has been the Michigan study. When coupled with the direct observational results by independent doctors using the mixture that shows effectiveness in limiting the disease progression we have very good evidence for the use of the combination.
But Facebook and Twitter has decided that the meme “HCL is ineffective” can be the only message allowed to be propagated. All other evidence must be suppressed because, that’s it, just because.
Tim: here’s a link to the British Medical Journal’s comments on what’s going on – quite a lot; an interesting article.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2378
I see several problems here. For instance: “an international trial looking at hydroxychloroquine for critically ill patients”. No one is saying HCL is a cure for a critically ill patient. Yet this is being use to support the meme that HCL is ineffective for anything!
Not one mention of zinc is made anywhere in the article yet the doctors providing direct observational evidence almost always include zinc as part of the treatment.
“yet another NEJM study of 821 participants reported that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective as postexposure prophylaxis”. Once again, everyone that has seen positive effects has used HCL in conjunction with an antibiotic and zinc. What the hell good does it do to study HCL by itself except to further the meme that HCL is ineffective by itself. Of course the “by itself” it always left off and the meme becomes simply HCL is ineffective.
It’s why I say no one is exactly lying about HCL but they are certainly be imsleading about it!
The climate debate is not about the climate, the covid debates are not about covid-19, their arguments are only a disguise for their unrestricted love of power, they do not care about the human population only an unrestricted grasp for enslavement of the human population.
“To make climate change messages more effective, we need to target these cognitive biases. And to prevent optimism bias, we also need to avoid presenting “both sides of the argument”. The science tells us that there’s only one side.”
Conclusion: climate scientists now know it all and all uncertainty issues has been resolved and therefore no further research is necessary and no further climate research funding is needed. Is that right?
And so therwfore thet surely know how to explain what appears to laymen to be a contradiction between “Event Attribution Analysis” and “Internal Climate Variability”.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/06/29/diffenbaugh-2017-extreme-weather-of-climate-change/
Do a web search for people no longer trust experts. You will get many many hits. It’s a thing, nobody disagrees.
The problem with experts is they claim to do the impossible, which is to predict the future. They are wrong more often than not. A dart-throwing chimp can produce better predictions.
When an expert tells you what to do, she is predicting that her advice will be successful. There’s the rub. Her predictions are correct only by accident.
Why do we have President Trump? We have President Trump because the Democrats have embraced the expert elites. In the process, they have thrown the majority of Americans under the bus.
Hey all you arrogant experts, we can have something much worse than President Trump. He’s a mild rebuke. If you guys don’t own up to your limitations and quit being demonstrably stupid, the body politic will will develop a fever and you will be expelled like the germs you are.
People will never again trust experts until the experts actually become trustworthy. That, sadly, requires the kind of self reflection and humility of which most experts are incapable.
The learned experts pretend they are the same as expert performers. When an engineer designs a bridge, you can trust it. When an economist predicts the economy you can’t. It’s annoying that one word encompasses people who can actually do something as well as people who just know a lot and are good at bafflegab. Engineers, pilots, and musicians on the one hand, academics and MBAs on the other.
“When an engineer designs a bridge, you can trust it.”
Well, usually.
The problem is usually everything that comes after the approved design by the PE.
-The materials.
-The skill of workers.
-The onsite checks and quality controls.
-The management of inevitable changes through an engineering process.
– Not letting subs cut corners.
if they cut just a little corner (but the overall safety factor remains solid) it gets you a little bit of liability safety factor.
In most countries they also put there credentials on the line, they get it wrong they lose certification.
Perhaps that is what we should do for Climate Scientists but then none of them would still have a job 🙂
There are plenty of jobs for the failed climastrologists. The world needs more toilet cleaners.
On second thought, I don’t even trust them to do that.
Experts are those who know more and more about less and less until they reach the point that they know everything about nothing. The bigger the suitcase they carry the less they are worth.
Snow deniers silenced, hmm yes, what a great idea.
A lot of university jobs would have to go of course, self termination.
Back in the day Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises would write about “dull routinists.”
I wonder what he meant by that.
I love to see how they are going to make this bit fly
“we need a clear message as to why climate change is bad for individuals in their own lives”
Pretty sure no matter how much CO2 is burnt it won’t effect me … apparently it might impact future generations, some polar bears, some drowned pacific islands and some in 3rd world nations.
So still looking for how CO2 emissions are going to impact me … perhaps Griff or Loydo could shed some light?
“we need a clear message as to why climate change is bad for individuals in their own lives”
Costlier, less reliable electricity.
Oops, that’s an effect of green policy.
More expensive automobiles.
Ditto.
Flammable tower blocks.
Ditto.
More flammable forests.
Ditto.
“apparently it might impact future generations”
It will make their lives much better.
Do I understand this correctly?
In order to avoid bias, you have to bias the messaging.
That sounds logical to me (sarcasm).
Edge Hill certainly knows how to set an example of obeying the rules of social distancing.
“I openly encourage all students to attend protests online or in person…”
https://www.edgehillsu.org.uk/black-lives-matter
One can only conclude that dissent is ok provided it’s endorsed by the university.
Climate cooling… warming… change is underperforming expectations and Her Choice is 50 shades short of her Choice… a real “burden”. Planned Parent, protests, etc. were their last hope to force change, to secure their carbon credits. #Wicked Throw another baby on the barbie, they’re done.
They aren’t the brightest bulbs. This is a tool that that has been used by dictators for hundreds of years. The real name is indoctrination or brain washing. If they don’t know the correct name, they aren’t bright enough to do science and if they do, they are far too evil to do science.
“This means that we tend to miss the incoming bad news and, even if we don’t, we hardly process it.”
Since the mass media content is around 95% bad news:
H1-missing the bad news is a defense mechanism to keep from being psychologically overwhelmed? Or
H2-the redundancy compensates for the suppression, which keeps the scam going? Or
H3-both to some varying degrees?
Please send more research funding to explore these possibilities further.