Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Climate change deniers simplify the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories: 100% agreement or no consensus at all. If it’s not one, it’s the other. …”
The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial
Published: May 2, 2023 10.13pm AEST
Jeremy P. Shapiro
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve UniversityCold spells often bring climate change deniers out in force on social media, with hashtags like #ClimateHoax and #ClimateScam. Former President Donald Trump often chimes in, repeatedly claiming that each cold snap disproves the existence of global warming.
From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd. Fluctuations in the weather don’t refute clear long-term trends in the climate.
Yet many people believe these claims, and the political result has been reduced willingness to take action to mitigate climate change.
Why are so many people susceptible to this type of disinformation? My field, psychology, can help explain – and help people avoid being misled.
The allure of black-and-white thinking
Close examination of the arguments made by climate change deniers reveals the same mistake made over and over again. That mistake is the cognitive error known as black-and-white thinking, also called dichotomous and all-or-none thinking. As I explain in my book “Finding Goldilocks,” black-and-white thinking is a source of dysfunction in mental health, relationships – and politics.
…
Climate change deniers simplify the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories: 100% agreement or no consensus at all. If it’s not one, it’s the other.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/the-thinking-error-that-makes-people-susceptible-to-climate-change-denial-204607
Do any of you seriously believe a single cold snap disproves global warming?
I personally support the premise that the world has warmed since the mid 1800s, and anthropogenic CO2 likely contributed. A single cold snap is not proof that global warming has stopped, that would be an absurd proposition.
But climate alarmists seem all too ready to promote the black and white thinking fallacy Professor Shapiro accuses deniers of embracing, they seem very ready to spin every heatwave as proof of the global warming end times.
For example;
3Q: Why Europe is so vulnerable to heat waves
Climate modeling shows that this summer’s devastating European heat wave may indeed be a harbinger of the future for that region.
David L. Chandler | MIT News Office
Publication Date: October 11, 2022This year saw high-temperature records shattered across much of Europe, as crops withered in the fields due to widespread drought. Is this a harbinger of things to come as the Earth’s climate steadily warms up?
Elfatih Eltahir, MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and H. M. King Bhumibol Professor of Hydrology and Climate, and former doctoral student Alexandre Tuel PhD ’20 recently published a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists describing how their research helps explain this anomalous European weather. The findings are based in part on analyses described in their book “Future Climate of the Mediterranean and Europe,” published earlier this year. MIT News asked the two authors to describe the dynamics behind these extreme weather events.
Q: Was the European heat wave this summer anticipated based on existing climate models?
Eltahir: Climate models project increasingly dry summers over Europe. This is especially true for the second half of the 21st century, and for southern Europe. Extreme dryness is often associated with hot conditions and heat waves, since any reduction in evaporation heats the soil and the air above it. In general, models agree in making such projections about European summers. However, understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for these projections is an active area of research.
…
Read more: https://news.mit.edu/2022/europe-heat-waves-climate-change-1011
What about Professor Shapiro’s claim that President Trump thinks cold snaps disprove global warming?
Do any of you seriously believe President Trump thinks cold snaps disprove global warming? Or is it more likely he is poking fun at alarmists?
Did this humorous tweet get included in Professor Shapiro’s analysis? Was it part of his proof that climate deniers, and he specifically cited President Trump, are black and white thinkers?
If so, how could Professor Shapiro make such an obvious mistake?
My personal theory is most greens don’t possess a sense of humour, so they have difficulty recognising humour when they see it. I accept that Professor Shapiro genuinely believes Trump is being serious when he pokes fun at climate alarmist tropes.
Of course, I’m not an adjunct assistant professor of psychological sciences, whatever that is. Feel free to share your own theory, about what might have gone wrong with Professor Shapiro’s analysis.
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Sent to Jeremy P. Shapiro, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
Subject: Your field, Psychology …
… not physical science.
From a scientific standpoint, claims of proof of AGW are absurd. Yet many people believe these claims,
One would think that a psychologist would know the danger of declaiming from ignorance. Evidently not.
“Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full
Climate models have no predictive value. The air temperature projections of the IPCC are physically meaningless. See the attached.
“Are Climate Modelers Scientists?”
https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.34218.70083
Climate modelers are not competent to evaluate the physical reliability of their own models.
45 MB of evidence on that score: https://ufile.io/f5luc
You should have stuck to your competence, Jeremy. Instead, you argued from the misplaced confidence of agreement with authority.
Always a bad move. It’s the thinking error that makes people susceptible to “climate change” assertion.
Yours,
Pat
Patrick Frank
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
These things are, we conjecture, like the truth;
But as for certain truth, no one has known it.
Xenophanes, 570-500 BCE
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nice. I look forward to reading his reply……
don’t hold your breath 🙂
That made me laugh! 🙂
Not a peep, as of today.
I made similar criticisms of him at Microsoft Start, which republished The Conversation article a couple of days ago.
Rarely a reply and nothing ever changes, but I feel a bit better for awhile.
I’ve accumulated quite a crop of intellectual/moral cowards, though.
I do wish that there was something that we could do that was more effective.
I have observed that when commenting on Yahoo and MSN news sites about gun control, the response degrades as I add more comments. I suspect that my bandwidth is being throttled to discourage me. The only consolation is that I might actually be viewed as a threat to their agenda.
Our only recourse is to keep on plugging, Clyde, and hope the message gets out.
I recently uploaded “Are Climate Modelers Scientists?” to Researchgate. In less than a month, it gathered 100 reads.
One step at a time. 🙂
It’s obvious from every single interview with an alarmist, that they see things totally in black or white. Look how they routinely pillory anyone who disagrees with them, even if said person 100% believes in man made climate change but just doesn’t think it’s quite as serious as the zealots believe. Ironic they are trying to project their failings onto the opposition.
“It’s obvious from every single interview with an alarmist, that they see things totally in black or white.”
Isn’t that the truth!
It’s the catastrophic part of the debate that matters. Without the projected catastrophes the whole debate is one of scientific interest and inquiry but the politicians and associated money boys just love them some of that catastrophe stuff. Bait and switch always empties the pockets of the rubes into the hands of the spins.
Spivs, sorry.
He is an adjunct Professor. That means he can’t get a steady Professor job with tenure. Anybody know why?
Adjunct Professor is an honorary title. In some cases, it is somebody with qualifications in the field who is supervising students in off-campus placements. This tends to be a requirement of many /universities. It’s nice to put on the CV, but is usually unpaid.
Assistant Professor may be something like our Associate Professor, which is between a Senior Lecturer and Professor in the academic pecking order.
actually, very few universities now offer tenure- more and more of teaching at American colleges are adjuncts- a great way to save money in order to pay the tenured people and administrators far more than they’re worth
Back when I was teaching as a full-time, tenured, Associate Professor at Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, CA) in the ’70s, there was already a trend to hire part-time instructors. I knew people who had as many as 5 different teaching positions, probably spending more time driving to their jobs than they actually spent teaching. This allowed administrators and unfunded positions for diversity programs to be paid more. I’m sure the situation has gotten worse in the intervening years.
Not necessarily. I have had adjunct professors who were very very good, and the reason they were very very good is that they had a day job in which they actually did the work they talked about in class.
This guy’s real problem is that he is a psychologist, which is a pseudo-science in many ways, and he is trying to lecture us about our feelings on a hard science subject he knows nothing about.
The direct contribution to surface temperature from CO2 is unmeasurable.
Convective instability that causes the monsoon to form persistent cloud that limits open ocean surface temperature to 30C is only sensitive to atmospheric mass. Sensitivity is close to 1C for a 5% increases in atmospheric mass around the present mass. So adding 0.028% mass to the atmosphere corresponds to 0.0056C rise through doubling in CO2 from pre-industrial level. I regard that as unmeasurable on Earth’s surface.
A while back we saw the calibration curve for the Pirani vacuum gauge. That spurred me to think about how a simpler device could make the same point in a more readily understood way.
My simple test was to compare a vacuum sealed light bulb with just the filament in an identical globe – I got hold of two 15W/240V globes and cut the glass off one of them with a small diamond wheel. At the identical temperature, measured by doubling the filament resistance from the cold state for both the globe and filament alone, the power loss from the globe was 13mW compared with 760mW from just the filament; proving the radiation component is negligible compared with the sensible heat loss.
Anyone can do this test to prove that long wave radiation energy is negligible in the heat transfer at ground level. The radiation diagram shown on page 934 of WG1 is fantasy. There is no back radiation and negligible radiation at surface level. Heat transport is all via convection and conduction..
Hmm, at a surface temp of 288 C, the surface emits about 390 W/sq.M and the mosaic of cloud bottoms at freezing, outerspace at -270C masked by greenhouse gases at many different temperatures and emissivities averages out to appear to be at 277 C…..for net upward IR emission of about 55 watts/sq. M. Since conduction and convection total about 100 W/sq.M daily average (with a wide day to night and wet surface to dry surface variation) you can’t really say radiation is negligible.
Rick, study some radiative transfer in a bit more depth. Let us know when you get to equation 10-10…Engineers use this stuff to calculate how hot electrical equipment is going to run, and design space shields for the James Webb telescope. It works and it’s correct.
https://wiki.epfl.ch/me341-hmt/documents/lectures/slides_10_Radiation.pdf
The radiation heat emission from the surface at ground level is negligible. My experiment proves that.
If you want to think about back radiation then you should also think about back convection – same stupid concept. And the back convection also swamps the back radiation.
Most of the short wave radiation is absorbed in the first metre. So your back radiation to the surface is from ground level air temperature not cloud bottoms.
Any claimed power measuring instrument sensing EMR that relies on the S-B equation for calibration is not measuring power. It is a power inference meter.
“I’m a socialist,” Hinton added. “I think that private ownership of the media, and of the ‘means of computation’, is not good.
Explains a lot.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/04/bernie-sanders-elon-musk-and-white-house-seeking-my-help-says-godfather-of-ai
I wonder if the Psycho Genius has ever heard of the periods of extreme cold that occur in Mongolia.
They are called by the locals “Zud” or “Dzud”.
Notable ones were in 1944/5 and 2009/10, i well remember the latter because it was just after the Copenhagen CoP Global Warming Fest where Climategate was brushed under the carpet, Robert Redford said “It is Time to Act”, we Brits had the Climate Change Act 2008 to celebrate and the Danish prostitutes gave their serices free to Delegates. ( No Jokes. And never a mention by the MSM).
The Dzud sported around 50 days of minus 50 degree C, and killed around 2.2 million grazing cattle, goats, horses etc. Pretty bad for a Country which then and now was heavily based on nomadic grazing.
How many people on here remember? How much reported in the West? At a time when a hot day in Benidorm gets reported? Or a 60 second temperature spike beside a concrete runway when a Typhoon jet takes off is headline news (with zero explanation) as Hottest UK temperature EVER!
What does Genius Adjunk know about Dzuds? Is he aware of the 2015/16 one? (17% Livestock then Deadstock).
The warning of another one in 2022/23?.
Is he aware that “Climate” is supposed to be measured over at least 30 years. And that even Dzuds are just weather?
What is it with these psychology majors opining on “climate change” as if they know what they’re talking about? John Cook, Jeremy Shapiro, what do you know about the relevant data and science that makes you an expert and able to declare with authority that “climate denialists” are deluded? I am a proud climate denialist in possession of far more facts about the lack of evidence for any of the claims made by the climatistas than you are. You are the ones who are so utterly deluded that you refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that there is no imminent—or even distant—apocalypse.
Black and white thinking?.. No, the professor sees everything as black.. black.. BLACK!
Accuse the other side of that of which you are guilty. Always.
30 second head spike at the end of a runway on a hot summer’s day = Climate Emergency.
No doubt he thinks there are 2,345 genders.
With a few notable exceptions, like Jordan Petersen, the whole field of psychology is rotten with junk scientists. This fellow, in his most woke spectacles, had an idle notion which he expanded into an essay without one iota of data. He manufactured a myth to to bolster the already swollen egos of the righteously afraid. Without regard for multiple surveys which confirmed that climate realists generally have a much greater understanding of the mechanics of the greenhouse effect and a much more nuanced understanding of the likely effects of increasing greenhouse gases, he blundered on with his concoction. Meanwhile, perhaps we can be forgiven for pointing out conspicuous gaps in the MSM reporting such as coverage of the current exceptionally cold spring in the N. A. Northwest.
Psychobabble is about right. The replication crisis that is gripping all science makes that term even more applicable.
Another alpha pontificating on how betas think. The gentleman wouldn’t recognise a diffusion equation if his life depended on it but clearly believes he can know what moves in the mind of a physicist or mathematician. In the process he overlooks the obvious and ubiquitous real reason for our lamented skepticism: professional expertise.
A logical mistake I see every day is the use of “climate change” as a force of nature. “Climate change” causes increased flooding; “climate change” causes increase drought; “climate change” causes . . . You see my point.
“Climate change” is the RESULT of increased rainfall, drought, hurricane activity, etc. It’s like saying wet sidewalks caused the rain.
Well, it can be. Of course, not the way the alarmist idiots mean it (to them, it’s “human induced”).
If the mostly external forces that are the real drivers of “climate” (like solar activity, orbital and gravitational effects of the Earth and other Solar System planets, wobble/tilt of the Earth’s rotation, galactic cosmic ray activity, etc.) increase or decrease the amount of solar energy being received (by varying the distance from the Sun, changing the amount of cloud cover in the Earth’s atmosphere, etc.), that can have a big impact on the weather experienced on the Earth’s surface.
Most psychologists I have met, don’t have the remotest clue how to think rationally. !
It all just fantasies. !
Adjunct assistant professors of psychological sciences have to come up with something (anything) to justify their existence on the payroll.
“My field, psychology, can help explain – and help people avoid being misled.”
Translation – “I should be on the CAGW gravy train.”
The sense of humor has been programed out of many people these days, foremost among them are the alarmists. Without a sense of humor everything is a disaster. Is that not a black and white mindset, or is that just a permanently grey outlook?
Every single thing these people hear MUST prove that their theory (any of their theories) works. Mind you, I see proof of my theories everywhere but I don’t expect anyone to be forced into a life of servitude to make me feel better. I feel fine now.
“black-and-white thinking”
idiotic! there are many perspectives among the skeptics- all that idiot had to do was read WUWT to see the various perspectives
psycologists are barely more scientific than astrology- though I ended up as a forestry major – I had switched majors several times- for one year I was a psych major- took 7 courses then realized that they know nothing- completely zero- so I thought time to get into some very real- like forests, managing timber stands- I’ve been a realist ever since compared to my early days as an idealist
There was a time when I was in high school that I thought that I might like to be a lawyer. As I thought about it more, I decided that I should pursue honest work. That also left out becoming a psychologist.
Maybe Mr Shapiro, just have titled his book “Finding Unicorns”.
100% = Consensus … 99% <> Consensus
Consensus is black and white …
Scientists are alarmed as ocean surface temperatures have continuously set new record-breaking highs over the last month.
According to data analyzed by the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, daily ocean surface temperatures breached historical record highs since at least 1982 in April.
story tip
https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-horrified-sea-surface-temperatures-spike
I was searching for that article this morning, and did a search on “overheating ocean” and was presented with example after example of this kind of climate alarmist scaremongering over the years about the ocean.
Every headline screams the Earth is on the verge of disaster from an overheating ocean.
But then you realize they have been making these crazy claims for many years, and none of them have amounted to anything detrimental or unusual.
Wolf! Wolf! But there is no wolf.
What happened in 1982 that is different from today that so “horrified scientists?”
nobody denies any facts, what is often denied is the pseudo science of the climate change cult … and usually what they label as “denial” is simply questioning the underlying facts/science … which of course they never have any answers too …
My Theory
just trying to plug for sales for his book
funding goldilocks, selling to those black/white thinkers who would buy the book.It got colder today in South West England, winter must be coming
The point of the exercise is not to present a logical argument or convince anyone. This is Soviet style coercion and confirmation.
The coercion part is if you disagree with the narrative you have mental issues.
The confirmation part is that the people who buy this do in fact think in binary, 0 or 1, right or wrong, left or right, and it makes sense to assume your opponent operates in the same simplistic way.