Essay by Eric Worrall
“A single repetition is enough to nudge recipients towards acceptance of the repeated claim, even when their attitudes are aligned with climate science”
Repeating climate denial claims makes them seem more credible, Australian-led study finds
Even those who are concerned about climate crisis were influenced by false claims, showing how ‘insidious’ repetition is, researcher says
Petra Stock Thu 8 Aug 2024 04.00 AEST
…
The study’s lead author, Mary Jiang, from the Australian National University, said: “The findings show how powerful and insidious repetition is and how it can influence people’s assessment of truth.”
Published in the academic journal Plos One, the study said people were more likely to judge a statement as probably true if they had encountered it before, a behaviour psychologists called the “illusory truth effect”.
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“A single repetition is enough to nudge recipients towards acceptance of the repeated claim, even when their attitudes are aligned with climate science, and they can correctly identify the claim as being counter-attitudinal,” the paper states.
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An example of a science-based claim was that “climate change models can make accurate predictions”, Jiang said. A sceptical claim might challenge the accuracy of climate science or suggest a conspiracy.
…“Media are crucial in all of this because the science is settled … We know what the issues are and we know what needs to be done in response and we know the timeframe,” she said.
…
The paper concluded: “Do not repeat false information. Instead, repeat what is true and enhance its familiarity.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/08/repeating-climate-denial-claims-makes-them-seem-more-credible-australian-led-study-finds
The abstract of the study. The researchers used a sample size of 100 volunteers, whittled down to 52 after post processing, so obviously it is solid science.
Repetition increases belief in climate-skeptical claims, even for climate science endorsers
- Published: August 7, 2024
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307294
Abstract
Does repeated exposure to climate-skeptic claims influence their acceptance as true, even among climate science endorsers? Research with general knowledge claims shows that repeated exposure to a claim increases its perceived truth when it is encountered again. However, motivated cognition research suggests that people primarily endorse what they already believe. Across two experiments, climate science endorsers were more likely to believe claims that were consistent with their prior beliefs, but repeated exposure increased perceptions of truth for climate-science and climate-skeptic claims to a similar extent. Even counter-attitudinal claims benefit from previous exposure, highlighting the insidious effect of repetition.
Read more: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307294
You naughty unbelievers, if you all stopped repeating claims that climate models are trash, that lots of scientists don’t think Michael Mann is a climate hero, that Biden’s energy policies aren’t working, more people would believe.
The study authors stop short of calling for outright censorship, but “Media are crucial in all of this because the science is settled … We know … what needs to be done in response and we know the timeframe“.
Perhaps believers should organise morning Gaea worship sessions, where everyone chants “The climate models are accurate, all climate claims are correct” for 10 minutes every day, to counter the impact of all those insidious climate skeptic messages.
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Eric – actually the last sentence/paragraph would indeed work, which is why religions insist on people reciting their beliefs. The repetition enhances belief of things that would otherwise be dismissed as illogical. Since they can’t force us to do that, instead they mention climate change in every mainstream news report.
That amount of being told that there is a climate problem and that it’s caused only by human-produced CO2, and that all those leaders and top ;scientists appear to think it’s true, makes me doubt whether I’m right. Thus every so often I need to go back and look at the actual data and make sure I haven’t missed something. Willis’ article at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/ (updated from time to time) is rather useful for that.
It helps that I lived through the 70s and the climatologists’ predictions of a coming Ice Age, and so I know that it really was what they were predicting at the time and that it never happened. I’ve actually lived through quite a large number of predicted “end of the world” dates. I’ve also lived through quite a few upsets of “settled science” so I tend to question even theory that most people consider settled science. If your predictions are confirmed by experiment, your theory is near-enough right so far, but if the predictions are shown to be wrong by either history or experiment the theory is certainly wrong. In truth, science is never “settled”, but instead just one experiment from being shown to be wrong – it’s the difference between science and religion, after all.
Most of the predictions for climate over the last 3 decades have been shown to be wrong. Sure, the reflected LWIR radiation from CO2 ought to do *something*, but it’s acting on a system that is always moving towards an equilibrium situation but not actually reaching it, and we can’t see a temperature difference from CO2 in the data (at least it’s not out of realistic error bounds). Possibly that extra back-radiation just makes the energy movements a little bit faster, without changing the long-term energy accumulations.
My own observations are that cloud cover has a much larger and obvious effect on air temperature than the amount of CO2 in the air. We can’t predict cloud cover to better than around 10%, and we also don’t know why it’s changed over the last few decades we’ve been measuring it more carefully. We definitely can’t predict the climate future accurately unless we can explain clouds.
What concerns me more recently are public statements by people representing international bodies like World Health Organisation and World Economic Forum saying in effect “We own the Science”.
These people have money, connections, influence, greed and a following especially by mass media. They are potentially rather dangerous to basic democracy.
But, I wonder how they are seen by Russia and China and North Korea?
Geoff S
I believe it was Goebbels and perhaps Hitler who said “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Of course, repeating a lie doesn’t convert it to truth but it becomes so in the minds of those who choose not to examine it or are incapable of doing so. This is the guiding principle of every despot who has ever ruled and is the guiding principle of the modern demonization of carbon dioxide which is, in clearly demonstrable truth, a life giving gas without which no life of any kind, plant or animal, can exist.
The study will now be scientifically repeated on AI models. AI is an ideal vehicle to propagate Dr. Goebbels’s achievements.
According to a recent Rockefeller report titled “A Logic For The Future” (more like a road-plan for the future from us…), there’s a ‘scientific’ misinformation panel (similar to the IPCC) in the works called the “Intergovernmental Panel on the Information Environment” (IPIE).
An excerpt:
“Like the IPCC, the IPIE would be “an international scientific body entrusted with the stewardship of our global information environment for the good of mankind.” The IPIE would gather and analyze data, monitor trends, and issue recommendations to combat disinformation and misinformation, hate speech, and algorithmic manipulation that undermine trust, fuel conflict, and impede progress in managing social problems.
Side note, I noticed there’s a related site with well know climate denier crusher J. Cook listed on one to its pages.
One of the impacts in becoming knowledgeable about the “climate change”
debate for me is that I read and study web sites like this and there
is a huge amount of info directly related to weather. As a ag producer I
visit ag supply stores and like to share what I have learned here. I recently
made some comments at one place about the Hunga Tonga event and the impact
on the weather to a group of producers gathered around the checkout area. The
heads that turned and the looks I got was intense, to put it mildly. Not a single
person there had a clue what I was talking about..not one. A floor manager made
the remark that when I talk about weather he has learned to listen. I then
made the suggestion to google hunga tonga javier vinos and read what I was
referring to. I went on about the current cold in Patagonia and the impact on livestock
and how a cold winter on the S Pole will have an impact up here for our winter.
I know the next time I stop in that place they will remember…
whittled down to 52 after post processing
If I’m understanding this right: I’ve seen more than one study do this – can anyone explain how this is valid?
Interesting note about the “test” population:
Obviously a cis-, hetero- bias.
Then again, if the qualifier “identified as…” includes cis-, trans-, etc. then I am really curious what “other” would include.
These are confusing times…
“Insidious” Repetition of
Climate Skeptic ClaimsFacts Creates Doubt…. that we are all going to die from climate Armageddon because we don’t believe in the Church of Climatism.It’s pretty clear that the proponents of the Net Zero push to deny modern society of all the tools that made us successful while protecting the environment is not based on any science or observable facts. It is based rather on the convenience of using a fabricated, end-of-times fantasy to scare sentient citizens into giving up all their rights and accepting domination by greedy, malicious, self-serving “elites”. The sooner this effort is crushed by whatever means necessary the better off people and the natural environment will be.
‘We know what the truth is’ is a testable hypothesis, isn’t it?
If ‘they’ know what the truth is, then they will be able to make testable claims about future weather, about future climate and they will not seek ever to manipulate data sets to ‘fiddle the figures’.
If of course they have made repeated testable claims and those claims have proven to be unfounded, false even, then the hypothesis that ‘they know what the truth is’ will have been emphatically disproven.
So before anyone tells people what to do based on ‘what the truth is’, first the refutation attempts on what that truth is must repeatedly fail.
There’s no evidence yet that ‘those who know what the truth is’ have made testable hypotheses which turn out to be true.
They’ve not proven that carbon dioxide is the dominant cause of ‘global warming’.
They’ve not proven that the highest quality temperature measurement networks show rapid ‘global boiling’.
They’ve not proven that the Little Ice didn’t exist, nor have they proven that the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman warm periods didn’t exist either.
They’ve not proven that the Great Barrier reef has disappeared due to ‘global warming’.
Nor have they proven that the extent of glaciers in 2024 is lower than they were 3000 years ago, even if their extent is less today than they were in 1750.
They’ve not proven that there has always been copious ice in the Arctic, nor have they proven that a succession of major volcanic eruptions has minimal impact on global climate.
When people start saying that they and only they can define what is true or not, they are anti-scientific, they always have personal agendas and the likelihood is that they are psychopathic and pathological liars.
So I wouldn’t take those who say they know the truth all that seriously.
They think they have the right to control media agendas is closer to the truth…..
50 years of failed predictions should be sufficient to invalidate the hypothesis.
I’ve long been skeptical of climate doom, but am delighted to learn that I’ve achieved the title “insidious”.
“Media are crucial in all of this because the science is settled”
Anyone who uses this phrase is not a scientist.
Have you seen what the UK government is doing to free speech? They’ll soon be coming after anyone not accepting the party line. Pyongyang on Thames.
Proper scientists avoid the concept of “truth”.
It is simple hubris to imagine that we will not discover any advance on what some might regard as “today’s final truth”.
Scientific advancement is about improved understanding of “why it is so”, not cementing what is “truth according to somebody of untestable competence”.
As an Australian, can I apologise for the present flood of local authors who think they are scientists when in reality they peddle ideas of kindergarten level competence and often considerable ignorance when climate change is the topic. Geoff S
From article:”…repeat what is true and enhance its familiarity.”.
i whole heartedly agree with this.
Repeat after me; CO2 cannot do what is claimed about it.
There is no climate emergency.
Now say it again. Doesn’t that feel good.
“…as being counter-attitudinal,”…
That terminology would be like me describing the writer as ‘helical’, ie: cork screwed.
Psychology, a soft science where subjective overrules objective.
Right off the bat, they start with rampant Confirmation Bias. i.e., they already know what they want to find.
Attitudes are completely subjective.
Counter-attitudinal is subjective and 100% based upon climate cultism.
More delusions from the weak minded alarmist disciples as evidenced by their belief that climate models are accurate.
Thirty years of failed climate models runs are ignored by sick minds.
The fraud begins right here: “Repeating climate denial”
I think we should take their advice and repeat the facts about Earth’s climate as often and to as many people as possible. Even if they initially do not agree with you. To plant a seed of doubt is how someone can be broken free from a cult. The alarmist “climate emergency” is most definitely a cult, so it’s unsurprising that strategies for cult deprograming work well.
If you can’t question it, it’s dogma. Dogma is anti-science. Don’t do that!
There: Fixed it.
Funny, but doesn’t the process work both ways?
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Question: What’s up with the sky?
The sky is falling!
These brilliant, well-funded researchers should try an experiment- Put the entire team in a room and have audio play an endless loop of this: “Your research is wrong-headed and your grant money is wasted on your work.” If it doesn’t move the needle, does that debunk their work?
“The findings show how powerful and insidious repetition is and how it can influence people’s assessment of
truthTruth™.”TFIFY.