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The Motivated Rejection of Science
Layzej writes "New research (PDF) to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found that those who subscribed to one or more conspiracy theories or who strongly supported a free market economy were more likely to reject the findings from climate science as well as other sciences. The researchers, led by UWA School of Psychology Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, found that free-market ideology was an overwhelmingly strong determinant of the rejection of climate science. It also predicted the rejection of the link between tobacco and lung cancer and between HIV and AIDS. Conspiratorial thinking was a lesser but still significant determinant of the rejection of all scientific propositions examined, from climate to lung cancer. Curiously, public response to the paper has provided a perfect real-life illustration of the very cognitive processes at the center of the research."
What do they know about anything??? This study just proves what I knew all along - the scientists are all in collusion with each other AND the government to take my gas and my guns and my cigarettes!!!
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Once upon a time the capitalist system, a tremendous advance over the feudal system of property that preceded it, drove an unprecedented expansion of scientific and technical progress.
Now capitalism is in its imperialist epoch of terminal decay, dragging humankind into a new dark ages. Only the proletariat can save humanity by smashing the power of the bourgeoisie and inaugurating the socialist future! Workers to power!
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When a certain in-duh-vidual started claiming there was mercury in vaccines & even RFIDs, I pointed-out that mercury was removed years ago. I also politely asked for proof of the RFIDs.
At first the guy said I need to do my own research, and I said I already did, but I've found nothing. Then he blew up and started calling me nasty names & other bullshit.
These conspiracy persons have more problems than just lack of faith in scientific research. They have emotional/anger management issues. Of course that also means I won the argument..... he never did provide proof that vaccines have RFIDs in them.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You, Sir, are what is known as a "data point".
Seems obvious to me we're talking about a group of people who are willing to believe what they are told to believe or give in to ideas because one makes them feel better or less uncomfortable.
It kind of describes a lot of people, but primarily, it describes the religious faithful.
We notice that all of the mentioned 'science' issues are tied to public policy positions of the left and that the 'scientists' are working outside their areas of expertise when they push policy solutions to the problems they 'find.'
Whole lines of research were simply forbidden as career ending. Consipracy theories almost always pop up in vacumns of fact, especially when it is pretty obvious that facts are suspected but being supressed.
So... is your post some kind of satire, or what?
Anyone that rejects AGW, vaccination of children, evolution, the earth not being the center of the solar system, or any other of the misguided beliefs the right seems to cling to is, quite simply, ignorant. When an overwhelming majority of scientists give you incontrovertible evidence and you scramble to rationalize your beliefs any way you can rather than doing the logical thing and accepting that you may have been mistaken, you are letting stubbornness and ego cloud your judgment. You might as well be living in the dark ages.
I do not "reject" science as my socialist detractors may claim. Rather, I merely withhold my currency from the marketplace of ideas in order to incentivize the production of science more in line with today's consumer preferences!
Really? He had to do a study to conclude that people who believe in the free market reject attempts to replace it with a state-run economy?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Are you suggesting that the earth is the center of the solar system?
From the mouth of an amateur politician.
From one of the linked articles:
"More than 1000 visitors to blogs dedicated to discussions of climate science completed a questionnaire"
I'd agree that it is probably a fairly good representation of those deeply involved in the debate, who read those blogs and are willing to take time to do the survey.
How much it says about the general populace is a different question. And notably one the researchers don't try to answer.
This is a classic example of taking a study about a sample of a limited population and broadly generalizing it in the submission write-up for slashdot.
That's right, the only possible way to disagree with the study is if you are opposed to science. A study that took as data online polls on blogs. Yep, some sound science right there. (/sarcasm)
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Its remarkable how many people criticizing this study have concluded the authors are socialists. How do you know? What is your evidence? You have already made up your mind that these researchers are just colluding with other scientists to make a political point that deniers of science are conspiracy nuts.
But you have no evidence at all. How many of you have already run off and read the paper yet... thoroughly? And yet, here you are condemning it. Wow! Good way to prove the authors point but announcing a conspiracy when you see science you don't like (but haven't read). Their work has just been beautifully f*$king demonstrated here in the comments section of /.
What other people think of me is none of my business
correlation is not causation.
This "study" is heavily polluted by republican propaganda. Did these test subjects come to these conclusions under their own accord, or were they influenced by right leaning media (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.).
People feel the need to identify with social groups, and therefore may be influenced by others in their social group. In my opinion, it's why people align along party lines. In other words, I suspect the cause is social, not neurological, as implied above.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
At most a climitologist can rightfully say the Earth is warming, CO2 is the cause and human activity is the likely cause of the increase of CO2. Beyond that they should say NOTHING. Other scientists, in other fields, are qualified to evaluate proposed policies.
Que? A climatologist is best positioned to evaluate a proposal to see how it may affect the climate.
The second they use the cloak of science to push policy solutions they aren't scientists anymore, they are amateur politicians. Emphasis on the amateur.
Oh, it seems that you are confused by the meaning of "politician". For one thing, all good politicians are "amateur" - a professional politician is the worst sort.
Next, a politician isn't someone who creates "policy solutions". A politician in a representative democracy represents the voice of the people. He selects from the among the expert proposals the ones which align with the people's wishes, puts them forward to a legislature, listens to the alternatives, debates them, and ultimately votes on them in line with the wishes of those he represents.
To recap: a politician does not create solutions. He is not a professional in any particular field. He can't be - he's voted in as a voice of the people, not an expert on a particular thing.
It's funny how idiots like you use words like "socialist", "left(y)", and "liberal" as if they're some sort of insult.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Stubbornness and the ability to cling to your ideas/ideals in the face of overwhelming evidence/facts is seen as a good thing these days.
God forbid anyone be able to actually consider alternatives based on presented evidence/facts and change a stance on an issue, you'd be known as a flip-flopper!
or any other of the misguided beliefs the right seems to cling to is, quite simply, ignorant
While I agree, it's important to note that the left can be equally stupid. Most of the "People are allergic to WiFi" and/or "Vaccines are dangerous" and/or "My naturopath can cure cancer" fools are on the left.
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
I mean, we just had a guy on a congressional science committee forcefully and publicly proclaim that women emit some kind of magical substance to prevent pregnancy when "legitimately" raped.
I think that this pretty clearly shows that we need more science in political discussions about science. Just because Akin is a "professional" politician does not mean that he is suddenly great at making political decisions regarding science on his own.
And hell, we all know that if scientists completely divorced themselves from the political and social ramifications of their work, that you would be whining to high hell about how scientists isolate themselves in their ivory towers and can't communicate with the public. But if they do communicate their results to the public and talk about real world ramifications you get upset that they might be influencing politics directly related to their work.
With the free market bit I don't think that they are labeling anyone as crazy. Rather, they seem to be suggesting that free market proponents will dismiss evidence that counters their established views, which is probably true of many people who hold ideologies.
One interesting aspect of the report is that the conspiracy theorists tend to side with the corporations over science. While I do see how this is an attractive conspiracy, I would think that people would be more likely to think that the companies are conspiring against science to further their economic goals.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
I hear what you're saying and it sounds like "stop oppressing the ultra-rich!"
Everyone, prodded hard enough, can be shown to hold dear some unsubstantiated hypotheses about the world.
But someone on the right has the ultimate aim of helping themselves, either convinced or pretending to be convinced that it'll help other people if everyone strives to help himself. This is an ego-increasing exercise, and too much ego produces an insane amount of self-belief. Self-belief is the origin of faith or conspiracy or whatever you want to call it. This is why conspiracy theories on the right are very well-organised: there is a tremendous amound of unwarranted self-belief.
Those on the left do have their own conspiracy theories, but they tend to be a lot weaker and less organised. This is because it's hard to reconcile "be selfless and love one another" with "here's this thing I think and I have no evidence for it but I am quite convinced in myself". Selfless objectivity and subjectivity tend not to mix. Leftist conspiracy theories are thus more a failure of mind than inherent to the principles of their politics.
What is it that makes you say they are political hack poseurs? Do you have a criticism of their methodology, or is it just that you don't like what they're saying? The paper doesn't seem to be relying on the theory of climate change being true.
I think it's cute that you're upset at a debasemt of science, as you reject scientific findings based on your gut feelings.
One imagines Jmorris1 arguing in the vatican that Galileo Galilei should be punished for besmirching the honor of science and astronomy by clearly promoting falsehoods.
I think there are many reasons to lump disbelief of global warming with the distrust of vaccines. Both groups of people have these beliefs, despite an overwhelming volume of data that says otherwise. Worse yet, showing these people data that contradicts their beliefs bizarrely reenforces the baseless beliefs. There is a common phenomenon (psychological) going on here, and it is worthy of study.
What other people think of me is none of my business
We notice that all of the mentioned 'science' issues are tied to public policy positions of the left and that the 'scientists' are working outside their areas of expertise when they push policy solutions to the problems they 'find.'
Whole lines of research were simply forbidden as career ending. Consipracy theories almost always pop up in vacumns of fact, especially when it is pretty obvious that facts are suspected but being supressed.
So... is your post some kind of satire, or what?
Bloody good question. These right wing nut jobs are so far out there these days that it's hard to tell the satirists from the real deal.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You're talking about people's religious beliefs running contrary to scientific fact. Emotional versus rational thinking.
That's what Dawkin's, Shermer, and Armstrong don't seem to get - religion isn't about rational thought: it's about feelings. And most humans will trust their feelings over that facts - they are emotionally attached to their World view. They let their feelings overrule what their head says. That's why you have paleontology Ph.D.s throw everything they learned out the door so that they can still believe in the literal truth of the Bible (Dawkins talks about him in his "God Delusion" book) - the science is wrong not God's word. That paleontologist is hardly ignorant - especially about Evolution - but he still chucked everything out the door.
And that's where most unbelievers don't understand, they are trying to state a rational argument for an emotional one. And that's where the believers fail miserably - they try to stand toe to toe with science and try to challenge facts with a book of fairy tales and myths.
There will never be an agreement. The only thing that can be done is just keep hammering folks with the data and eventually some will come around and the rest are doomed. to believing in their stories. But if that give comfort to them, if their delusions don't harm anyone else, then who gives a shit. But it's when they start trying to legislate their irrationality on others - like teaching "Intelligent Design" or "the controversy about Evolution" - is when they need to be stopped.
It's fine for yo to believe in Santa Claus, but don't you dare try to force those beliefs with law - like teaching Creationism in school.
Jordan had the best HIV and AIDS preventative treatment in the world. and even common people are living for decades without going into terminal immune states if they have the insurance to afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatments. HIV is now something that one can be expected to live a long life with if they stick to a strict treatment plan. That is a terrible example.
What areas of scientific inquiry are simply forbidden as you say?
The fun part they didn't apparently check is that the 'Free Market' folks are also going to be the most likely to deny evolution....which is the ultimate 'free market'.
Ooooo the irony...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Bullshit. You doubt AGW because it means having to actually do something that costs money.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Do you really believe that groups of people, regardless of their level of psychological commitment to any idea, are capable of convincing literally thousands of people in their own profession, aligned professions and knowledgeable bystanders to simply ignore facts and evidence, and to promulgate, knowingly, wrong information, proudly, authoritatively, and consistently without error.
And then, granting this is even possible, they're able to recruit entirely new generations of people, people who may not even have been born when the "lie" was originally concocted, to repeat the same lies, over and over, to not ask questions, to not pursue the truth, to simply obey, mindlessly, and to do so for nothing more than the remuneration of the occasional government grant (which they gotta fight like hell for regardless).
The problem is, if you all of this as true, you've successfully killed the Enlightenment and any principle of self-government through reason and debate. If conspiracies decide what the popular mind accepts as "fact," we might as well have kings and clerics decide the best course of action, because democracy in such a world is pointless. The people are sheeple, the books are cooked, and votes are a waste of energy, energy that could be more effectively spent by elite, autocratic decision makers.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Kooks reject climate science, therefore all who reject climate science are kooks.
In 4th grade I learned that that piece of "logic" doesn't hold water.
Ah. If right-wingers promote a conspiracy it's a right-wing issue, but if left-wingers promote a conspiracy, it "isn't a right-wing or left-wing issue".
If you really don't think the anti-vac crowd, the 9/11 Truthers, or Michael Moore count as left-wing conspiracy theorists, then people who reject climate change or the link between cigarettes and cancer shouldn't count as right-wing conspiracy theorists either.
Also, many of the HIV conspiracy theorists are actually left-wingers as well. Look at Louis Farrakhan, for a famous example. (Wikipedia leaves it out, but interestingly they do mention he's a conspiracy theorist about the flu vaccine.)
That's like saying a butcher is best positioned to evaluate how much meat someone needs to throw a successful barbeque.
Which they are.
I'm sure what you're saying is, "But uh there's a butcher conspiracy and they'll all say AS MUCH MEAT AS POSSIBLE because that'll make them rich!"
Except that - and I thought this is what you free markedroids always argue when you say that All Regulation Is Evil - it's in no butcher's interest to lie about how much meat someone needs, as then they'll stop being trusted and no-one will listen to them any more.
Not that the analogy is valid, of course, as a climatologist is a lot more likely to get big funding from big business if he sells out his soul and says "global warming doesn't exist.. err I mean has nowt to do with humans yo" than if he gets paid a government wage to tell the truth.
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
No, not really. It is good to keep scientists around to tell the public when politicians are horrifically wrong scientifically, but there is no reason that scientists should be "advising" a politician. When you mix scientists in with politicians, you lose the scientist. You can't run public policy by the scientific method, or else you would get nuanced versions of healthcare bills with enough exceptions to fill 10^9 pages of text. You also can't investigate the universe with politics, or else you get things like Lysenkoism.
The system we have works best when scientists educate the public of their caveated findings, and the public decides what it wants. When scientists start advising politicians, and wielding the false-flag of scientific authority from a political platform, you get the same problem as mixing religion and politics.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Questions about vaccinations were actually valid when it came to mercury in thiomersal. However with that preserving agent no longer in use in Western countries (with the exception of multi-dose flu vaccine vials, and increasingly being banned in 3rd world countries as well), those concerns are far less valid. Nevertheless, for some diseases, vaccinations are justified on the basis of rare complications yet those complications become almost non-existent with good nutrition. It's not unreasonable to ask whether the potential risks of unnecessarily stressing the immune system outweigh the diminishing benefits for those specific cases.
Concerns regarding the necessity and justification for vaccines applies to a small subset of the recommended vaccination list. Yet with increasing prevalence of immune-dysfunction related diseases, it's a question that is scientifically significant but is being ignored for two reasons: a) a concern of a slippery slope that acknowledgement of the issue will needlessly feed fears and avoidance of vaccines where there is significant demonstrable benefit, and b) the substantial financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies involved.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It is interesting to me how the topics are chosen to determine what is rejection of science and what is not. For example this week another study came out that organic is not healthier than conventional, yet the anti-free market people reject that science as bogus.
I reject the idea that CO2 is going to cause global warming, but accept lung cancer is caused by smoking and AIDS by HIV. I ignore the creationists, but accept that they are free to believe what they want to on that, but evolution all the way for me.
I have also been an R&D engineer for more than a decade. Somehow the idea that because I accept free-market principles instead of central planning indicates that I am anti-science is total bullshit.
Of course since this is a peer-reviewed paper I could be labeled as anti-science for not accepting this paper, but that is something I am willing to risk.
No. I have looked into the HIV/AIDS thing enough to be willing to bet that if it isn't the entire story it is pretty close to it. But when the banhammer came down in the 1980s on any dissent (the science is settled! Settled I say!) there was still some room for doubt.
You mean, the AIDS denier Peter Duesberg? This guy: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf
This 1980s "ban" on dissent you mention-- you mean the one that allowed him a major article in 1989, "Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: correlation but not causation" in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences? That "1980s" ban?
Pretty ineffective "ban" I'd say, since he continued publishing his theories well into the 2000s, long long after they were thoroughly discredited. Turns out, the science actually was settled, and, well guess what-- the scientific researchers really did know what they were doing.
Duesberg has the unique distinction among wackos, though, that his rhetoric of "HIV doesn't cause AIDS so go ahead and have sex even if you're HIV positive, it won't hurt anybody (but don't take those antiviral drugs!)" actually did result in killing large numbers of people.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Except that HIV treatments have improved dramatically since the early 90's when Mr. Johnson (not Jordan) announced his diagnosis, with people being diagnosed today having a life expectancy slightly shorter than - but actually approaching - the general population. Of course, it depends on how quickly you start treatment after diagnosis, how far along your infection has progressed when you're diagnosed, your overall health, and your access to appropriate treatments.
But Magic Johnson has survived a bit over 20 years with his HIV under control; That's not even really an outlier based on today's prognosis - proper medication and treatment will turn it into a chronic, but mostly manageable, disease for many people. Given that Johnson was famous, rich, and presumably in excellent physical condition, it's not all that surprising that he'd have access to the best care available, and survive for a long time as a result.
You should probably also look up Long-Term Non-Progressors (HIV "controllers"), and the general natural history (infection process) of HIV. After initial infection, HIV typically enters clinical latency which can last up to 20 years (avg. of about 10 years, I believe). AIDS is only diagnosed when T-cell counts drop below a certain level, or one of the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS is diagnosed.
Given his diagnosis about 20 years ago, and the increasing efficacy of HIV treatments in the last 20 years... it's really not all that shocking that a young, healthy, rich man with access to the best care that money & fame can buy, and who also happens to be in excellent physical condition as a professional athlete, even if he's not a "controller," would be able to survive past his initial diagnosis for this long.
"Global warming" as the term is generally used is not science. It's a political program. It's true that measured temperatures are higher than the last hundred years or so. That's a fact. But the "why it's happening" is not science, it's conjecture (I deliberately don't use the word theory, because I respect theory).
In other words, you disrespect 97% of the scientists - that's the proportion of those who consider man-made CO2 emissions as the most likely cause (or strongest forcing mechanism) for global warming. Since you hold such an extraordinary position, I would be very interested to read the scientific basis of it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Using online polls limits the scope of the findings, it doesn't invalidate them, nor is it "bad science". It also doesn't mean this one study is the end-all authority on the matter. It's good information that can be collected into a larger view of things.
The trouble here is that you're treating "economics" as a science.
... as government less and less appears to be capable of solving the big social and economic problems of our time.
It probably has something to do with putting people in charge of government who believe that government can do nothing right. It's fucking ridiculous. You would have to be a complete moron to put in someone into any position of authority or control in a company if they believed that said company could do nothing right. It'd be foolish. Yet that is the very thing that conservatives are doing with our government.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
What's the point of having people who know what to do if they can't tell the people who decide what to do what should be done?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
PS.
Leprosy? Epilepsy? People who contract many kinds of diseases don't get extra rights, but the government must to take action to make sure they are not discriminated against due to a pernicious folk belief that they are "unclean" or immoral.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I think that point was covered indirectly. Free market capitalism is a religion.
Let's ignore things such as that different blogs were offered radically different versions of the survey to post (and the primary determinant of the differences seems to be whether the survey was being offered to a blog supporting AGW or denying it), though that by itself probably invalidates the results.
The main concern remains that out of a survey, of 1100 people only 3 skeptics strongly accepted, the conspiracies, and of these two were highly suspect (it's worth reading through the discussion). If this was just a paper in a journal, nobody would care. But again we see science by press relase, and pre-press release (Corner Guardian article). Do you really think it justified the heading of the paper, and the Telegraph newspaper headline? This is what drew attention to the paper, and this is what annoyed people.
Given the low number of skeptical respondents overall, these two possibly scammed responses significantly affect the results regarding conspiracy theory ideation. Indeed, given the dubious interpretation of weakly agreed responses, this paper has no data worth interpreting with regard to conspiracy theory ideation. It is my strong opinion that the paper should be have its publication delayed while undergoing a substantial rewrite.
The rewrite should indicate explicitly why the responses regarding conspiracy theory ideation are in fact worthless, and concentrate solely on the result regarding free market beliefs (which has a strong enough a response to be salvageable). If this is not possible, it should simply be withdrawn.
I daresay Lewandowsky must have cheated on his exams on experimental design and statistics as a student.
PS Lewandowsky's choice of a title is, and should be, far more damaging to his reputation as a scientist than the other flaws in his paper. The title of the paper smacks of political activism and sensationalism, not professionalism.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Careful, there. There's a broad spectrum of rejection. Anyone who says that humans haven't affected the climate at all is ignorant. However, this still leaves many questions for which the answers are less than adequate:
And so on. But the biggest reason so many people doubt AGW entirely (which is probably going too far) is because there are so many vocal AGW proponents who cross the line into loony wing-nut territory by suggesting utterly implausible theories like a "runaway greenhouse effect" (despite the greenhouse gasses being lower than at many points in our planet's history), using AGW as an excuse to push the progress of technology backwards through forced electrical conservation and light bulb bans rather than forwards by funding improvements in clean power generation or pushing for coal bans, trying to convince everyone to use horribly time-inefficient short-range public transportation instead of pressuring automakers to improve fuel efficiency or pressuring them to move to all-electric designs or pressuring governments to make traffic lights more efficient or pushing for pro-telecommuting legislation and policies, etc.
In short, the AGW proponents did this to themselves with their Greenpeace-esque agenda of causing the biggest negative impact on the most people to artificially raise awareness instead of pushing for changes that maximally improve the problem with minimal negative (or even positive) impact. I have no real sympathy for them now when they whine that nobody is listening.
Maybe when we get some believable AGW proponents (scientists) in the foreground and stop letting the extremists abuse AGW to promote their own twisted political agendas, things will start to improve.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, has been traced back to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which has been traced back to feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which has been traced back to bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV). Some web hits.
If I understand things correctly, retroviruses tend, over time, to evolve to be less than fatal to the host. That's just basic selection pressure -- if a virus kills its host, it's lost its home; meanwhile, the selection pressure on host is to not be killed by the infection. At the extreme, quickly lethal diseases tend to burn themselves out, thereby self-limiting, much as seen with the Ebola virus, for which breakouts flare up, then ebb again as infected people die too quickly for the disease to spread. FIV tends not to be fatal to large cats, much as BIV tends not to be fatal to cows, water buffalo, and their ilk. I think SIV has similarly evolved to a more stable and less fatal plateau. There are already reported cases of people who test positive for HIV infection but who remain asymptomatic, even individuals without access to the broad array of medical treatments that Magic Johnson can avail himself of. At least one genetic mechanism has been identified that confers a resistance to certain types of HIV infection; it's possible that Magic Johnson has this particular mutation, or perhaps some other genetic quirk that helps his body keep HIV from running rampant.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
That's strange; I thought it was Timothy Ray Brown the only man to be officially declared cured from AIDS. Apparently, he was cured 3 years ago as a result of a bone marrow transplant (to cure leukemia) from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that makes him/her immune to HIV. Brown was declared cured last July.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
For any illness, there will always be people who are, for reasons we may or may not understand, immune. There will also always be people who, for reasons we may or may not understand, will become asymptomatic carriers.
Ever heard of the phrase 'Typhoid Mary'?
Conspiracy theories are no different than religion. You have True Believers who will continue to espouse their belief no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary.
Before science figures out how some specific thing works exactly, it figures out how something works generally. It's just a matter of refinement over time, either due to new ideas, or new techniques.
People though the earth was flat. Over time, enough evidence was collected to show that the earth must be round. Now we know it's actually slightly egg shaped. And mindbogglingly, we still managed to somehow develop a Flat Earth Society.
Or look at gravity. We still don't know how it works, but we know that it produces an acceleration effect of approx 9.8 m/s when standing on the surface of the earth, we know that it is somehow related to mass, etc.
You can extrapolate my point to pretty much anything else science has discovered, including evolution, climatology, etc. The amount of evidence favouring evolution is so immense, that to deny it should be considered nothing short of mental illness. And yet people refuse to accept it with a fury that awe-inspiring.
But there will always be a group of people who choose to be willfully ignorant because, for whatever reason, they don't find such discoveries convenient to their world view. If people in this day and age are so stupid as to continue to believe that the world is flat, then what hope do we have for things more conceptually complex?
human activity is the likely cause of the increase of CO2
There's no "likely" about it. We know exactly where the C02 increase is coming from. Every year humans pull millions of barrels of oil out of the ground, billions of tons of coal, and trillions of cubic meters of natural gas. Then we burn them, and that releases carbon dioxide. Using the word "likely" implies that there's actually some uncertainty here or reasonable doubt. There are legitimate areas of debate (exactly how much it warm? how fast? what are the costs and benefits of various policies?) but when you question high-school chemistry and mathematics, you're engaging in precisely the kind of pseudoscience that the article is talking about. Implying that it's "likely" that human have added C02 suggests that it's likely humans haven't added C02. Which is an exercise in irrational, paranoid, conspiracy-theory type thinking. It's like saying that it's "likely" that NASA did put a man on the moon instead of staging the Apollo landings, or "likely" that the earth is round, or likely the North Pole is in the North and the South Pole is in the South, or "likely" that the government isn't secretly run by a cabal of powerful warlocks.
This is a fallacy of guilt by association, and you are lumping together several different things for which there are independent arguments or criticisms hoping that the taint of one of those things will rub off onto the other topics.
This also shows in you an ignorance of the scientific method, where everything can and should be questioned, including anthroprogenic global warming (or "climate change" as it were). This isn't living in the dark ages, it is questioning the assumptions being used to meet the conclusions and not getting into the hype that the ends justify the means even if it is a righteous cause.
There may be something to AGW, but it is also legitimate to point out that there has been a whole lot of very bad science being performed on the topic that definitely should be called out on the carpet. Those who protect the incredibly lazy scientists who alter or cherry pick data, misapply physical science theories from other fields, or have their climate models questioned as grossly inaccurate and incapable of producing the published conclusions due to improper data analysis and underestimating margins of error should be dismissed and rejected. Much of that is happening in "climate science" and more. In a great many cases the margins of error with a proper data analysis are so huge that no reasonable conclusion can possibly be drawn from the proposed theory and no possible way exists to refute the theory presented in climate science. In other words, it becomes something more on the realm of faith and religion on the part of environmental activists than anything even remotely resembling science.
I can give specific examples of how climate science has been corrupted, and the largest problem is that money has become so pervasive on the issue that objective scientific investigations are difficult or even impossible. It is the politicization of the topic that is the problem, and has corrupted the science. Get back to an honest investigation using the scientific method and being objective about the results.... no matter what you get. Don't wildly overestimate the effects, saying things like by 2010 Miami, Florida will be 10 feet or more underwater (one earlier "prediction" by an activist from a few decades ago). When people go to Miami and see what it looks like today, those people who made earlier wild predictions like that are seen as lunatics and it destroys the credibility of the science being performed in that field.
Groups like oil companies should also be suspect when they try to engage in similar kinds of lousy scientific research doing similar kinds of practices justifying their results saying they are pretty much doing the same thing as the environmental activists. Strangely, they really are as well, even though it is just as lousy science and with just as little credibility as the activists are producing. Ordinary citizens see the whole debacle and treat everybody as just a bunch of nut cases and want to go on living their lives ignoring the whole discussion altogether except when public policy rears its head to do things like a "carbon tax" that has nothing at all to do with the actual science.
What gets people really starting to question the environmental activists is when they have a financial stake in the alternatives being produced. Al Gore, famous for his movie about AGW, has a direct financial stake in several alternative energy companies and in a trading house that works with carbon credits and trades on those credits. He may have invested in those companies and businesses in part because he really does believe in AGW (note... belief as in religious belief) but it certainly doesn't express any sort of objectivity that others on the outside of the argument can reliably use to come to their own conclusions.
At the moment, I'm not even sure it is possible to do objective science in regards to climate studies. A genuinely objective study certainly won't get much funding from any source as almost everybody who has money to send in that direction has a political stake in the argument... including various government funding agencies supporting such research or even non-profit philanthropic foundations. That is unfortunate as well.
There are at least five important questions whose answers are needed to address whether cap-and-trade is a good idea:
1. How much effect would cap-and-trade have on GHG emissions?
2. What other direct effects would cap-and-trade have besides its effect on reducing emissions?
3. What would the climate impact be of the effects described in #1?
4. Would any of the effects described in #2 have climate effects, and, if so, what effects?
5. Does the net social benefit of the climate effects in #3-4, combined with the net social benefit of the non-climate effects described in #2, offset the net social costs of effects described in #2.
#1-4 are scientific questions. #5 is a question that, while there may be some scientific aspects of it (aside from those in the preceding questions on which it relies) is largely about subjective values.
Of the four scientific questions, two of them are questions specifically about climatology. So, while there's very good reason for there to be other scientists providing input, its pretty clear that climatologists have quite a lot to contribute on the question.
Since one of the scientific questions listed above is largely an economic one (#1) and one is partially an economic one (#2), there certainly is a role for economists advising on the issue as well. But that role is not exclusive of the role of climatologists, as there remain climatological questions that are important in addressing the utility of cap and trade (or any approach to climate change, since the effectiveness of the approach in addressing the core problem it seeks to address will always involve a question of climatology, even if it also involves other questions.)
No, but once someone else provides input on the degree to which sequestration is feasible and what other near-term environmental impacts that sequestration will have, your going to need to turn to climatology to answer what the net effect of the sequestration (both from the direct carbon reductions and indirectly through any environmental side effects) is likely to be on climate.
They certainly are the best positioned, once others answer what is feasible and what effects those options would have on GHG emissions and other environmental inputs, to provide insight on what those alternatives are likely to do in terms of climate. Which, when evaluating alternative energy supplies as a solution to a climate problem, is a pretty critical insight.
Its true that you need a variety of experts to address those questions.
Its not true that the need for other scientists to address those questions means you don't also need climatologists to address each of them.
Yes, but its pretty freaking central to evaluating options to address climate change, for reasons which should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.
With climate change this becomes a very interesting case.
The climate scientists can (I caveat a bit, very nearly) prove AGW.
However, many of the solutions posited are ECONOMIC solutions designed to reduce the amount of CO2 output.
At this point the debate about solutions to global warming should look to Economists for evaluation of those proposed solutions, Climatologists are now not the experts who are needed to evaluate the proposed solutions.
But to take it in a different direction. If the solution proposed is Terraforming to deal with the impacts of global warming, much like solution the, um Economists from Freakanomics, came up with, then the experts needed would be Engineers in collaboration with Climate Scientists.
The reason "free-market" types totally lose it when discussing solutions to climate change is that the main solution proposed is a blasphemously fake free-market in CO2. Carbon markets are anethema to those who believe in free markets, they're more or less a free anti-market that governs the non-production of something instead of the production of it.
The solution I favor, and that I believe will be the successful one, is the natural move to alternative forms of energy. I think that advances in alternative energy (both lowering cost and increasing efficiency) will lead to clean electricity generation, and that electric vehicles (and/or hybrids) will be the norm in the next 20-30 years. I think all of this can happen without the burden of a carbon market.
The second they use the cloak of science to push policy solutions they aren't scientists anymore
Where do you prove that?
Democrat delenda est
Democrat must be destroyed. Are you talking about ending Democracy? Why? Likely you're just another Republican who spends too much of their time listening to angry men on the radio.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
We doubt AGW because we have been given very solid fact based reasons to.
Let's see: nineteen different institutions on four continents are running global circulation models ("climate models") that show the relationship between human-generated carbon dioxide and temperature. They must all be conspiring to cover up the truth, right? And also to cover up some error in the original 1967 Manabe and Wetherald calculation, the prediction of which fits the data taken over the last fifty years. I know of five different groups doing global temperature measurements, using everything from ship-based measurements to balloons to satellites. They're all in cahoots too, I assume?
Yes, so far I'd say it does look like people-- you-- who reject the findings from climate science tend to also subscribe to conspiracy theories.
We see hacks like Mann protected from the consequences of his fraud with the 'Hockey Stick" and nay, even rewarded for it. Cleared from all wrongdoing by the same corrupt institution that turned a blind eye to Sandusky...
You mean, cleared from all wrongdoing by the eight corrupt institutions. You are aware that there have been eight different investigations of the alleged wrongdoings purportedly revealed by the stolen emails from the CRU at East Anglia, and that all of them said that there was no fraud? So your conspiracy includes the National Science Foundation and the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
Yep, you're indeed a data point confirming the study: people who reject the findings from climate science subscribe to conspiracy theories.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Science isn't a popularity contest. It isn't a case of saying "Well most people agree with this so it must be right!" Science is about evidence. When someone questions the veracity of a theory, you respond with the evidence, not with "Well most people agree with me!"
Now it's fine if consensus is how you want to deal with your beliefs, it is a valid way to do it. However don't go and then try and talk science. Science is NOT about consensus. It is a process for knowing about the universe.
[citation needed]
If you read the New Testament, you will find that Jesus never advocated any political ideology, nor did He advocate any government policy. Simply advocating that you personally help others with your own time, talents and resources (as opposed to ordering other people to do it) is not the same thing as advocating for a policy of forced wealth redistribution. I don't call that "socialism" because that doesn't match the textbook definition of socialism, which is an economic regime under which the means of production are owned by the government.
And the part about Jesus not advocating any political ideology and not supporting any government policy goes for conservatives too.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
I've done some checking and in fact I think it's the lower portion of your left ear lobe that is the center. Try not to shake your head so much it makes my GPS very confused.
That's why Saul of Tarsus very rapidly made a takeover bid for the new religion and got it back on track, and why the Protestants are always quoting "Saint" Paul "I hate faggots. Give me money" and not all that awful stuff about loving your neighbor (which is pure socialism).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
... as government less and less appears to be capable of solving the big social and economic problems of our time.
It probably has something to do with putting people in charge of government who believe that government can do nothing right. It's fucking ridiculous. You would have to be a complete moron to put in someone into any position of authority or control in a company if they believed that said company could do nothing right. It'd be foolish. Yet that is the very thing that conservatives are doing with our government.
"Government is the problem! Vote for me and I'll prove it!"
(Score: -1, Stupid)
There's a reason why the same people who deny science also buy into the particular right-wing brand of free-market economics promoted by the Republican Party and libertarians, and the reason is that it's just another form of pseudoscience. It's part of a pattern of thinking (or lack of thinking, to be more accurate) that we see on the right, where people refuse to acknowledge basic realities that don't fit their worldview.
Republicans argue that they can somehow manage to balance the budget. Yet they advocate more tax cuts for the rich, they've signed a pledge that they won't raise taxes, and they won't identify the spending cuts they'll make to bring it all in line. To top it all off, they want to increase military spending. At the end of the day, it somehow has to all add up, and it doesn't. They're denying the basic principles of arithmetic.
Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia by unleashing a sociopathic social order in which corporations are free to do whatever they want without oversight by the government. But we've seen what happens without a strong government, and the result is Somalia. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. A strong economy and thriving corporations require a government to provide infrastructure, security, and the rule of law. And we've seen what happens when corporations are allowed to do whatever they want; the result is disasters like the 2008 financial meltdown perpetrated by Wall Street speculators. Their entire premise is that we can just ignore political and economic realities and build a better world by following ideas from a series of poorly written economic fantasy novels.
Healthy political discourse requires disagreement and different views. But one end of the political spectrum just seems to have taken a break from reason. It's not just that they're rejecting science, they have an increasingly shaky hold on reality.
I think some people forget, or have not considered, that there are four major levels to the global warming discussion:
1) The fact of global warming, meaning that the average surface temperature has been increasing outside of known cycles. This is a question of fact, of observation, and though it is a complex one (average global temperature is not an easy thing to measure) it is solid. The only thing that can be questioned on this is if someone can find an error with the methods.
2) The theory of man made global warming, that the primary or exclusive cause of said warming is the increase atmospheric CO2 (also measured, which is easier to measure) that is caused by human emissions. Like any theory, this is always up for debate. If a better or more complete explanation can be found then it'll be replaced. That doesn't mean it is wrong, just that it could be, theories can always be wrong. You don't prove them true, you repeatedly show they aren't false.
3) The judgement/claim that this will be a net bad thing for humanity. This is based off of various theories, hypothesis and claims of what may happen due to this warming. Any change will have good and bad parts for humans, that's just how it goes, so someone can look at what they believe is likely as a result of the change and make a judgement that overall the change will make things worse.
4) The policy/politics position that the correct thing to do about this is to drastically cut CO2 emissions, institute cap and trade, and increase government control of industry. This is a policy view, not a science one. Science doesn't dictate what we must do, only helps us understand the world we live in. We then decide how to act on that. Nor is it the only proposition for what to do (other than do nothing, which is a valid option though perhaps a suboptimal one).
Well here's the thing: People can agree with some but not all of that. Someone can agree that the Earth is getting warmer, and that CO2 is likely the prime cause, but reject that it will be worse for humanity. Or they could agree that it will be worse for humanity but reject what to do about it.
However it seems many people want to lump it all together. A situation of "You have to accept that the Earth is getting warmer, the evidence is extremely solid. Once you accept that, everything else follows logically, you can't question the proposed solutions, they are science!" As such if someone rejects any part, they accuse them of being anti-science and blind to the observations.
"The fun part they didn't apparently check is that the 'Free Market' folks are also going to be the most likely to deny evolution....which is the ultimate 'free market'. "
I don't believe that the majority of purported "free marketers" are actually what they claim; I believe, that many who claim to be in favor of free markets, are mostly self-applying the label due to the usual American knee-jerk reaction to the "Socialism" bogeyman.
My run-ins with creationists in time fits this model rather well. They're not as much 'for' anything, as they are against its supposed polar opposite.
Then again, that does describe most people in the mainstream political chat-o-sphere these days...
> Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia by unleashing a
> sociopathic social order in which corporations are free to do whatever they want without oversight by
> the government.
I have to disagree with this chracterization as a bit too simplistic. Corps are legal fictions created through the power of the state. They are fictional entities which stand in the place of a person, to convey limited liability on the actual corp owners.
In fact, many libertarians are against limited liability at all. How this could, in any way, be described as pro-corperate, I just don't see. In fact, I can think of few things that would be less pro-corperate than elimination of limited liability.... it guts the entire concept of a corp.
Personally, as something of a libertarian myself (not entirely), I am not against its eliminatuon nor for it, because I see it as a useful pact with the government, and one which legitimizes regulation...afterall, they are fictional non-person entities, and are recieving a benefit for becoming such.... seems the government which offers this priviledge should be free to put whatever restrictions that they like on it.
In my view, I tend to say taxes are theft and extorition, not so with corp taxes...for that very reason.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Note that he did not expect them to take out a huge loan in order to be taught to fish.
But I guess you're just that much greater than Jesus eh?
Wow, sounds like you hurt your back bending so far backwards to miss the point eh?
Note that I said 'leaned socialist', not 'was a card carrying Socialist'.
Jesus certainly DID advocate a certain social order and priorities from the individual level on up. That social order is more closely fit by some variety of socialist philosophy (not necessarily Socialist, just socialist) than by free market capitalism. That is not quite the same as advocating a political ideology, but certainly some such ideologies are better suited to the social order he advocated than others.
You can bet he would not have taken money from the people and given it to the money changers like our government did (under both Republican and Democratic leadership no less).
Wait, what? Nearly all domain experts DO agree on that. Only a vanishingly small percentage of climate scientists think that human actions aren't affecting the climate, and more specifically, that CO2 levels aren't affecting the climate.
I haven't read the article or the paper yet; I can't conclude whether you're right and picked a bad example, or if you're exactly the sort of person it's supposedly talking about. :)
The operative word is ideology which is "the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, etc." Once you subscribe to an ideology, you tend to be close minded to alternatives. Contrast that against the scientific process that uses hypothesis, evidence, and theory to drive belief and action. A true scientist would constantly test existing theories against new evidence and reformulate new hypotheses and theories to support the new evidence.
The free market is one of those funny ideas. Free markets are good at reconciling supply and demand. Unfortunately, free markets can form into oligopolies and cartels which are sub optimal at resolving supply and demand. There is a difference between supporting free markets and having a free market ideology. I support a free market and expect government regulations to keep the market free. I also expect the government to solve social issues that the free market is unable or unwilling to solve.
It's kind of like Darwinism. Scientific evidence supports the theory of natural selection and evolution. I can go in my back yard watch animals behaving in a Darwinian manner. I subscribe to Darwinian theory, but I am not a Darwinian ideologist. I don't believe people have to behave that way. I believe as a society we can do better than that.
Not that scientists don't fall into ideologies around a particular sciences. It sometimes takes a crafty politician (and scientist) to convince a scientific body accept a new theory.
Debate skills are almost orthogonal to logic/reasoning skills.
The purpose of science and peer review is to convince people doing science that propositions match the real world - that they are reproducible by knowledgeable practitioners.
The purpose of rhetoric, sophistry, and debate skills is to convince the majority of voters/jurors that propositions are right. No connection to the real world is needed.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I think he had a social bent and that some political ideologies support it and others do not. Surely a follower of Christ should choose a political philosophy that meshes with his social philosophy.
Meanwhile, the Republican party is far more in to Mammon than Christ, only they worship a bronze statue of a bull and a bear rather than a golden calf.
That's not to say he would necessarily support any particular party today (I imagine he would likely be an independent), but I think it is generally safe to say that implementing a social safety net comes closer to following his teachings than throwing the poor to the wolves does.
As for abortion, it's hard to say, he never actually spoke on the topic of when a soul enters the fetus and makes it precious to God. Of course, he tended to advocate non-coercive solutions, so I would guess if he didn't like abortions, he would make sure the mother had medical care, support, and forgiveness so that abortions wouldn't be so tempting.
Sadly, Akin was informed by a doctor who actually believes that idiocy. Of course, that doctor should lose his medical license for gross lack of knowledge of basic human anatomy. (Side note: If women could prevent pregnancy by expelling unwanted sperm, birth control companies would immediately go out of business.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So you filter the science you accept based purely on your ideology. How does that make you one bit different than a Creationist?
Or to put it another way, if puking millions of years of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is leading to serious, even severe consequences, how exactly does your political ideology matter in the least?
It strikes me that the story of King Canute demonstrating to his subordinates that his status and power could not stop the tide is on you should ponder. The universe doesn't give a flying fuck about your political leanings, or mine or anyone else's. It will crush a libertarian, a communist or a conservative equally.
All you are telling me is that libertarians and other absolutist free market types have formulated an economic system profoundly unsuited to deal with substantial changes in our environment. Instead of saying "the free market can solve the problem of AGW", what you are really saying is "it cannot, so science must be ignored in the pursuit of short term goals."
Did I mention the universe doesn't care about dollar bills either?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I didn't follow this from the summary: who doesn't think that HIV causes AIDS? And why would they think that? Do they not think that the Flu virus causes the Flu, or is it only HIV that they're singling out?
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/give-a-man-a-fish.html
The internet has done one thing very very well, propagate stupidity faster that passes off as science or news.
There is a local radio station that has a PSA about how to be "greener", and the majority of the suggestions and "facts" claimed in the PSA are just plain wrong.
For instance they claim that driving 120 km/h in a 100 km/h zone uses 20% more gas. This is fundamentally stupid because there is no correlation to an increase in speed by X% matches the increased rate of fuel consumption.
Another gem, apparently Canadians throwing out plastic garbage bags results in millions (plural) of tonnes of landfill waste a year. The average plastic grocery bag weighs 6 grams. There is therefore 166666666667 bags in 1 million metric tonnes (169341166667 in a long tonne). THis breaks down to each Canadian throwing out over 4500 bags a year. I personally do not do that much shopping.
Also I can't stand the idea of "mythmatics", the idea that large numbers are scary so we should reduce those numbers to be green. Yes 1 million tonnes is a big scary number, however consider how much of ALL garbage is thrown out. Statistics Canada suggests the average Canadian throws out 1 tonne of garbage a year, which means the total impact of even throwing out 4500 plastic grocery bags is only 2.7%. However I doubt the average Canadian even throws out 1/10 of that many bags a year, meaning that really less then 0.3% of total landfill waste is from plastic bags.
Throwing out plastic bags is the biggest non-issue compared to the rest of the weight of garbage that is thrown out.
Most of this is regurgitated stupidity from the internet based in little fact and a lot of hyperbole. People read about it online and then re-broadcast it without investing any amount of time verifying it.
The problem is that the internet has become very good at showing content that looks factual, even makes sense if you think about it, but is based on no facts, no science, and is ultimately wrong, but then gets propagated over and over again until it basically becomes urban myth.
A lot of "Green" science is mired in this kind of social disinformation.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
At this point the debate about solutions to global warming should look to Economists for evaluation of those proposed solutions, Climatologists are now not the experts who are needed to evaluate the proposed solutions.
But to take it in a different direction. If the solution proposed is Terraforming to deal with the impacts of global warming, much like solution the, um Economists from Freakanomics, came up with, then the experts needed would be Engineers in collaboration with Climate Scientists.
Sensibility of course comes down in favor of the engineering solution, but between the banksters and their economists on one side, and scientists and engineers on the other, guess who will win the political battle?
Take for example all the pie-in-the-sky methods proposed for sequestering carbon, as seen in Popular Science. All of them cost enormous amounts of (you guessed it, TAX) money. Lots of profit! The 1%-ers must profit profit profit from cleaning up the environment, after profiting from dirtying it!
Much simpler, cheaper, and more effective would be the change of some farming methods to increase organic topsoil. We know how the natural carbon cycle works, and we don't need expensive pumping stations and rare earth magnets and gobs of electricity to exploit it. Plant cover crops and trees? Re-green the deserts? But Wall Street can't get their fingers in that pie!
The solutions are simple, cheap, and effective. But not so long as politicians and economists and bankers continue to exploit science to their financial ends.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
While I do see how this is an attractive conspiracy, I would think that people would be more likely to think that the companies are conspiring against science to further their economic goals.
It all depends on where you see the social threat coming from. Some people are terrified of the power of government. Mix in a proclivity for paranoia, and the mind generates the story-line. And it is *believed*.
Incidentally, Friedrich Hayek, in many ways the original market fundamentalists, believed that government should exercise its power to break up powerful corporate institutions so that they do not rig the system for themselves. Hayek saw this as the only primary role of the government in the economy, in stark contrast to Keynes.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yet another warmist attempt to educate the masses, regardless of the data.
The paper is based on an amalgamation of several different surveys, that weren't sent to the people he claimed they were sent to - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/07/lewandowsky-thinks-failure-to-get-or-find-email-is-conspiracy-theory/
The fact of the matter is that the paper did *not* observe what it claims to observe, and was so shoddy and filled with methodological errors, it shouldn't have gotten past the first glance of peer review.
A black stain, once again, on the soul of warmists.
Capitalism?
This study is making the leap that rejection of the popular scientific consensus (i.e. climate change) is rejection of the scientific method. By the same token Galileo also suffered from a "motivated rejection of science" for not believing in a geocentric universe which all the top minds at the time agreed was just common sense.
:D
I'm not siding against climate change, but I think the peer review process and having independent researchers challenge ideas is an extremely important part of advancing our knowledge. I'm not sure why this study seems to believe "science" is the process of a committee making judgments and everyone following them.
Perhaps if you get a degree in psychology then you think of "science" as a form of "understood magic" and that "wizards" (scientists) should not be meddled with
Reality dictates how you live. You can live your libertarian fantasy all you like, but at the end of the day some problems require a society's effort. More importantly, some problems don't require your opinion. If AGW Isis happening (and the overwhelming majority of scientists in related fields say it is) then we can either sit around on our asses, watch it all happen and receive solace from our ideologies, or we can admit that there is such a thing as society, indeed civilization, and find a way to prevent the worst.
Even democracies have had conscription. And this problem does not require anywhere near that kind of direct state intervention.
I'd like my grandchildren to have a reasonably decent planet I live on. If that means higher taxes and moving to alternatives, then so be it. Christ, the West beat the Germans and the Soviets, and spent a helluva lot of money to do it. What's you're problem now?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A contentious comment which lacks rational thought has no purpose but to insult.
It insults the reader; it insults logic; it insults intelligence; it insults humanity.
It is possible to find a subtle but remarkable fault in established reasoning, but you had better be damn good at showing it. It is possible write something logical which is based on uncommon premises, but those premises must be made clear.
For example, to dismiss global warming is anti-science in the sense that the scientific consensus disagrees with you - so you have to either (i) carefully provide an original explanation for results or (ii) explain why we shouldn't care that global warming is happening. If you're doing (ii), you better have some mighty interesting premises - anything which comes down to "cuz I will be dead by then" or "cuz the free market solves all 4 every1" IS so childish as to come under the "flamebait" category.
Other examples of flamebait:
- Communism works;
- Capitalism works;
- Israel has a right to exist;
- Palestine has a right to exist;
- Just war is good;
- All wars are wrong;
- There is a heaven;
- There is no heaven;
- I deserve what I have;
- You don't deserve what you have;
etc.
All these statements are flamebait. Even if they had some element of correctness in them, they are so boring that they insult the reader. Be nuanced. Be sophisticated. Be insightful. Tackle an argument from all sides. Hell, on a good day, be original.
The problem is finding who is liable. Libertarians usually say let the courts decide but going to court against a rich entity, whether person or corporation is like playing poker with a stacked deck. Whoever has the money can drag things out until the one without money folds.
They were talking about the Exxon Valdez on the radio today. Seems that after 25 years it is still in court trying to settle who is liable. The owners of the oil who hired the ship? The owner of the ship, who is a shell corporation but could just as easy be an individual patsy who owns nothing? The people who lent the ship owner the funds? And so on.
Taxpayers ended up on the hook to clean it up and without taxpayers a chunk of the coast would have been left toxic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
There is actually no link between tobacco and lung cancer. There are no scientific studies to support this. However, what has been widely known for five decades, is the process of *mass production* of tobacco makes it cancer causing. No studies show organic tobacco to contain carcinogens.
The name of that journal jumped out at me for some reason. I had to follow up to learn why it unsettled me so.
Not having been provided a link to the journal, I sought it online. It seems that it is one of many published by the 'Association for Psychological Science'. Each of these journals has a dramatic cover depicting a side view of a male head either receding or projecting in six increments.
I was unable to find this article but pleasantly surprised that I could access some other articles in full text. The subject and content of the articles is about what one might expect- a serious statistical analysis of some perceived phenomenon followed by a conclusion.
I have my own ideas of what science should be. Someone comes up with a theory and then proceeds with all his might to try to disprove that theory. Then all his friends and enemies try to disprove the theory. If they should all fail, then there is hope that something has been learned. Many areas of 'science' seem to fail this test.
I love the concept of psychology and the occasional insights that come of the discipline. I've studied it off and on for over 50 years, through a number of fashionable deviations. I'm sure there is hope for some good result due to the millions of people who dedicate themselves to this interest.
It's just that I really struggle with the concept of science being so closely associated with the exploration of psychology. Can we really use the word science, the same word that we use for physics and chemistry, in relation to psychology?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Naked bullshit like this is why no-one takes people like you seriously.
As I said, the collective does not have authority to steal freedoms from the individual, and when it tries, it always backfires and makes whatever the perceived problem is worse.
The collective always has the authority to steal freedoms from individuals. Even the smallest society, one without a government, will deny you the freedom to shit in the communal water supply. They'll shun you, they'll banish you, and they'll ignore the fact that someone just killed you because you had it coming by practicing your freedom to shit in the communal water supply.
That's reality, if you're part of a collective, you don't have total freedom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism