Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Study How Non-Scientists Deny Climate Change (theguardian.com)
A new research paper suggest climate change opponents are "simulating coherence by conspiracism".
Slashdot reader Layzej says the paper "examines this behavior at the aggregate level, but gives many examples where contradictory ideas are held by the same individual, and sometimes are presented within a single publication." From the paper:
Claims that the globe "is cooling" can coexist with claims that the "observed warming is natural" and that "the human influence does not matter because warming is good for us". Coherence between these mutually contradictory opinions can only be achieved at a highly abstract level, namely that "something must be wrong" with the scientific evidence in order to justify a political position against climate change mitigation...
In a nutshell, the opposition to greenhouse gas emission cuts is the unifying and coherent position underlying all manifestations of climate science denial... Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.
"I think that people who deny basic science will continue to do so, no matter how contradictory their arguments may be," says one of the paper's authors, who suggests that the media should be wary of self-contradicting positions.
In a nutshell, the opposition to greenhouse gas emission cuts is the unifying and coherent position underlying all manifestations of climate science denial... Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.
"I think that people who deny basic science will continue to do so, no matter how contradictory their arguments may be," says one of the paper's authors, who suggests that the media should be wary of self-contradicting positions.
The problem with climate science is that it's so difficult. The average person the street has little hope of understanding all the data and how it interacts. They can never, therefore, have confidence in the results being reported to them. I'm largely in the same boat, btw; despite on and off studying over the past several years, I still don't really have a grasp on how all the data ties together and consequently I don't have a high degree of confidence in the reported conclusions of others.
Given this, attacking on the basis of "CLIMATE CHANGE" is the absolutely worst approach. The ignorance of your target audience will prompt them to respond contrary to your goals. Instead focus should be placed on the specifics; clean air emissions, water discharge standards, ect... Why? Because these are things people can understand, and they are immediately relevant to them. I don't want to live next to a factory dumping shit into the air/water, and neither does anyone else. That should be how climate change is addressed; not on the large scale, but rather the personalized one.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Sorry this may be feeding a troll, but this one makes too good of a point. How could such people know such things!!
http://biologos.org/blogs/brad-kramer-the-evolving-evangelical/no-modern-science-is-not-catching-up-to-the-bible
Climate Change is not a religious issue for those who "deny" it. (The other side, arguably yes...) You're confusing it with Evolution.
But interestingly, the "reasoning" and rhetoric of global warming denial is almost identical to that of evolution denial.
E.g., both promote the notion that they are up against a global conspiracy of scientists.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Which is why science has built-in processes to deal with bias. It isn't perfect, and it can take time, but eventually fraud or bad science is caught.
And really, at this point, with so many streams of evidence for AGW, to deny that human-caused CO2 emissions are having a significant impact on global climate really is no different than denying that all life evolved from some common ancestor, or that eating high amounts of refined sugar is hazardous to your health, or that smoking cigarettes leads to cancer and lung disorders.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This one caught my eye based on sheer WTFness.
circumcision in decline
Following the links, this appears to be something reported by village elders in Nairobi who are having a severe enough food shortage that they entirely rely on aid. They're unable to provide enough food for the traditional ceremony.
That sounds pretty real to me. May I assume pretty much everything else on that hysterical list actually ties back to similarly mundane things that are actually happening?
That's not entirely true... the religious issue is that mankind is not supposed to have the power to destroy something that God told us to use as we please.
"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created man in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so." - Genesis 1:26-30.
So, if we do as we were told, and in the process destroy the Earth, then that means we're powerful enough to undo what God created in a way that he did not expect, or something along those lines. It's not completely rational, but it does have its basis in Judeo-Christian belief structure... similar to the resistance to heliocentrism in the 16th century.
On the same note (unqualified reporters trying to explain basic scientific issues) is the "EQUAL REPORTING" ethos that has pervaded the news media. EVEN IF the evidence is overwhelmingly in the Global Warning arena, the "Equal Reporting" issue SEEMS to show that half - or thereabouts - of the scientific community does NOT believe the evidence supporting Global Warming - - - when the actual numbers approach 95%(+) FOR, and 5% (or so) AGAINST. The bigger the lie, the easier it is for the masses to believe.
redneck geek
E.g., both promote the notion that they are up against a global conspiracy of scientists.
I'm not quite sure why you think a global conspiracy of scientists is unlikely. Yes, we conspire. Globally and explicitly. You want to apply for a grant from public funds? It will go to a panel of us to have a look and see if we approve it. And you betcha the ones that start from positions that agree with our established view will be more likely to get funding (as in, if you disagree we might, if you're very good, still put you in the top half but we only fund the top quarter or less, so you really might as well not bother). And then when you submit your results for publication, it will again be sent to a (smaller) panel of us to review your work and suggest changes. Again, we only publish the top quarter or so, and if you disagree with our established view, you just watch how we can always find things to object to. Right now I am reviewing which data, analysis, and views (papers) will be permitted to be presented in a major US conference, and I am not in the US. Yes, we conspire. Yes, we do it globally. It is part of the job description.
Actually the Catholic church has been down with Science for many years. They don't perceive a contradiction between science and religion, modern catholics consider science a "tool to better understand creation". For example, it was a Catholic priest working in the vatican observatory who came up with the big bang theory, they have accepted evolution as "god's handiwork" since the 60's, they're still dragging their feet on birth control but I think they will arrive at the same place as protestants in the not too distant future.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There's precious little written evidence that can actually be linked to any contemporary of Jesus Christ. The Gospels are problematic, and the earliest of them can't be dated any earlier than decades after Christ's death, and the others appear to be rewrites of early versions, with inconsistenticies (like the two geneologies of Christ). The closest to a contemporary document is Josephus's writings, and when you get rid of the helpful "interpolations" of 2nd or 3rd century writers, you're left with what amounts to "there was a holy man named Jesus of Nazareth who had a number of followers, and was put to death by the Romans."
There's about as much evidence for Jesus healing the sick or raising the dead as there is for Thor causing thunder and lightning.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Climate science is entirely falsifiable - it just hasn't been falsified despite all the fortunes spent on trying to do so. Nobody has yet managed to do a real experiment that showed CO2 NOT acting as a greenhouse gas (that would falsify it). Nobody has yet found a single shred of evidence that disproves the theory - while there are thousands of independent sources of evidence that all support it, and nobody has yet come up with a better explanation for the observations than that offered by climate change theory.
Any of these things would:
1) Falsify the theory
2) Win you a nobel prize
3) Guarantee you tenure and an endless supply of grant money for the rest of your life at any academic institution of your choosing.
Basically EVERY incentive is to disprove climate change.
The failure of those trying to actually falsify something does not imply it is not falsifiable. It implies the theory is almost certainly correct.
At this stage, the most single most tested scientific theory in the history of science is so unlikely to be false - that we will almost certainly never see it replaced, modified and gradually improved - yes, replaced probably not. At least not for the next several centuries. Because at this point the only thing that could do so is an observation that actually does not fit the theory. It took 500 years for technology to give us a measuring device that could pick up the things that didn't quite follow Newton, and I'd say it will take about twice that long before something fundamentally alters climate science.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *