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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 politicians, scientists, and academics proposing solutions to combat it. All of these to date will fail utterly. And this is why people deny climate change, because they understand our leaders aren't capable of doing anything rational, and all proposed solutions are more damaging to the economy than the actual global warming will be. So it's entirely rational to not care or deny climate change when the short term becomes more painful than the long term.
As a thermal engineer who has looked at this issue fairly rigorously, I have come to the following conclusions on the climate change debate. Before I begin, I caution the reader that, though you may not like the facts or the sources, I suggest you avoid the logical fallacy "Damning the Source." The facts are easily discoverable and if you want to have a serious opinion on the debate, you need to do your homework (or else you are what is known as a useful idiot).
1. The climate changes: Go look at the global temperatures for the last 500k years or so. It has been both cooler and warmer than it is now, without the burning of fossil fuels. The climate has been changing for millennia and we have survived. There has been no earth shattering apocalypse. From a physics perspective, the earth rejects heat to space as a function of the absolute temperature of the planted (~288K) to the fourth power. A small change in temperature significantly increases heat rejection, making it hard for multiplicative-order changes in the emissivity of the earth (what the global warming people worry about) to significantly change the amount of heat rejected, thus elevating the temperature.
http://www.climate4you.com/ima...
2. The global warming "scientists" are the same "scientists" who were running around in the 70s saying that the next ice age was upon us. The reality is they are not scientists as they do not practice the scientific method, as it is impossible on a global scale and a sample of one, and many of the thermal interactions that they put into their models have not been tested or proven using the scientific method, they are educated guesses at best. They are either researchers, physics modelers, or mathematicians, but they are not scientists by definition. The public in large part has caught on to this in practice if not in theory, which is why "scientists" are not that well respected these days. True scientists should form a guild or association to guard the name more jealously, just as engineers (applied science experts) do (you can be heavily fined or even imprisoned for impersonating a civil, mechanical or structural engineer, depending on the state). The climate charlatans should be banned from the title of scientist and forced to use one of the above.
3. The climate change models have been wildly wrong for the last 30 plus years. Go back and dig out some of the old models predictions. These have been wrong at every turn. They may be getting better, but only time will tell. Based on past performance, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially if billions of dollars or the health of the economy are on the line.
http://cdn.thefederalist.com/w...
4. The climate change debate is now deeply intertwined with emotions, politics and research grant money on one side, and businesses and the general population on the other side. It is being fueled by politicians who see an opportunity to vilify their opposition, moral narcissists/intellectual snobs who make themselves feel better by believing that they take the moral high road and/or are smarter than their fellow citizen (hint: statistically they are smarter than some, dumber than others) and PhD's who are too stupid to get out of the rain (i.e. no common sense) but need their grant money, so they feed the pro global warming politicians more models showing warming/doom and gloom/etc. to get the next grant. It is a vicious cycle, and until we defund public research into global warming, we will continue to have this incestuous loop. I am not advocating banning climate change research, only the tax payer funding of it as a weapon for one political group to use against another, especially when intellectual fraud has been proven and the past product of the research has been junk models that have been proven inaccurate over time.
And from wha
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Right. The Pope is a Climate Change Alarmist. And he, like other Climate Change Alarmists, is also known for being a Very Religious Person and drawing conclusions based solely on faith.
That *was* your point, right...?
eight "independant" investigations...horseshit...they were neither "independant" or investigated, they ignored the evidence and simply asked em if they lied, and took a "no" as proof
Strange how you think you can even evaluate how much evidence there is--because you can't, in any way.
The preponderance of what maintains people's belief is personal spiritual experience. And that is evidence. That it may not be scientifically replicable-at-will evidence (that being the current false constraint you'll use for now, pending making up something new if necessary for something to be "evidence").
Like it or not, the fact that billions of more people find Christianity more plausible than Thor doesn't mean virtually the entire planet is simply all stupid--particularly, I'm sure, compared to your healthy and unjustified evaluation of yourself. It is -evidence- that, in fact, Christianity is more plausible.
If you actually knew anything about Asatru, or Nordic Paganism, you would know that it does not have a compelling internal consistency on the face of it. It is more like a polytheistic soap opera of very inconsistent and very flawed beings, and is not serviceable as a comprehensive philosophical worldview. But then, you quite literally don't know anything about what you're talking about. You know to spout the mere word "religion" as if all religions were the same, as if all, say, political stances were the same. Because you called them "politics". But no, the -evidence- states, beyond the direct obviousness of your own profoundly ignorant rendering of world religions, that you, indeed, don't know what you're talking about.
What is the evidence? The considered evaluation of billions of people, which yours is definitely not superior to, either in the abstract or your directly-expressed lack of knowledge, expressed right here with your very own post.
And yes, when you contradict your own brain and claim that is not "evidence", that is, when you go ahead and directly, willfully lie on the question, it will be just as much evidence after that as it is now.
Nope. I have not said it is syllogistically true because more people agree with it, I said it is more plausible than Thor because more people have concluded they believe in it.
And that is fact, not fallacy. Perhaps a Philo 101 class. More importantly, though, is a way of concealing the transparent intellectual dishonesty laid right out by your own words. The one and only reason you would compare to Thor is that -you yourself- do not consider them equally plausible. If you did, the comparison would be pointless. You did it anyway, because you want to propose they are equivalent, and not equivalent, at the same time. That would be because you are intellectually dishonest, systematically, in an almost automatic lying-machine fashion. Maybe look into that.
Actually, there is almost no written proof that Yehoshua bin Yosef existed, except as a literary device invented by Paul to spread reform Judaism. Most notably, the Romans, who kept meticulous records, had absolutely none about any trial, crucifixion, or other acts supposedly undertaken by Pontius Pilate. It's like he was never there at all.
Now Muhammad? We know he existed independent of his scripture. Same thing for Joseph Smith