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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 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!
Note that holding contradictory beliefs is fairly common of conspiracy theorists (link):
Another study titled Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories managed to show that, not only will cranks be attracted to and believe in numerous conspiracy theories all at once, but will continue to do so even if the theories in question are completely and utterly incompatible with one another. For instance, the study showed that: "... the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered [and that] ... the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive," and that "Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up".
Citation: Wood, Michael J., Karen M. Douglas, and Robbie M. Sutton. "Dead and alive beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories." Social Psychological and Personality Science 3.6 (2012): 767-773.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Science news is largely presented by reporters with journalism educations who don't have any background in the science they're covering and as a result don't really understand the nature of what it is they're covering.
As a result, when they report an issue like climate change, they're completely unqualified to explain the actual science and instead of covering the work that scientists do, they cover the scientists instead. Instead of explaining the research that led Dr. Jones to conclude climate is changing, we get an appeal to authority.
So the reason non-scientists deny climate change is that the argument for climate change is largely being presented to them via non-scientific arguments.
Bad Predictions: Claim from the late 20th to early 21st century: Global Warming means that the planet it getting hotter. Temperatures will rise. Life: Record lows in winter Reaction: Change the term from Global Warming to Climate Change.
Actually this prediction was right, the hottest years on record are all recent years. Temperatures did rise, on average. That doesn't mean that there isn't a town where it is colder in one month of the winter.
I've also heard that many of the global warming studies don't include the solar cycles the sun goes through as well.
You mean these cycles?
Not really it is simply people making dishonest arguments. The scientific evidence that the planet is warming is overwhelming the problem is that the proposed solution - reducing greenhouse gas emissions - carries with it a huge economic impact. Not surprisingly this means there are a large number of people who believe that the economic problems from reducing greenhouse gas emissions outweighs the problems of just warming the planet.
However they believe that this argument is not strong enough to prevent everyone deciding to cut greenhouse gas emissions so, although they really believe the science, their only option to prevent the economic problems they are worried about is to attack the science and try to pretend that it is wrong. So really this is simply a dishonest argument made be people who are so afraid of the impact of curbing greenhouse gases that they attack the arguments for this in the only way that has any chance of success even though they don't really believe the argument they are making themselves
When the chips are down so to speak it is amazing how overwhelmingly people will back science. One of the best examples of this which is often pointed out is despite all the arguments in US schools about whether to teach evolution vs. creationism (or whatever fancy name is the flavour of the day) everytime there is a concern about a new disease evolving an spreading e.g. SARS, bird flu, swine flu etc. no politician stands up and says that we should do nothing because viruses can't evolve. So when lives are on the line people really do believe in science to help and guide them but if they do not see an immediate threat to their well being then they'll happily undermine and ignore it to keep up their own standard of living.
I give the bible as much credibility as I give Frank Herbert's Dune series. In fact, the latter is much better.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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
Also see Big Tobacco's decades-long war on research into the dangers of tobacco smoke and nicotine, or the more recently revealed sugar industry's war on research showing the dangers of refined sugars to human health.
Creationism was probably the first really sophisticated propaganda war on science, but it has inspired several later pseudo-scientific propaganda wars. Creationism's intentions were more to protect Christianity from the perceived threat that if science could provide answers to the life we see today, it was going to chip away at the edifice of Theism until Atheism reigned supreme. I'd also argue that for at least some branches of Protestant Evangelism, there was the more real threat that the vast amount of social control those churches wielded being undermined if they were forced to accept that vast swathes of the Bible became understood as being metaphorical, and not literal.
The story is a bit different for the tobacco, sugar, and fossil fuel industries. For them, a general acceptance of science has material costs. People reducing sugar consumption would lead to significant drops in profits. Of course, we know just how much damage the defeat of the tobacco companies has cost their investors. As for the fossil fuel industry, well it's the biggest beast of all. The entire global economy, and some of the greatest accretions of wealth ever known to humanity, are tied up in the continued exploration, extraction and use of hydrocarbons. If there is a significant shift to alternative energy sources, the fossil fuel industry will find itself a lot poorer for it, with the long-term outlook not exactly healthy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
XKCD produced this graph http://xkcd.com/1732/ to shows how temperature has changed over the last 22,000 years
One of the hallmarks of conspiracy theories is that they imagine huge numbers of people to act in ways that contradict their own interests, and for them to all do it with perfect (or near-perfect) levels of secrecy.
The idea that there's more money to be made shilling against burning petroleum than there is shilling for it is simply farfetched. And leaving that aspect out of it for the moment, what scientists want more than anything is to see the scientific consensus overturned. When that happens it's like a gold strike: everyone rushes to the new fields and tries to stake his claim.
Once upon a time there was something called the "Central Dogma of Molecular Biology" (it was actually called the "central dogma"): DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes proteins. Except then Howard Temin and David Baltimore discovered reverse transcriptase, which explained how RNA from retroviruses were able to alter host DNA. Their reward for finding an exception to the dogma? A Nobel Prize, and a brand new area for research and technological development. Reverse transcriptase made the highly sensitive and accurate PCR test possible.
Any scientist who can conclusively disprove AGW would be able to dine out on that for the rest of his life. He would go down in history as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. Most importantly, everyone would think he was waaay smarter than the other scientists.
People don't understand the function of scientific consensus. It doesn't represent a final version of the Truth; it represents a division between things statements that can be stipulated for the time being without recapitulating the entire lie of evidence (e.g. that matter is made up of atoms) and things that require citation of specific evidence (e.g. that there are stable elements with atomic numbers > 118).
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