Slashdot Mirror
Those Opposed To Scientific Consensus Bolstered By 'Illusion of Knowledge' (edmontonjournal.com)
The Edmonton Journal reports:
Recently, researchers asked more than 2,000 American and European adults their thoughts about genetically modified foods. They also asked them how much they thought they understood about GM foods, and a series of 15 true-false questions to test how much they actually knew about genetics and science in general. The researchers were interested in studying a perverse human phenomenon: People tend to be lousy judges of how much they know. Across four studies conducted in three countries -- the U.S., France and Germany -- the researchers found that extreme opponents of genetically modified foods "display a lack of insight into how much they know." They know the least, but think they know the most. "The less people know," the authors conclude, "the more opposed they are to the scientific consensus."
Science communicators have made concerted efforts to educate the public with an eye to bringing their attitudes in line with the experts," they write in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. But people with an inflated sense of what they actually know -- and most in need of education -- are also the ones least likely to be open to new information.... Extreme views often come along with not appreciating the complexity of the subject -- "not realizing how much there is to know," said Philip Fernbach, lead author of the new study and a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado Boulder. "People who don't know very much think they know a lot, and that is the basis for their extreme views."
Slashdot reader Layzej links to Rational Wiki's article on "The Backfire Effect," to illustrate Fernbach's observation that "People double down on their 'counter-scientific consensus attitudes'.
"Epecially when people feel threatened or if they are being treated as if they are stupid."
Science communicators have made concerted efforts to educate the public with an eye to bringing their attitudes in line with the experts," they write in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. But people with an inflated sense of what they actually know -- and most in need of education -- are also the ones least likely to be open to new information.... Extreme views often come along with not appreciating the complexity of the subject -- "not realizing how much there is to know," said Philip Fernbach, lead author of the new study and a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado Boulder. "People who don't know very much think they know a lot, and that is the basis for their extreme views."
Slashdot reader Layzej links to Rational Wiki's article on "The Backfire Effect," to illustrate Fernbach's observation that "People double down on their 'counter-scientific consensus attitudes'.
"Epecially when people feel threatened or if they are being treated as if they are stupid."
Unfortunately the "experts" sometimes have a financial incentive to "know" what they claim is true. Therefore you have people disregarding consensus. Companies spend millions on "experts" who will tell you GM crops are perfectly fine. They might be right, or they might be lying.
The problem with this world is that wise people are full of doubt, and dumbasses are full of confidence.
Smug fake-science Monsanto shills sneer "nah nah, you're a stupid-pants!!"
You nailed it. I tried reading the linked article, but was quickly disgusted by how obviously pro-Monstanto the bias was. The article may as well have been paid for by Monsanto-Bayer (I would not be at all surprised to find out that it was), it was so obviously tainted all the way from the fake headline onward.
The fake headline is designed to encourage people to emotionally arrive at a Dunning-Kreuger conclusion, then manipulate those emotions to conclude that anti-GMO sentiment is unwarranted. But no part of the entire article deals with generalizations related to scientific consensus or the Dunning-Kreuger effect. Rather, the article is purely a pro-GMO propaganda piece designed to benefit Monsanto-Bayer.
There was once widespread agreement about phlogiston (a nonexistent element said to be a crucial part of combustion), eugenics, the impossibility of continental drift, the idea that genes were made of protein (not DNA), homosexuality was a mental disease. and stomach ulcers were caused by stress, and so forth—all of which proved false.
Science, Richard Feyman once said, is “the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
It's interesting that you immediately jumped to the conclusion that the article is pro-Monsanto, then offered up a conspiracy theory that it might have been paid for by Monsanto and then concluded that it was obviously tainted and started blathering about fake headlines.
In one sentence, you went from "may as well" to "I wouldn't be surprised" to "it's obvious" without any evidence whatsoever, which exactly the kind of uninformed reactionary response that the article is discussing. It's no wonder you felt called out and got pissed off.
A real scientist doesn't even give a shit about "experts". Experts can be (and have been) wrong. No scientist should "believe" any other scientist. Show me the EXPERIMENT, show me the DATA, and let me reproduce it for myself. Then we'll talk about whether we agree or not. All of this "belief" in science or in studies or in experts is absolutely contrary to the scientific method which MANDATES reproducible experimental results. Failure of this model, which is what we have now, lets us believe in charlatan "experts" and bogus agenda driven "studies" which no one either has the time or money to reproduce, and be led down a path that's not necessarily the TRUTH - which is what science ultimately looks for.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This guy needs to read the essay "the relativity of wrong".
Science is the only way of knowing we have. It's far from perfect but it's much less wrong than everything else.
Ths attitude of "scientits have been wrong so you should believe someone with a much worse record" is utterly facile.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
I've never seen so much smug in a Slashdot comment section. So many people preening and bray that they have the popular opinions, so they must be smart! That's not how any of this works.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It is a bad strategy. It misinforms (lies to) people about GMOs for the purpose of trying to constrain Monsanto's villainy which is a different but related problem. It would be better to tell people the truth: FDA-approved GMO foods pose no inherent risk to your body, and GMO crops are no worse for the environment or farmers than traditional crops, but Monsanto is a corporation trying to gain control over the world's food supply, and they sell the seeds for most GMO foods.
It's a bad idea for the same reasons that lying about global warming to try to trick the idiots into supporting the scientifically correct position would be.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
All of this is true, but the above argument (predictive or isn't) it used by people to attack the theory of AGW on the specific basis that the models don't accurately predict what's going to happen on their block. They don't actually claim to, but that person is still going to use that argument and then sit back like they've accomplished something other than willful ignorance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
That's technically true while managing to be mostly wrong in practice.
Yes, it is true that predictiveness is the only thing that matters at a fundamental level. On the other hand most non experts do not have anything like sound reasons for disagreeing with a consensus of experts. Sure you might be more like the plate tectonics guy, but there's a much higher chance you're more like the timecube guy instead.
As the saying goes, they laughed at Einstein. They also laughed at Bozo The Clown. The mere act of disagreeing makes you no more likely to be the former than the latter and statistically you're gonna be the latter.
So many people preening and bray that they have the popular opinions, so they must be smart!
Don't worry, there a small but ardent contribution from those that preen and bray over how having contrarian opinions makes them smart.
That's not how any of this works.
Quite so.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
Bullshit.
The Scientific Method is literally built on consensus. You come up with a hypothesis, test it, tweak it until it matches observations, others test it and come to a consensus that it is correct. It then generally will be integrated into a theory and tested to ensure the theory still matches observations and accepted or tweaked further depending on the consensus of all those who have tested it.
Scientific consensus, while not able to escape human nature, generally means everyone agrees that there have been no other observations to disagree with whatever is being discussed. Like everything else in science, if someone comes along with different data and observations, then there will be edits to incorporate them - after they have been tested and accepted.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
That might be true if there was only one person in the world.
As it stands, any idiot can claim to have scientifically proved something, and be wrong. Other scientists must repeat the experiments, and agree with the result, before a model can be reliably considered predictive.
The word for that is "consensus."
The problem has been that the AGW models don't very accurately predict what their supposed to predict, either. Oh, they're not hopelessly off, by any means, but the correlation and predictive power is that of a young science. They've gotten a bit better than psychology, in terms of statistical accuracy, for what that's worth.
But people don't want to talk about the accuracy of the models. People want to proclaim tribal membership, either holding them as holy scripture, or dismissing them as garbage, to show which side the speaker of on. That sort of talk is religion (or perhaps sports team fandom), not science.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That's not "consensus", dammit! The scientific method is not dependent on whether an idea is popular. How many scientists agree or disagree has no bearing. It's nut a fucking popularity contest.
What you're talking about is "confirmation", not "consensus".
Truth is not a social construct. This is the fundamental point of disagreement between normal people and bizarre post-modernist ideologues.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I like how selling seeds and pestices to people who want them is suddenly "a distastefull business contract". Monsanto derangement syndrome still in full swing, even though the company doesn't even exist any more.