The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

[steingar]

A really interesting article in Mother Jones, bogarted from the purple board.

 

[EdFred]

The comments are a perfect example of the article.

 

[zaitcev]

This is lovely:

On the contrary: In a 2008 Pew survey, for instance, only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college educated Republicans. In other words, a higher education correlated with an increased likelihood of denying the science on the issue.

Even if we assume that results of Pew were not made up (knowing how unreliable polls are, and how partisan Pew center are), way to spin. Take the data, then immediately present your own lies as if they were the truth. And if anyone dares to slip with flaps, crucify him.

-- Pete

 

[mantakos]

... Take the data, then immediately present your own lies as if they were the truth...

Verrry interesting. Please, lie down on the couch and relax. Tell us a little about your childhood. Were you bottle-fed?
-harry

 

[steingar]

This is lovely:

Even if we assume that results of Pew were not made up (knowing how unreliable polls are, and how partisan Pew center are), way to spin. Take the data, then immediately present your own lies as if they were the truth. And if anyone dares to slip with flaps, crucify him.

-- Pete

Apparently to some the correlation is useless since the authors come down on the wrong side of the climate debate (according to the poster). Something about questioning the appropriateness or credentials of experts if they are on the wrong side of the divide, if I recall correctly. Interesting, and wonderfully ironic.

 

[Gary F]

Climate change is a religion for some people. This might explain why.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/belief-and-the-brains-god-spot-1641022.html

 

[mantakos]

Climate change is a religion for some people. This might explain why.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/belief-and-the-brains-god-spot-1641022.html

We know climate change is an Atheist scam because God would never let something bad happen to us or the Earth! And the Heavens belong to God, we are too small and puny to have an impact. And it doesn't matter any way, because once all us good people hitch a ride on the first rapture out of here (any day now), it will just be the bad people (the funny-talkers and wrong-worshippers) left, so why care about the future?
-harry

 

[steingar]

Climate change is a religion for some people. This might explain why.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/belief-and-the-brains-god-spot-1641022.html

This article is somewhat misleading, as "religion" can be divided into religious behavior and spirituality. Religious behavior is a "meme", that is a learned trait that we acquire extrinsically, and as such would be expected to reside in the cerebral cortex. Spirituality is a personality trait that can affect religious behavior, it is under genetic control and is thought to be centered in the limbic system of the hindbrain.

All of these neural centers are involved in how we discern the world around us. It is unsurprising that they would similarly be involved in how we discern truth.

 

[jtheune]

Of course those 19% of college educated Republicans can be looking at the science behind solar output and seeing that the answer is not so simple as to say it's only mankind causing the increase in temperature. It's sort of hard to say it's only mankind when there is recorded temperature rises on Mars, Jupiter, Titon and Pluto.

 

[mantakos]

Of course those 19% of college educated Republicans can be looking at the science behind solar output...

Yeah, that's likely.

... It's sort of hard to say it's only mankind when there is recorded temperature rises on Mars, Jupiter, Titon and Pluto.

That would be a good point if the entirety of the evidence was "it's getting warmer, there are humans here, therefore...".
-harry

 

[jtheune]

so it's ok to say that since there are no humans there is ok to ignore other explanations?

 

[Telemakhos]

We know climate change is an Atheist scam because God would never let something bad happen to us or the Earth! And the Heavens belong to God, we are too small and puny to have an impact. And it doesn't matter any way, because once all us good people hitch a ride on the first rapture out of here (any day now), it will just be the bad people (the funny-talkers and wrong-worshippers) left, so why care about the future?
-harry

Are you mocking?

 

[mantakos]

so it's ok to say that since there are no humans there is ok to ignore other explanations?

If a person contracts lung cancer, but that person did not smoke, then we have proven nothing with respect to whether smoking causes lung cancer, but we have certainly proven the existence of a cause of cancer other than smoking. In other words, we have conclusively demonstrated that smoking is not the sole cause of lung cancer.

Similarly, when we see climate variation on other planets we have demonstrated nothing with respect to the possibility of human-caused climate variation here on Earth, we have simply demonstrated that there are causes of climate variation that are not the result of humans. In other words, humans are not the sole cause of climate variation.

But we already knew that.
-harry

 

[Gary F]

This explains it better than I can.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm

I do not intend to demean anybody's deeply held religious beliefs. I will be away for a while cowering in the basement in case Gaia sends a tornado to punish me for blasphemy.

 

[roncachamp]

If a person contracts lung cancer, but that person did not smoke, then we have proven nothing with respect to whether smoking causes lung cancer, but we have certainly proven the existence of a cause of cancer other than smoking. In other words, we have conclusively demonstrated that smoking is not the sole cause of lung cancer.

Similarly, when we see climate variation on other planets we have demonstrated nothing with respect to the possibility of human-caused climate variation here on Earth, we have simply demonstrated that there are causes of climate variation that are not the result of humans. In other words, humans are not the sole cause of climate variation.

But we already knew that.

Yes, what we don't know is are humans a cause of climate variation at all.

 

[Telemakhos]

This explains it better than I can.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm

I do not intend to demean anybody's deeply held religious beliefs. I will be away for a while cowering in the basement in case Gaia sends a tornado to punish me for blasphemy.

With global warming, it's not about "not believing science," it's about not believing data that is presented in dishonest ways by individuals and groups who have a lot to gain from widespread acceptance of their findings.
Kind of like how I would be disinclined to swallow whole a study sponsored by ADM that high daily starch intake promotes a healthier body, I am disinclined to believe the global warming lobby, which has nothing but money and power to gain.
Science might have been impartial and academic at one time, but that time is long gone. Just look at what has happened to our pharmaceutical industry and how it has colluded with academia to rig journals to pad Big Pharma's bottom line.

 

[mantakos]

This explains it better than I can...

In abridged form: "people who believe the things that I do not want to believe, those people are poo-heads, and therefore wrong".

This summary argument can be used by either side when the goal is a discussion void of substance, which is often the choice when we don't know the material well enough to conduct a substantive argument.
-harry

 

[mantakos]

... Kind of like how I would be disinclined to swallow whole a study sponsored by ADM that high daily starch intake promotes a healthier body...

What's peculiar about this analogy is that in this issue you have the world's largest industry, the energy industry, lined up against a distributed assortment of independent researchers, and your "ADM" is those researchers.
-harry

 

[Telemakhos]

This summary argument can be used by either side when the goal is a discussion void of substance, which is often the choice when we don't know the material well enough to conduct a substantive argument.
-harry

Ah, yes. I take it from your snotty, condescending remark that you were expecting something meatier, especially here in this peer-reviewed POA thread.
Were you expecting him to publish a thesis for you?

 

[Telemakhos]

What's peculiar about this analogy is that in this issue you have the world's largest industry, the energy industry, lined up against a distributed assortment of independent researchers, and your "ADM" is those researchers.
-harry

The climate scientists aren't exactly lone wolves. They conspire amongst themselves to shut disbelievers out of journals, labs, and academic jobs.
Climate "science" is its own industry.

 

[steingar]

The climate scientists aren't exactly lone wolves. They conspire amongst themselves to shut disbelievers out of journals, labs, and academic jobs.
Climate "science" is its own industry.

Obviously, you are intimately involved in this "industry" to make such assertions. I would therefore like the name and credentials of the scientists, especially climate scientists, you know personally.

This ought to be interesting.

 

[ebacon]

And a shrubbery?

 

[mantakos]

... They conspire amongst themselves to shut disbelievers out of journals, labs, and academic jobs...

Shun the non-believer! Shunnnnnnn!

Climate "science" is its own industry.

And how does that "industry" size up as compared to the energy industry? Which one should we be worried about in terms of its ability to wield influence and manipulate public opinion for its own interests?

After the David and Goliath cage match is over, should we be testing David for steroids use?
-harry

 

[EdFred]

Shun the non-believer! Shunnnnnnn!

And how does that "industry" size up as compared to the energy industry? Which one should we be worried about in terms of its ability to wield influence and manipulate public opinion for its own interests?

After the David and Goliath cage match is over, should we be testing David for steroids use?
-harry

If it's an Olympic event - yup!

 

[Telemakhos]

Obviously, you are intimately involved in this "industry" to make such assertions. I would therefore like the name and credentials of the scientists, especially climate scientists, you know personally.

This ought to be interesting.

Since when does anyone need to be intimately involved with individuals in an industry to pass judgement on that industry? How ridiculous.
Perhaps you don't see it as an industry, but I do. The scientists, NGOs, the UN, and many, many green energy firms and equipment manufacturers have swollen a theory of temperature variation into an enormous windfall of grants, government cash subsidies, and revenue from products that either 1)cater to the newfound public demand for "green" products, which is there in the first place because of Chicken Little nonsense, or 2) are newly researched and developed to meet new governmental regulations, which are also the product of this intense fear mongering.
So, it's an industry to me because the scientific establishment and many who choose to believe them actively have a dog in this fight, and much revenue is to be lost if/when the whole charade finally goes up in a poof of deliciously sooty smoke.

 

[ebacon]

I'm with Tele.

There's no need to be intimately involved with climate scientists. Particularly the bearded ones. They're itchy.

IMO global warming is the biggest hoax evar. No one will ever change my mind about that. Matters not whether I know anyone in the biz. All I need to know is that if Al Gore is peddling it then it's snake oil. Just like his NAFTA sales pitch in the early 1990s.

 

[EdFred]

When CO2 levels and mean surface temperatures get to be that of the Devonian period, get back to me. Until then the whole AGW theory of bringing the end of the world is nothing but polisocio-economic maneuvering to transfer power and money in a way to combat capitalism.

 

[zaitcev]

And how does that "industry" size up as compared to the energy industry? Which one should we be worried about in terms of its ability to wield influence and manipulate public opinion for its own interests?

The sizes matter not, because the climate change industry made its core business out of brainwashing people, whereas for the energy industry the PR is a coincidential activity. Also, the climate-political complex is hip-merged with the power structures, which are only indirectly accessible to the energy industry through lobbying. Also, keep in mind that large parts of "energy industry" benefit from the histeria and government handouts produced by the climate change partisans. Someone is paid to build those wind farms, you know.

 

[Telemakhos]

Shun the non-believer! Shunnnnnnn!


-harry

Yes, exactly. Like this: From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
and this: From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

As far as you saying, "Which one should we be worried about in terms of its ability to wield influence and manipulate public opinion for its own interests?" I would say that the energy industry, like natural gas, oil, and coal, is more aligned with our interest than the climate fanatics. That is to say, more often than not their interests are the same as our interests.
Obviously the climate lobby has been pretty decent at getting itself heard and getting power. Look at all of our money that has been wasted so far in pursuing whatever scheme du jour the climate mongers think will rid the world of the demon CO2 the most effectively.

 

[steingar]

Since when does anyone need to be intimately involved with individuals in an industry to pass judgement on that industry? How ridiculous.

I feel that to indite an entire branch of science with unscientific conduct because you don't like their conclusions to be reprehensible. You have made specific allegations. I would like the specifics of where they came from, i.e. your expertise to make such allegations. I doubt strongly you have any.

Perhaps you don't see it as an industry, but I do.

Mr. Magoo made similar misobservations.

The scientists, NGOs, the UN, and many, many green energy firms and equipment manufacturers have swollen a theory of temperature variation into an enormous windfall of grants, government cash subsidies, and revenue from products that either 1)cater to the newfound public demand for "green" products, which is there in the first place because of Chicken Little nonsense, or 2) are newly researched and developed to meet new governmental regulations, which are also the product of this intense fear mongering.

I will bet money that none of the climate scientists generating the data and interpretations thereof haven't seen so much of a dime from this giant windfall you seem to be describing. None that I know have. You seem to know otherwise, and once again I ask how.

TSo, it's an industry to me because the scientific establishment and many who choose to believe them actively have a dog in this fight, and much revenue is to be lost if/when the whole charade finally goes up in a poof of deliciously sooty smoke.

Again, show me how. I will agree that anyone with a buck to make will happily grease their local congresscritter, but the oil companies have been at that game a really long time and are very good at it. Moreover, the tactics used by the "green" industry you so vitriolically condemn have long been used by the oil industry to generate subsidies, rights, and lots of other good stuff up to and including wars.

So again, which climatologists do you know who are being paid off to give inaccurate conclusions? You really should say. If your allegations can be proven, the careers of these charlatans can be ended very quickly indeed. Big if though.

My apologies to the mods for not putting this in the Spin Zone. I thought of it as an interesting piece on human decision making. I didn't realize the climate thing would be, once again, contentious. Pity.

 

[Everskyward]

IMO global warming is the biggest hoax evar. No one will ever change my mind about that.

Guess that article was written about you.

 

[Telemakhos]

When CO2 levels and mean surface temperatures get to be that of the Devonian period, get back to me. Until then the whole AGW theory of bringing the end of the world is nothing but polisocio-economic maneuvering to transfer power and money in a way to combat capitalism.

Very well put, sir. I agree completely, with the caveat that some very crooked capitalists are enjoying (short-run) profits from this garbage.

 

[EdFred]

I'm with Tele.

There's no need to be intimately involved with climate scientists. Particularly the bearded ones. They're itchy.

IMO global warming is the biggest hoax evar. No one will ever change my mind about that. Matters not whether I know anyone in the biz. All I need to know is that if Al Gore is peddling it then it's snake oil. Just like his NAFTA sales pitch in the early 1990s.

I have no argument about global warming. If the data shows us getting warmer, then I can't argue against it. What I can argue against is WHY. We have a 150 year snapshot of directly measured data, out of the 65 million year Cenozoic Era we are currently in. That's 0.0002% of the time period. That's like observing a monarch butterfly for 7.25 seconds the very first time without having the knowledge of the existence of any other butterflies and being able to tell me it has 4 life cycles, lives around 6 weeks, except for the 4th generation which lives longer and migrates. Really? You can tell all that from 7 seconds of observation?

We give ourselves too much credit.

 

[ebacon]

Guess that article was written about you.

YES IT WAS!!!!

 

[Telemakhos]

I feel that to indite an entire branch of science with unscientific conduct because you don't like their conclusions to be reprehensible. You have made specific allegations. I would like the specifics of where they came from, i.e. your expertise to make such allegations. I doubt strongly you have any.

Ugh. Next time you criticize anything political, I'll ask you to trot out the names and CVs of all of the politicians you know, along with an annotated copy of your post-doctoral degree in poli-sci. Make a post on or hold an opinion about a business? Show me your email logs with the officers of the company.
How about this: I read the Climategate emails, and I found them to be damning. I read a bunch of Telegraph and WSJ articles about how consensus was manufactured amongst climate scientists, not to mention independent statistical analyses of climate models and how they don't gel with the paranoid party line, and I suppose if reading a bunch of information on a subject isn't a good qualifier for holding an opinion, then I have no valid opinion.
But, if that is true then 99.5% of what anyone writes or says is baseless garbage.
I'll paraphrase Pope John Paul II who said, in his encyclical "Fides et Ratio," that truth hangs like the body of a dove, suspended between the wings of faith and reason. In the climate issue, I find that one wing is larger and beating more ferociously. It takes too much faith in these people who, because of their private communications and public inconsistencies, I do not trust to find the eventual truth of the matter.
You seem to trust them.
On another note, I am offering a bridge for sale.

 

[dmccormack]

I have no argument about global warming. If the data shows us getting warmer, then I can't argue against it. What I can argue against is WHY. We have a 150 year snapshot of directly measured data, out of the 65 million year Cenozoic Era we are currently in. That's 0.0002% of the time period. That's like observing a monarch butterfly for 7.25 seconds the very first time without having the knowledge of the existence of any other butterflies and being able to tell me it has 4 life cycles, lives around 6 weeks, except for the 4th generation which lives longer and migrates. Really? You can tell all that from 7 seconds of observation?

We give ourselves too much credit.

Yep.

O'BRIEN: ...to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?
GORE: It definitely is, and it's a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy - when they think about it at all - in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot ...

Here's a challenge for the Gore Acolyte Climate Prognosticators: Beat the Olde Farmer's Almanac three years in a row and then we might pay attention to your claims about 50 years from now.

 

[Ted]

What the article left out that the scientists may be wrong, and those who don't believe them may simply believe that those scientists don't know what they're talking about. Degrees do not equate to accuracy.

That said, I agree fully that people will have a tendency to ignore that which they wish to ignore, regardless of its source.

 

[steingar]

Ugh. Next time you criticize anything political, I'll ask you to trot out the names and CVs of all of the politicians you know, along with an annotated copy of your post-doctoral degree in poli-sci. Make a post on or hold an opinion about a business? Show me your email logs with the officers of the company.

Big difference. Politics is neither specialized nor technical. Moreover, it involves far more opinion (i.e. this is what we ought to do) than fact (i.e. this is how things are). We all agree there is a ginormous deficit. We often disagree on what to do about it. No one can be shown to be intrinsically right or wrong. This is a far cry from climate change, where there is specific data.

How about this: I read the Climategate emails, and I found them to be damning.

My guess is because you wanted them to be so. Back to the article I started this with. I didn't find them all that damning, but I confess I didn't read them all. Colleagues didn't think so, or they wouldn't be able to publish anywhere. Indeed, the British government and just about everybody else finds them somewhat less than damning. I bet I could find some rather juicy morsels in your E-mail, or anyone else's for that matter.

I read a bunch of Telegraph and WSJ articles about how consensus was manufactured amongst climate scientists, not to mention independent statistical analyses of climate models and how they don't gel with the paranoid party line, and I suppose if reading a bunch of information on a subject isn't a good qualifier for holding an opinion, then I have no valid opinion.

Wow, you read an article! You must be a big expert! Funny, I've been hearing this "manufactured" consensus clear back to the eighties. But what do I know, I didn't read your expert articles.

But, if that is true then 99.5% of what anyone writes or says is baseless garbage.

When people make specific allegations in a field of endeavor about which they know virtually nothing, then yes, it is baseless garbage, just like you said.

I'll paraphrase Pope John Paul II who said, in his encyclical "Fides et Ratio," that truth hangs like the body of a dove, suspended between the wings of faith and reason. In the climate issue, I find that one wing is larger and beating more ferociously. It takes too much faith in these people who, because of their private communications and public inconsistencies, I do not trust to find the eventual truth of the matter.
You seem to trust them.
On another note, I am offering a bridge for sale.

I trust them because I personally know some of them. Heck, one used to be part of this board. I also know the environment in which they function. If any were discovered to be publishing falsehoods for financial gain, it would be utterly ruinous.

You don't believe me? Lets try another field of endeavor, cloning. In 2005, Hwang Woo-Suk reported success in cloning human ES cells in his lab. it turns out that the results were faked. Dr. Suk no longer has his lab, his position, or his job.

I can't imagine anyone faking results because they were paid by some fledgling green industry. If they did it to get grant money it is even worse. It would only happen once, that I can assure you. Being caught lying in science is the worst thing that can happen to a scientist.

But what do I know, I didn't read those important articles.

 

[Telemakhos]

But what do I know, I didn't read those important articles.

Hahaha. Of course you didn't. Instead, you have a statistically significant group of climate scientist friends and you trust them completely. My important articles, your important friends! Also, you just know in your heart of hearts that the peer review process is infallible, and no one group of scientists can wield enough power over the rest to keep dissenting viewpoints out of the academic and governmental literature. (Even though, Lord knows, they try!) Excellent points, all.
Plus, you bring up a scientist, that naughty rascal, who falsified data and was found to have committed fraud. Then he lost his job! Sweet! The process works!
Of course, the climate scientist's findings and allegations aren't exactly reproducible, now are they, Steingar? Saying, for example, "I cloned a bald eagle" is different than saying, "In an indeterminate number of years from now, bad things will happen unless you do exactly as I say." See, the former is a directly testable claim, while the latter is a prediction or theory based on statistics. The prediction has no merit whatsoever until proven. Climate science in it's present, invasive form is crap because their area of inquiry is too huge and has far too many variables, not too mention data collection techniques that have serious problems. (Maybe I'm not qualified, what with my lack of super sweet and all-knowing plus trustworthy friends who are scientists, to make that claim.)
So what we have are a group of dodgy scientists with nothing to lose from crappy predictions (because their predictions are set far enough out that it doesn't matter) and an imperative to trust them.
You trust away, sir. I think they're totally full of malarkey.

 

[ScottM]

The Seekers....What a bunch of maroons!

The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.Advertise on MotherJones.com

Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea swallowed much of the United States.

Everyone knows that real date 21 May 2011

Judgment Day is coming May 21, 2011 -- not sometime this decade, not sometime this year, but precisely on May 21.

The hundreds of billboards warning unrepentant commuters of their impending doom are courtesy of a California radio station led by 89-year-old Harold Camping, who initially predicted the world would end in 1994.

In New Jersey, about 30 believers paid to erect the signs in hopes of warning and saving their neighbors, said Bob James, a Morristown electrical engineer who organized the grassroots effort.

"Seven billion people are facing their death! What else could I do?" said James, who views the billboards as a message of hope. "When you have this information, with my love for my fellow man, I wanted to tell people."