NPR: Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124008307

Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview

by Christopher Joyce
February 23, 2010

...

Individualists And Communitarians

To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The http://www.culturalcognition.net/">Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy beliefs.

"People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view," Braman says.

...

Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the "individualistic" group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them "communitarians."

...

"It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.

...

(Audio and transcript available at the link.)

[Zoeisright]

1. THERE. IS. NO. BELIEF. IN. SCIENCE.

I am so SICK of hearing that. You either understand science or you don't. Science observes and predicts FACTS about the world and the universe. It is not a religion.

Most people do not have the slightest clue about science, experiments, theories, and statistics. They're disagreeing over something they have no hope of understanding.

GRRRRRRRR.

[Richard D]

2. +1

[Chemisse]

3. You are so right.

As a high school chemistry teacher it is particularly upsetting to me to have students who think I am making a political statement whenever we get close to the subject of global warming. I have one student currently who tenses up and prepares for a verbal battle whenever I so much as say the words carbon dioxide.

It's hard to get mad at him, a perfectly intelligent boy with the zeal of a born again Republican shining in his eyes. It is just sad.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. It is sad

I know a number of intelligent people who simply reject the whole premise of anthropogenic climate change. (Obviously) they don't do it based on any solid scientific evidence.

However, if you start out with a given that it is impossible for humans to change the climate, one can come to a perfectly logical conclusion that any scientist who says that we are doing so is either mistaken or (more simply) lying.

If a large number of scientists are all in agreement that we are changing the climate, then there is a conspiracy (and so on.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. I wonder if this would help...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9943298

[demwing]

4. Disagree. Not all who agree with scientific conclusions do so out of knowledge.

People don't understand science, as you rightly pointed out, and as such, tend to either believe, or disbelieve in scientific conclusions. If they understood, they would either accept--or, if they had a competing theory, not accept.

Unsupported beliefs are not limited to the religious.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. I sympathize, but disagree to an extent

Even scientists develop "orthodoxies." (It's human nature, and scientists are still human.)

Let's face it, anthropogenic climate change did not immediately catch fire with all scientists. Of course a number of the most outspoken "skeptics" are conveniently skeptical, but there are others who are sincerely skeptical.

Consider Freeman Dyson for example. Dyson accepts anthropogenic global warming, but is skeptical of some of the science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Global_warming

I don't think he's on the take. I think he's quite sincere. I also think that his views have been misrepresented by the "anti-global warming" crowd.

It is possible for scientists to look at the same data and honestly come to different conclusions.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Exactly

In fact, politically-motivated skepticism is destroying the value of a great deal of scientific work, when that work is pressed into the service of anti-AGW skepticism.

One particularly sad case is that of Henrik Svensmark, who has done some valuable work on the effects of cosmic rays on climate. The problem is that it led him right into "climate skepticism". Recently, cosmic rays have been shown to have less than 10% the effect Svensmark claims, and virtually no effect on anthropogenic climate forcing. It's still useful work for very-long-term climatology, but not for "debunking" climate change models. However, Svensmark is now stuck in a very small, very uncomfortable pigeonhole, primarily of his own making.

Work that became the basis for abiogenic oil theories is similar. It's clear that its initial theorists, back in the 1950s, found some interesting geophysics happening. Once they drew politically pleasing conclusions from their data, they assured their collective ruin.

Politics, religion, and science don't mix, in ANY combination.

--d!

[bananas]

9. That's an interesting belief you have.