Climate Change and Confirmation Bias

Reason ^ | July 12, 2011 | Ronald Bailey

[neverdem]

A new study suggests that your values, not science, determine your views about climate change.

The more scientifically literate you are, the more certain you are that climate change is either a catastrophe or a hoax, according to a new study [PDF] from the Yale Cultural Cognition Project.

Many science writers and policy wonks nurse the fond hope that fierce disagreement about issues like climate change is simply the result of a scientifically illiterate American public. If this “public irrationality thesis” were correct, the authors of the Yale study write, “then skepticism about climate change could be traced to poor public comprehension about science” and the solution would be more science education. In fact, their findings suggest more education is unlikely to help build consensus; it may even intensify the debate.

Led by Yale University law professor Dan Kahan, the Cultural Cognition Project has been researching how cultural and ideological commitments shape science policy discourse in the United States. To probe the public’s views on climate change, the Yale researchers conducted a survey of 1,500 Americans in which they asked questions designed to uncover their cultural values, their level of scientific literacy, and what they thought about the risks of climate change.

The group uses a theory of cultural commitments devised by University of California, Berkeley, political scientist Aaron Wildavsky that “holds that individuals can be expected to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce values that they share with others.” The Wildavskyan schema situates Americans’ cultural values on two scales, one that ranges from Individualist to Communitarian and another that goes from Hierarchy to Egalitarian. In general, Hierarchical folks prefer a social order where people have clearly defined roles and lines of authority...

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

That isn’t what that sentence actually says.

[trebb]

I know what the sentence said and I decided to have some ironic fun with it. Since they brough into question whether scientists were thinking with the rational parts of their brains or with the parts considered their "hearts" (once again, not literal excerpts but easy enough to derive as meaningful inference), it seemed that they were saying that there are "scientists" out there who decide to bypass scientific methodology and who will create results to match their "feelings".

I'm curious - do you believe we need to take serious measures to stop man-caused global climate change?

[Quix]

Have just started this video . . . I think you’d find it interesting . . .

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2129165010048711403#

[Quix]

Hmmmmmmmmm

He’s linking a lot of things together . . . plausibly.

Some new puzzle pieces, . . .

Some interesting contentions re Scripture, science, Egyption and other cultures’ records about

Ark of the Covenant

‘monoatomic gold’ etc.

resonating frequencies with DNA . . .

Controlled study . . . fed such monoatomic substances . . . effects immediate and cumulative . . . left and right brains functioned more equally and more in synchrony.

Interesting contentions.

For those with a particular interest in such—it could be a fascinating video.

Actually, the one thing, so far, that I’m certain he’s wrong about—is the bit about us purportedly using a fraction of our brain power. fMRI etc. imaging has shown that’s basically false.

[Quix]

Hmmmmmmmmm

He’s linking a lot of things together . . . plausibly.

Some new puzzle pieces, . . .

Some interesting contentions re Scripture, science, Egyption and other cultures’ records about

Ark of the Covenant

‘monoatomic gold’ etc.

resonating frequencies with DNA . . .

Controlled study . . . fed such monoatomic substances . . . effects immediate and cumulative . . . left and right brains functioned more equally and more in synchrony.

Interesting contentions.

At about the mid-point . . . gets into a cotton farmer’s discovery . . . from their poor soils . . . and resulting experimental measures get really interesting with a variety of scientific labs . . .

Some interesting stuff when they came to applying for a patent . . .

For those with a particular interest in such—it could be a fascinating video.

Actually, the one thing, so far, that I’m certain he’s wrong about—is the bit about us purportedly using a fraction of our brain power. fMRI etc. imaging has shown that’s basically false.

[Quix]

Somehow, posting efforts are not behaving as predicted . . .

The video gets really interesting and very scientific at about the mid-point.

Very very fascinating.

One of the more interesting videos I’ve seen in the last 10-20 years.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2129165010048711403#

Resonances become a very fascinating issue.

Implications for a long list of things including causing the DNA to cure cancer cells.

[Joya]

Laurence Gardner

Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark

[Mrs.Z]

I teach physics at a prep school and tell my kids...

“your local weatherperson can’t predit what’s going to happen 10 miles from here, 10 minutes from now...

and yet using exactly the same instruments and programs, GW “experts” are making predictions for the entire planet decades from now?!?”

They get it.

[Joya]

Ping.

[grey_whiskers]

Actually, the one thing, so far, that I’m certain he’s wrong about—is the bit about us purportedly using a fraction of our brain power. fMRI etc. imaging has shown that’s basically false.

Given most of the contributors to DU, that has some *really* frightening implications.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

The whole point of the scientific method is to provide a method whereby confirmation bias can be bypassed and the truth be constantly approximated more closely.

Unfortunately, the current peer review process accomplishes almost exactly the opposite.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

The ONLY reason that the "anti-GW" side of the equation has gotten any exposure at all has been due to the availability of the internet and the ability to bypass the people who have foresaken their guardianship, and become "gatekeepers" instead. Or perhaps the informational equivalent of "Maxwell's demon".

FREEPMAIL COMING, PLEASE ANSWER.

[marbren]

Wow

[Quix]

LOL. True. True.

[Quix]

Unfortunately, the current peer review process accomplishes almost exactly the opposite.

---

Absolutely, indeed.

As does, sadly, tenure.

[Quix]

Thanks for your kind reply.

Looks like my prediction that the END TIMES will be demonstrating even the nature of reality turning inside out and upside down . . . is really going to be truer than even I thought.

Interesting.

For those who haven’t watched the video, yet, you can pretty much skip the first half—it’s mostly documenting how such substances were documented to have been known about in several ancient cultures.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2129165010048711403#

[marbren]

I did a google search on monatomic gold. Wow. It could even be a cia black ops, ufo, reptilian, mind control, alchemy, even psyc op scam, FBI misinformation or what ever. No way to vett it out. Of interest to you Quix is a spiritualist native American shaman or some such said to beware of it. The speaker in the video died about a year ago.

[Quix]

Sounds to me like there’s plenty to be

WARY OF

AND AWARE OF

in the whole ball park.

[marbren]

Orbitally Rearranged Monatomic Elements ORMUS. Farmer David Hudson of Phoenix AZ started this alchemy in the 70’s? Is this just a mind game by the PTB? No google search makes any sense. Now I am finding connections to Free Energy and 911? even ties to the illuminati and Harry Potter and the sorcerers stone.

[Quix]

DOODNESS!

Spare us!