Posted on 02/28/2017 1:33:18 PM PST by servo1969
Here is the best (and weirdest) example of cognitive dissonance you will ever see. The set-up is that Bill Nye, an engineer by training, and a proponent of science, is defending climate science on Tucker's show.
The first weird thing is that Bill Nye starts by talking about cognitive dissonance being the only reason that anyone would be skeptical of global warming. But he seems to not understand the concept of cognitive dissonance because he believes only the other side could be experiencing it. The nature of cognitive dissonance is that you don't know you're in it when you're in it. It is only obvious to observers. If Nye had been objective, he would have noted two equal possibilities: Either the skeptics are experiencing cognitive dissonance or the proponents of climate science are experiencing it. But whoever is in it can't know. It is only obvious to the other side. That's how it works.
Yes, I do the same thing all the time. I call out my critics for being in cognitive dissonance and act as if the problem couldn't be on my end. But in my case, the context is usually that I'm teaching you how to spot it. And I also talk about the specific triggers and "tells" so you can check my work. This video has a clear trigger and an enormous tell. Best example you will ever see.
The set-up for the trigger is that Nye's self-image is that of a rational supporter of science with a command of the facts about climate science. He has made a career recently of defending science, and climate science in particular. Nye's ego depends on being consistent with his pro-science, rational stance. That's who he is.
Tucker then asked Nye a simple question about climate science. He asked how much of the warming is caused by human activity. Nye's entire ego depended on knowing whether human activity is contributing to climate change in a big way, a medium way, or a small way. Tucker wanted some details. How much difference do humans make? After all, Nye had said this was settled science. Tucker just wanted to know what that settled science said.
Nye didn't know. And by not knowing that simple answer about the percentage of human contribution to warming - the only issue that really mattered to the topic - he proved in public that his opinions on science are not based on facts or knowledge. Nye tried and tried to dodge the question, but Tucker was relentless. That was the trigger. Nye could plainly see, thanks to Tucker's simple question, that his belief in science was just a belief, because he didn't actually know the science. When your self-image and ego get annihilated on live television, you can't simply admit you have been ridiculous all along. Your brain can't let you do that to yourself. So instead, it concocts weird hallucinations to force-glue your observations into some sort of semi-coherent movie in which you are not totally and thoroughly wrong. That semi-coherent movie will look like a form of insanity to observers.
Look for Nye to go totally mental in the last minute of the clip, changing the topic to political leaks for no apparent reason. That's your tell. His brain just sort of broke right in front of you.
People do and say dumb things all the time, and it isn't always cognitive dissonance. That's why you look for the trigger to make sure the "tell" was what you thought it was.
To be fair, spotting cognitive dissonance is more like bird-watching than science. Sometimes you misidentify a bird. But this example is like an ostrich sitting on your lap. Hard to miss. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN5L2q6hfWo
Nye came off as a complete loonytune, but I was disappointed in Tucker last night. He was not as well prepared to debate Nye on the climate change issue as he should have been.
There were so many good arguments he could have presented on the skeptic side.
Man-made global warming? Please explain the Middle Warming Period.
Yes, Carlson set him up and he walked right into it.
If there was no human activity, who were the wine makers making wine for? And why were there any human wine makers if there were no humans?
The whole thing was beyond silly.
I did. The fossil remains from Antarctica show that the continent was once a lush polar forest. Not sure where the 10 degree figure came from, but I don't see how you get a lush forest if the ice caps were still there so it obviously was quite a bit hotter then.
Or it wasn't a pole, then.
Yeah - pretty sure those fossils are from when Antarctica was farther north, or maybe even when it was part of one of those super continents.
I was at a talk where the gal from NASA was talking about the south pole looking for meteorites. Due to the sublimation (evaporation) of the ice it concentrates the meteorites. She made a joke like “So - GO global warming! Yay!!” (Of course she also had the photo of the thermometer when she was there in the summer, showing -40 degrees or something.
So of course global warming isn’t causing higher temperatures that will cause the ice to melt.
Antarctica was in the same position in the Cretaceous it is now--at the pole.
Look, I'm not a geologist. But every reconstruction I've seen has Antartica at the pole during this time. Even when it was smashed together with other continents it was still in the extreme south.
If there's a reconstruction that says different, please point me to it, because I use this argument a lot.
That’s true. But you know what he left out? The polar areas will go from frozen wastelands to productive forests. Global temperatures will likely be more moderate as a result of increased evaporation and humidity.
...
Tucker asked the right question. To what degree have humans caused climate change? Another good question I like is what’s the optimum temperature?
Scientists have always called past periods of warming “optimums.”
What was missed was Nye’s claim that the climate should currently be like 1750. That was near the middle of the little ice-age, hardly optimal.
What changed?
.
Bill Nye is no scientist, he is an agitator.
And he also lies profusely.
Wine was produced in abundance in England in the 15th century.
.
“Antarctica has sat at much the same latitude for the last hundred million years. But during the Cretaceous it enjoyed a warmer, lusher climate, similar to that of the U.S. Pacific Northwest today. (The Cretaceous period started 144 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago.)”
I guess I'm thinking of earlier years. Yes - your observations make sense to most of us that realize that the earth has been changing for a long, long time.
(Although didn't the Model T come out in the late Cretaceous, and is believed to have killed all the dinosaurs?)
That I don't know, sorry. I'm sure the answer is in the literature somewhere.
I'm not.
Exactly. Their whole argument seems to be focused on the dire things that will happen to coastal areas and islands being flooded.
Well, sure, ok.
But you're gaining all this lush forest in the polar areas that are almost biological deserts now. And the Great basin of the US will go from an arid scrub desert to a shallow inland sea. Which is one of the most productive marine ecosystems--like a Mediterranean in the Western Hemisphere.
It's not doom and gloom. Just--different.
All I got out of this interview was that Nye the Lie Guy is upset that wine-worthy grapes can be grown in the UK. Don’t tell him that wine vineyards existed in Roman times or his head will explode.
You sure wouldn’t want to tell him that the Vikings were growing vineyards in Greenland from 800 AD to 1,200 AD.
Exactly! And Nye is the typical arrogant proggie overtalking bigmouth that cannot answer straightforward questions. Just a socialist talking points regurgitator that got comfortable because kiddies listened to him and smiled. At the end, we see the hate in his eyes. He’s a nasty-hearted man.
That argument is funny if you actually read the details. The companies were clearly doing simple due diligence on the matter with a sampling of studies...which were scattered and contradictory.
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