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The Thinking Error At The Root of Science Denial

posted by martyb on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:31AM   
from the I-don't-want-knowledge-I-want-certainty dept.

stormwyrm writes:

Jeremy P. Shapiro, a professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve University, has an article on The Conversation about one of the main cognitive errors at the root of science denial: dichotomous thinking, where entire spectra of possibilities are turned into dichotomies, and the division is usually highly skewed. Either something is perfect or it is a complete failure, either we have perfect knowledge of something or we know nothing.

Currently, there are three important issues on which there is scientific consensus but controversy among laypeople: climate change, biological evolution and childhood vaccination. On all three issues, prominent members of the Trump administration, including the president, have lined up against the conclusions of research.

This widespread rejection of scientific findings presents a perplexing puzzle to those of us who value an evidence-based approach to knowledge and policy.

Yet many science deniers do cite empirical evidence. The problem is that they do so in invalid, misleading ways. Psychological research illuminates these ways.

[...] In my view, science deniers misapply the concept of “proof.”

Proof exists in mathematics and logic but not in science. Research builds knowledge in progressive increments. As empirical evidence accumulates, there are more and more accurate approximations of ultimate truth but no final end point to the process. Deniers exploit the distinction between proof and compelling evidence by categorizing empirically well-supported ideas as “unproven.” Such statements are technically correct but extremely misleading, because there are no proven ideas in science, and evidence-based ideas are the best guides for action we have.

I have observed deniers use a three-step strategy to mislead the scientifically unsophisticated. First, they cite areas of uncertainty or controversy, no matter how minor, within the body of research that invalidates their desired course of action. Second, they categorize the overall scientific status of that body of research as uncertain and controversial. Finally, deniers advocate proceeding as if the research did not exist.

Dr. David "Orac" Gorski has further commentary on the article. Basically, science denialism works by exploiting the very human need for absolute certainty, which science can never truly provide.

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Original Submission

• Re:Or... (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:45PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:45PM (#920433)

  Jefferson in his famous, 'Notes on the State of Virginia' [wikipedia.org] also referenced climate change:

  "A change in our climate however is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now. This change has produced an unfortunate fluctuation between heat and cold, in the spring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits. From the year 1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years, there was no instance of fruit killed by the frost in the neighbourhood of Monticello. An intense cold, produced by constant snows, kept the buds locked up till the sun could obtain, in the spring of the year, so fixed an ascendency as to dissolve those snows, and protect the buds, during their developement, from every danger of returning cold. The accumulated snows of the winter remaining to be dissolved all together in the spring, produced those overflowings of our rivers, so frequent then, and so rare now."

  The changes Jefferson mentioned mostly predated the industrial revolution, yet were quite rapid and severe in presentation. And there's 0 reason to doubt the accuracy of what he said. Yet were a person of the 'climate religion' to observe such changes today they would immediately begin to become frantic fearing it's finally happening with Virginia on track to become a desolate desert in but a matter of decades. No doubt the media would be certain to repeat such a message 24/7.

  I find it difficult to imagine it's only a coincidence that as we've abandoned our religions of the past, so many new views and values have emerged that are very much taking the exact same form as religions. It's probably something inherent in humans to want to worship an unquestionable ideology. Perhaps it works as a cornerstone from which one can find comfort and sanctity, even if (like religions of the past) it's busy telling you you were going to go the metaphorical hell if you didn't spend every waking moment freaking out in the name of said ideology.

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