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from the I-don't-want-knowledge-I-want-certainty dept.
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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LVDOVICVS on Thursday November 14 2019, @01:42AM (2 children)
I like what I once heard John Cleese say; "Science is a method of investigation, not a belief system."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:39PM (1 child)
Mostly true but a little false.
I can't personally replicate 99.9% of what I am told is true by science, so I have to take it on faith that it is true.
If it makes logical sense to me, great, but entire fields of science don't pass that bar. Quantum physics, anyone? Yes, you can demonstrate to someone the double slit experiment, but even that is unlikely to happen. 99.9% of people will just hear about it on TV, from a friend, or read about it in a magazine. It's up to them to believe it or not or just disregard any thought of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:46PM
Sorry, but to prove my own point about how hard it is for the average person to replicate scientific results, the double slit experiment would only show me that light is a wave.
To empirically show that light also has a particle-like aspect, I would need a photon detector at the slits, something that is beyond the average person.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @01:43AM (5 children)
The dichotomy goes beyond the science. It also involves solutions.
On one side: None of this climate change stuff exists.
On the other side: We face a climate disaster, so we must do everything! We can hand over American money to corrupt 3rd-world nations to give them green technology. We can create carbon trading, so the high-frequency traders can get their cut of the economy and cause a flash crash whenever they feel like doing so. We must tax and regulate industry until it 100% moves to countries that don't give a damn, and then use foreign ships burning oil (ours will be electric and only serve domestic routes) to supply Walmart and Amazon. After the economy collapses under all that, we'll just tax the "rich" (40th percentile and above) to fund fake jobs for our worker's paradise.
So if that is the choice I'm given, what am I going to say? The option to say "climate change is real and we're not going to do a damn thing" is not on the table.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @04:40AM
Those are some fabulous strawmen you've got there.
Did you make those up all by yourself? I'm sure mom is so proud of you!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 14 2019, @10:34AM (3 children)
I spot a false dichotomy right in your argument. What doesn't appear in your choice of options is: “Climate change is real, and we apply reasonable measures to fight it, because if we do nothing then things get worse than if we apply those measures.”
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:31PM (2 children)
This third option is not being sold to the public.
"Reasonable measures." This is an undefined term and our opinions of what this is are bound to differ.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:37PM (1 child)
Stop listening to Fox News denials. ALL solutions we have are extremely reasonable. All solutions being implemented in the world are extremely reasonable. Like, you know, insulate your fucking house - if you spend more than $100/mo on heating or cooling your house, your house is wasting energy. But I know denialists that would spend $2000+ on yearly heating/cooling costs while moaning how adding R40 insulation on their roof for $1000 is too fucking expensive.
The only unreasonable solution is sold by Fox News propagandists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:14PM
Please! The low hanging fruit has already been picked. You aren't going to "save the earth" by taking a bus instead of driving your car.
What is needed to make a dent in the problem will require technological revolutions, not small personal gestures.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @02:05AM
Indiscriminately believing anything and everything the media present as "science" is a symptom of same dichotomous, black-and-white, us-against-them mindset, as wholesale rejecting "godless science". But, even more stupid and more damaging than it.
For a rather obvious reason that when the media scream something in unison, it does not mean every editor at once got overwhelmed by Transcendent Shine of Truth (tm); it means a much more mundane thing, that those with money and power paid handsomely to carpetbomb the gullible with that specific message; and it is right easy to figure both that if they did, it is to ensure a much greater revenue stream into their coffers, and from whose pockets said stream is to flow there.
Herd dogs and their owners are not friends to anyone in the herd. Believing otherwise is inviting oneself to barbeque in a bad way.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @03:20AM
That's the field that concerns itself with convincing people to act like the guys with money want, isn't it?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday November 14 2019, @03:45AM (4 children)
I can go to museums and see fossil evidence of evolution and be amazed. I can read about Polio in history books, and learn how millions used to get sick before vaccines. Thank you, Dr. Salk. What has climate "science" achieved? They recognize El Nino and have identified links between orbital cycles and glaciation. That's pretty meager. The CO2 stuff is all speculative. Sure, you can trust the "scientists", just like people trust preachers. Many others don't trust preachers. Thanks for gaslighting us, Shapiro.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @04:09AM (1 child)
lawl
Someone should tell NASA & Friends those satellites were a total waste of time.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Friday November 15 2019, @02:48AM
Do you even know what "speculative" means? It means some people think it's true. It's reasonable to investigate with satellites.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:45AM (1 child)
Oh, wow. Must be cool in that Universe of yours.
I mean, the Universe where you could see the Higgs boson creation with your very eyes; and experience the time-space distortion near a Kerr black hole in a so believable sense of it that is beyond the (easily measurable but) speculative increase in atmospheric CO2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:04PM
So you think measuring CO2 increase is an achievement of climate science? Spectroscopists and instrument makers (physicists and engineers) get credit for that. Climate science has achieved so little that there are hardly any eminences in the field whom the public might trust because of their past achievements. Who has achieved a noteworthy result and said something about global warming?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday November 14 2019, @04:33AM (13 children)
Science is not the first class citizen of the western society. The money is.
You cannot develop good science in a post-truth society, where feelings about math results supersedes exactness of computation, not even remotely.
This is why Eastasia (China+both Koreas+Japan+Russia) will prevail over Oceania (NATO) in a real world in this very century.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:49AM (12 children)
I still have (some) faith in the Europeans (= NATO - USA). I mean, look, many of them are social-democracies that work, they use money as a mean not as an end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:56AM (3 children)
What do you mean?
- Dean from the Choirboys
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @07:21AM (2 children)
I'm beyond meaning already, I'm eviling something secret.
Otherwise, in the daily life, just your average guy. (grin)
(I'll see myself out)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:23AM (1 child)
I see, you are a mean guy. I mean, an average is a mean, right? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:57AM
Well, only a bit above the median, otherwise yes a pretty ordinary decent evil guy; nothing criminal in it, innit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday November 14 2019, @06:32AM (7 children)
Reality check: How many European countries are actually monarchies?
Does feudalism count as a democracy, if serfs can vote for bailiffs?
Does the advancement of this creepy corporate democratic feudalism to creepy socialist oligarchy neofeudalism count as progress?
And 141 years old Social Democratic party in Czech Republic collapsed recently, fallen under the electoral treshold.
It is the systemic divergence from reality, which destroys the West.
Science is just a collateral victim.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @07:12AM (6 children)
Modern constitutional monarchies have nothing wrong. I can argue based on the evidence and direct experience that it actually provides the same necessary checks and balances a presidency has and saves the waste of time/money/public attention spent on the additional electoral issues.
I'm living in Australia, which has the prime-minister as the person de-facto in charge with the executive, with the "governor" (the representative of the monarch) only in charge with kicking out an unruly parliament (if it happens) and trigering new elections. On the American continent, Canada is the same. Japan is the same. Fer fuck sake, even Thailand has more troubles due to its military than from its monarch.
What the fuck argument is that? Do you have examples of things going wrong because of the constitutional monarchies in the modern era?
Apologies, but to my understanding this comes as quite an incoherent rant.
The fuck if I know what "creepy corporate democratic feudalism" and "creepy socialist oligarchy neofeudalism" can mean and what is the relevance in the context of an old party going extinct. It resembles pretty much the Chewbacca defense, and beat me if I'm going to accept the "You must acq..."... err, sorry... "Science is just a collateral victim" conclusion.
Would you be so kind to rephrase and make your point clearer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday November 14 2019, @08:39AM (5 children)
This is the moment where you lost me.
To make my point clearer: It is all about sovereignty and ownership of people.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:13AM (4 children)
Which has nothing to do with modern constitutional monarchies [wikipedia.org].
Saying so it's like saying the umpire/referee or any kind of role that oversees the rules of a sport is owning the two teams/contestants over the duration of a game and imposes a tyranny on the players who can no longer be sovereign over their body. When it's actually just an impartial observer that blow the whistle when the game departs from the rules agreed before the game began.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday November 14 2019, @10:09AM (3 children)
I do not accept the concept of modern constitutional monarchy. To me, it is a lie. I see the purpose of this lie: 1. to placate subjects by illusion of freedom, like providing a wider corral to livestock 2. shift burden of control to controlling them indirectly instead of directly. Did you forgot you actually live in a former penal colony for exile prisoners?
I do not accept representative democracy either. That's not a real democracy, but a fake one. It is fake by pre-selection of candidates who are granted the privilegium of candidacy.
What I do accept: direct democracy. Every human should have right to participate individually and directly in all decisions which are important to him, to people close to him and his fate.
It is a completely different topology of control. Not a hierarchy. Those, who decide to go into a war, should go first.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @11:43AM (2 children)
You can bring horse to the water...
Well, son, it it what it is, whether you accept it or not.
Well, dream on. You won't find pure freedom ever on Earth.
Whenever you live with just one other human around, your freedom is already gone, you will need to make compromises to live together. Yes, sure, in two, it will be each of you to give up to a part of the freedom in exchange of living together.
Even more so with hundreds - you already need a set of rules to negotiate and reach the compromise.
A lot more of that freedom lost when you need to live with millions. Those rules to reach the compromise are a lot more inflexible and hard to change (it's called constitution and legal system). That's when you'll also see a perpetual "fringe", it is impossible to keep everyone happy with one compromise or another.
Billions? Heh, that's virtually impossible to keep everyone satisfied with any degree of freedom available.
And this is relevant... exactly how?
I'd like to experience it too.
But I'm not sure you will actually like it if you get to live it - too much individualism and intransigence expressed in your opinions until know, I'm not sure you can accept the level of compromises a direct democracy requires.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @12:53PM (1 child)
Problem: direct democracy doesn't scale.
At best, it might work at the town (not city) level.
We delegate things in order to get them done.
Judging by the effects of referenda in California, I'm on the fence of declaring them good or bad. It may be a wash.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 14 2019, @02:03PM
It scales well enough to the size of Switzerland cantons. Not a pure direct democracy at the federal level, but strong instruments for the local level to have a say about the federal one. Internet may help on the technical side of scaling up, but that's the easy problem in the matter of scaling.
Speaking personally, I'm on the fence on the balance between different levels of locality in a direct democracy.
On the "strong federal level" extreme - too much variation in interests across geographies, traditions, even cultures - melting them in the federal pot is likely to be hurtful for the local level more often than not.
On the other extreme with a strong local (as local as county?) level, too many individual directions limit the projects that does require national level participation.
Besides, there's the matter of the big business vs civil governance - there are enough corporations able to literally buy entire counties (or small/economic weak countries). If that starts happening, "divided we fall" is an inevitable end to it - corporatist feudalism will become a reality (you may think that a "company town" the size of one country is a dystopia. Just don't tell me it's an impossible one, Apple's cash stash [cnbc.com] can buy the Puerto Rico's bond debt three times over [wikipedia.org] and is 25 times the GDP of Rwanda for 2017 [google.com])
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:39AM
I'm not sure biological evolution belongs into this list. As far as I can tell, the only ones who doubt biological evolution are religious fundamentalists who won't believe anything that's perceived as being against their holy book. That's a whole other level than just your average conspiracy theory.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @01:05PM
Read a little bit between the lines. The science people argue using logic and the non-science people argue based on emotions. When you're fighting battles on different planes, neither side can ever win. Arguments bascially pass through each other and never hit.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday November 14 2019, @03:19PM
Fortunately, we have tells to inform us when people are spouting junk science. Quoting the bogus [wattsupwiththat.com] 97 percent papers on climate scientists who "believe in human-caused global warming" is a great one. The research this assertion was based on has a remarkably dysfunctional [forbes.com] approach such as arbitrarily counting and excluding of research by "climate scientists" and equating agreement on mild questions with more extreme positions. Similarly, lumping every climate change skeptic into the small category of those who don't believe in AGW (anthropogenic global warming) at all is profoundly dishonest. I'd say most agree that there's some AGW, but disagree on a variety of things, such as whether or not to do anything about it.
So anyway, as a result, this is a great test for finding "science deniers" in climatology. If they're uncritically citing terrible research as Mr. Shapiro does, then you know.
Finally, I guessed that this was just a slam at criticism of climate change theory at the beginning from reading the very selective interpretation of what "science deniers" were (with the use of "deniers" almost giving away the game by itself) and the lumping of climate change with evolution theory and vaccinations. Sure, our anti-vax guy does issue similar arguments. But it's awful hard to beat a three order of magnitude reduction in measles cases, for example. That's signal. Climate research doesn't have a similar solid result when it comes to claims of harm from AGW so it is yet again, dishonest to compare climate change to the other two.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday November 14 2019, @09:39PM
>at the root of science denial
Oh a new mental illness for my collection? cool. So, we start by lumping together evolution denial, "climate change countermeasures effectiveness" denial, "vaccine inoculation policy" skeptics, then finding a common factor which should be verified for every single instance of denialism to be a cause and proclaiming it a cause, moreover the root cause. Fantastic.
I'll tell you my root cause. I was born in the 70s and quite fed up with the "by 2000 this will happen" and "we are returning to space real soon now". I know it's an instance of poisoning the well fallacy. THIS is the root cause for skepticism. Skepticism is also the statistically most correct position too. Other factors: green economy being deeply infiltrated by the mafia, countries using environmental red tape to curb competition by only nominally following the rules, commies needing a new ideology to divide generations and organize the younger one, a bipartisan push for statalism and the one world government.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday November 15 2019, @07:48PM
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets.