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Phys.org reports:
If scientists want the public to trust their research suggestions, they may want to appear a bit "warmer," according to a new review published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
The review, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that while Americans view scientists as competent, they are not entirely trusted. This may be because they are not perceived to be friendly or warm.
[...]
Focusing on scientific communication, Fiske and Dupree administered another online survey asking adults to describe public attitudes toward climate scientists specifically to provide a clearer picture of the public's seemingly mixed feelings. The researchers used a seven-scale item of distrust that included motives derived from pilot work on scientists' alleged motives. These included such motives as lying with statistics, complicating a story, showing superiority, gaining research money and pursuing a liberal agenda, among others.
The abstract for the paper can be found here.
Although distrust is low, the apparent motive to gain research money is distrusted. The literature on climate science communicators agrees that the public trusts impartiality, not persuasive agendas. Overall, communicator credibility needs to address both expertise and trustworthiness. Scientists have earned audiences’ respect, but not necessarily their trust. Discussing, teaching, and sharing information can earn trust to show scientists’ trustworthy intentions.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:56PM
I think the real credibility problem for climate science is the false certainty and the propaganda moves. For example, the UN is routinely announcing that 2C is the maximum temperature change possible before destructive climate change effects happen and they have a very specific amount of CO2 emission reduction in mind. But their estimate of the long term CO2 temperature forcing from a doubling of CO2 varies from high to low by a factor of three (and that in turn results in even greater range for CO2 levels needed to achieve that 2C rise in temperature).
Even the favored phrase, "climate change" indicates this problem. Why use a vague label that doesn't even imply a human contribution for a very specific sort, human-induced global warming via greenhouse gas emissions? There's a certain group of advocates who are conveniently vague when they want to be and conveniently very specific when they want to be.
As to the propaganda moves, there's a history of shoddy or even fraudulent research being rushed out in time for climate change talking points such as Mann and Jones's "hockey stick" paper in 1999 (which was used to claim that warming to that time was the worst in thousands of years) to a recent "97%" paper by Cook et al (which established the current, heavily abused "97% consensus" argument for climate change). By the time the paper gets refuted, there's usually more research backing it up so advocates can move seamlessly to the next paper.
We even see it in this discussion (here [soylentnews.org] and here [soylentnews.org]) with a recent paper that is claimed to show that carbon/energy taxes don't harm anyone, even though the research in question doesn't actually study that (they study correlation of UK manufacture employment and factory closings with respect to a recent energy tax, which is far from the only sort of harm that can come from such things). This is another case where tangential research gets spun into a talking point which greatly exaggerates the relevance, scope, and certainty of the research.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 24 2014, @04:23AM
a recent "97%" paper by Cook et al (which established the current, heavily abused "97% consensus" argument for climate change).
I just hate it when people abuse a 97% consensus! I mean, they treat it just like it was a 98% consensus! (By the way, did you see John Oliver's take on the "Fair and Balanced" presentation of the 97% consensus? Hilarious!) Of course, if it was actually refuted, it wouldn't be a 97% consensus, would it! More research backing up a theory is usually called "confirmation".
So no wonder some have trust issues with scientists? 97% of scientist are out to get them!! That is a higher ratio that with zombies!
(Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday September 24 2014, @02:00PM
I guess when you haven nothing to add to a discussion, there's always sarcasm.