Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Journal by khallow
I ran across a recent study ("Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues", published July 2022) that had some interesting results. The study asked subjects to rate their opposition to some scientific claim that is generally held to be true (a "consensus"). They then asked the subjects to evaluate their own knowledge in the area and finally tested the subjects on their actual knowledge of the subject. This resulted in a three value data set of "opposition", "subjective knowledge", and "objective knowledge". The opposition questions are listed in the above study.

For example, one on GM foods:

"Consuming foods with ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming foods modified by conventional plant improvement techniques."

The primary conclusion is that for a number of claims that are generally held to be true by consensus, opposition to those results show interesting correlations: opposition correlates negatively with objective knowledge (what the final test indicated that the subject knew about the field), and positively with subjective knowledge (what the subject thought they knew about the field). Those who were most opposed tended to exhibit a large gap between what they knew and what they thought they knew.

Here's the list of subjects and then I'll get to the punch line:

  • GM foods
  • Vaccination
  • Homeopathic medicine
  • Nuclear power
  • Climate change
  • Big bang
  • Evolution

Which one wasn't like the others?

Climate change!

The question was in the same vein as the rest:

Most of the warming of Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century has been caused by human activities.

Unlike every other field listed in this research, there was a slight positive correlation between opposition to the claim and objective knowledge of the subject (see figure 2).

What other consensus viewpoints are out there where agreement with the consensus correlations with greater ignorance of the subject? Economics maybe?

 

Reply to: Re:Trees vs khallow

    (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM (#1268206)

    I literally told you how to see the evidence for yourself, two clicks away from this page.

    No, you claimed there was evidence there and have provided nothing otherwise. I'm not playing your game. It's your argument, you do the work.

    In contrast, when you finally got around to mentioning specific droughts that you stated were on par with the current drought in the UK, I accepted your statement in good faith.

    Because I did the work. I provided specific dates and a citation that backed that up. Do you really not see the difference?

    FatPhil's reply to your comment noted that your source is unreliable. You made no attempt to defend the accuracy of your source. That tells me that your comment should be ignored as it is highly likely to be BS. Even if your source wasn't BS, you admit that given the correct CO2 concentrations in the models, they do a really good job of predicting temperatures.

    They do a better job once we ignore their understating of carbon sinks. We still have the problem that half of predicted warming from existing CO2 increases hasn't happened yet and may not ever happen!

Post Comment

Edit Comment You are not logged in. You can log in now using the convenient form below, or Create an Account, or post as Anonymous Coward.

Public Terminal

Anonymous Coward [ Create an Account ]

Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!


Score: 0 (Logged-in users start at Score: 1). Create an Account!

Allowed HTML
<b|i|p|br|a|ol|ul|li|dl|dt|dd|em|strong|tt|blockquote|div|ecode|quote|sup|sub|abbr|sarc|sarcasm|user|spoiler|del>

URLs
<URL:http://example.com/> will auto-link a URL

Important Stuff

  • Please try to keep posts on topic.
  • Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
  • Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
  • Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
  • Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
  • If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.

If you are having a problem with accounts or comment posting, please yell for help.