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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?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:26PM (13 children)
Since you speak of my narcissism, let's talk about me for a bit. Way back in 1994, I joined a play money betting market (I think it started life as "Idea Futures" and later moved on to the Foresight Exchange [ideosphere.com] where almost 30 years later, I remain the second highest scoring player in that game.
Well anyway, they created a claim way back in 1994 that sea level would rise a meter by 2030. Being of open mind, I considered the possibility and did some research. Turns out sea level rise was somewhere over 3 mm per year back then. I concluded that there was no way it would hit a meter of sea level rise by 2100, much less by 2030. There were some suckers who felt otherwise and could get pretty hysterical about it. Needless to say, they contributed to my score in that game.
Since, I've seen almost 30 years of this sad, ridiculous bullshit. Something terrible was always going to happen in a decade or two, but it never did. Something scary was happening now - if you squinted at the data the right way. Sure, there is climate change, but the rollout is considerably slower than advertised and the consequences far less dire. Yet they keep doubling down with more over-the-top scenarios and fringe statistics like what's been discussed in this thread.
There's a reason I believe that the above study shows more than just a statistical quirk. Even the relatively knowledgeable advocates for climate change mitigation have their brains shut off. And everyone is so absolutely certain about crap nobody has a clue about such as the alleged unprecedented weather of the three studies mentioned earlier. It's precisely the sort of person this study was meant to study.
My take? I was right then, and I remain right now because I understand this phenomena better. It's not about climatology. It's about the human mind and its need for scary stories.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:40PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:18PM (3 children)
Ok boomer.
Don't break a bone trying to pat yourself on the back.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:30PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:32PM (1 child)
Don't worry, there will still be plenty of people here to repeatedly demonstrate how embarrassingly wrong you are about everything other than COVID-19 and Ukraine.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:37PM
I too doubt we'll ever run out of idiots. At least, you're not wrong about everything, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:16PM (7 children)
You're making shit up like you always do.
You find the most outlandish prediction you can, then claim it's somehow representative of what climatologists are predicting. You say the outlandish prediction is false, then pat yourself on the back and proclaim you're smarter than everyone else when the outlandish prediction fails.
Sea level rise was not projected to rise a meter by 2030. Even the most extreme scenario at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf [noaa.gov] only projects sea levels rising by 0.24 m between 2000 and 2030. Going back to a 2004, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003RG000139 [wiley.com] doesn't come even close to projecting a sea level rise of a meter or even half a meter between 1990 and 2030.
The fact that you accurately identified outlandish prediction as false in your game does not mean you're smarter than all of the climatologists. Anyone with half a clue could look at climatologists' actual projections and see that nobody was projecting a meter of sea level rise between 1994 and 2030. If you really had a track record of being right about predicting climate, you would not have chosen an outlandish example like this to validate your supposed expertise. Since you chose this example, it's a pretty good sign that you're not right about very much at all.
The fact that you're patting yourself on the back as being right on the basis of refusing to click three links demonstrates that your ignorance is willful. You don't want to look at the studies because you're afraid they might challenge your views. It's like a toddler putting their hands over their ears and screaming "la-la-la, I can't hear you." Your childish outburst and refusal to look at the studies doesn't mean you're right.
You've been right on two things: COVID-19 and Ukraine. That's it. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
My take? You have a room temperature IQ. We're just not sure if the units are degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celsius.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24PM (6 children)
Like claiming that weather events are unprecedented just because one's model said so? I'm not the only one here providing the outlandish predictions.
The fundamental outlandish prediction here is that an increase of 1.5 C in global mean temperature from pre-Industrial Age is so terrible a thing that we need to stop all greenhouse gases emissions to keep it from happening. I assure you a lot of climatologists are peddling that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:27PM (5 children)
There you go again behind dishonest and misrepresenting things. Climatologists are saying that we need to limit the warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. You already knew that, however. You're just not here to discuss this topic honestly, and we already knew that about you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:33PM (3 children)
[...]
Strange that you think you are disagreeing.
My take is that we need to hit negative population growth for a while or all this concern over climate won't matter a bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:46PM (2 children)
Is the next step where you recommend a eugenics program to encourage the right type of people to continue society? Hopefully not, aside from downplaying the 1/6 insurrection you don't seem to be quite out there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:10AM (1 child)
Should it be? I'll note that much of the climate change mitigation program is an implicit eugenics program. After all, not everyone can have a developed world lifestyle right? We have to make sacrifices somewhere.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:17AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @11:49PM
I see both the EU and California are preparing to ban hydrocarbon-fueled cars by 2035. I bet they're not doing that on a lark, but rather because scary dangerous climate change is getting close to those limits above. What's sad about the exercise is that the people pushing hard for this won't even slow down carbon emissions only the emerging world of China, India, and other similar countries will do that and well, they're not really interested in that these days.
As to the "avoid the worst impacts of climate change", it's a Venus-style atmosphere. Even a 10 C rise in temperature won't get you that. Thus, we have the usual problem of things getting progressively worse as the temperature rises. Most people agree on that. What gets missed is that it's a trade off not a firm line of death that one should never cross. And there are huge benefits to both humanity and the natural world from the economic activity of the next century that would more than justify generating some degree of significant warming.