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One is not like the others

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?

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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:33PM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:33PM (#1268324) Journal

    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.

    [...]

    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.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:46PM (#1268330)

    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)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:10AM (#1268334) Journal

      Is the next step where you recommend a eugenics program to encourage the right type of people to continue society?

      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.