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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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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @11:49PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 25 2022, @11:49PM (#1268457) Journal

    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.

    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.