New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

[ggirod]

This impressive series of articles with rich and varied perspectives deserves a thorough reading. In addition, the Wikipedia List of Cognitive Biases referenced in the series has earned a bookmark because I will reference it often, now that I know it exists.

Enjoy.

[don]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

It depends primarily on one's socio-economic environment. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, America was aghast and angry. Bells rang throughout Chiang's China in jubilation- America would now side with China. Concomitantly, when major powers engage in open warfare with each other, its often seen as a happy time for those nations normally dominated by the combatants. It would be interesting to quantify the deniers, plotted from the optimistic 50s to the present malaise.

[Master Shake]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Denial = not drinking the AGW Kool-Ade according to the author. No bias there [eye roll].

[WDCRob]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Disagree. Deniers = people who offer no scientific evidence to back up their claim that the position agreed upon by something around 99% climate scientists is false. And who, despite offering no scientific evidence to support their position, expect that their position should be treated as equal to that of the scientists.

[c1ue]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

This impressive series of articles with rich and varied perspectives deserves a thorough reading.

Rich and impressive only in its listing of those who support a specific viewpoint:

Richard Littlemore: the man behind 'DeSmogBlog' - clearly an disinterested observer (not) I've mentioned before how his 'other' job is as a principal in a climate change lobbying/PR firm.

Michael Shermer: Ostensibly a sceptic, but never actually said so until he 'changed' his position in a 2006 Scientific American article (along with the new SA editor...)

Read the article in question to see just where this supposedly data driven sceptic got his 'change in heart' from:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...flipping-point

(Hint: there are glaciers involved. Himalayan even)

Deborah MacKenzie: Those who deny are crazy, they're funded by big industry, they're killers:

Kalichman, however, feels that everyday reasoning alone is not enough to make someone a denialist. "There is some fragility in their thinking that draws them to believe people who are easily exposed as frauds," he says. "Most of us don't believe what they say, even if we want to. Understanding why some do may help us find solutions."
He believes the instigators of denialist movements have more serious psychological problems than most of their followers. "They display all the features of paranoid personality disorder", he says, including anger, intolerance of criticism, and what psychiatrists call a grandiose sense of their own importance. "Ultimately, their denialism is a mental health problem. That is why these movements all have the same features, especially the underlying conspiracy theory."

...

Nevertheless, some connections exist that hint at a wider agenda. For example, there is considerable overlap in membership between the vaccine and HIV deniers, says John Moore, an AIDS researcher at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Both movements have massive but mysterious funding.

...

Denialism has already killed. AIDS denial has killed an estimated 330,000 South Africans. Tobacco denial delayed action to prevent smoking-related deaths. Vaccine denial has given a new lease of life to killer diseases like measles and polio. Meanwhile, climate change denial delays action to prevent warming. The backlash against efforts to fight the flu pandemic could discourage preparations for the next, potentially a more deadly one.

If science is the best way to understand the world and its dangers, and acting on that understanding requires popular support, then denial movements threaten us all.

Jim Giles: Trying to show that the 'denialists' use of one out of context or incorrect quote, therefore all questioning of the 'consensus' must be the same.

Yet the exact same method is used by the 'consensus': as I've clearly showed over and over again, AGW-CO2-Catastrophe is actually a series of separate statements:

1) The earth is warming (true)
2) The earth is warming primarily due to man (possibly true)
3) The anthropogenic warming is primarily due to CO2 (very questionable)
4) The CO2 itself will only raise temperatures 1 to 2 degrees (at most, in isolation, and in theory), but its net systemic effect due to high positive feedback in the climate system will raise temperatures 4 to 7 degrees (absolutely no proof whatsoever)

So there is consensus for 1), but there is NO consensus for any of the other statements.

And the token 'fair and balanced' piece by Michael Fitzpatrick

Social psychologist Seth Kalichman of the University of Connecticut in Storrs mounts a typical defence of this stance in his book Denying Aids: Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and human tragedy. According to Kalichman, denialists often "cross the line between what could arguably be protected free speech". He justifies suppression of debate on the feeble grounds that this would only legitimise the deniers and that scientists' time would be better spent on research.
Such attempts to combat pseudoscience by branding it a secular form of blasphemy are illiberal and intolerant. They are also ineffective, tending not only to reinforce cynicism about science but also to promote a distrust for scientific and medical authority that provides a rallying point for pseudoscience.
As Skidelsky says, "the extension of the 'denier' tag to group after group is a development that should alarm all liberal-minded people". What we need is more debate, not less.

Notably missing: that the so-called 'truth' being denied keeps coming up with significant portions being lies: ClimateGate, HimalayaGate, AfricaGate, etc etc etc.

It is furthermore an ongoing amusement (in a dark satire kind of way) that Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is somehow a bible worthy of unquestioned obedience despite being ruled in a UK Court as having a significant number of errors (9) including:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/7037671.stm

Mr Gore's assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".

Mr Gore's assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.


Mr Gore's reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."

Even more amusing that a number of these outright falsehoods, as well as the movie in question, are used a justification for the 'consensus' and the 'truth' by a number of these New Scientist Opinion writers (yes, these aren't peer reviewed either).

And the final straw: the source of HimalayaGate - where the statement that the glaciers in the Himalayas were shrinking (wrong) due to climate change(even more wrong)?

The New Scientist

All in all, a more typical piece of ad hominem, anti-dissension, and issue avoiding series of attacks could not be created. All the usual tactics: the deniers are crazy, they're funded by corporations, they're murderers, etc etc.

Yet no mention of the $70B+ spent by the US government in the last 20 years on climate change - hundreds of times more than what Exxon purportedly spent.

No mention of the estimated $5B spent this year alone on 'climate change' by governments.

No mention of how many millions in the 3rd world would likely die due to higher energy prices cascading into food prices.

No mention of how the supposed 'good guy' NGOs are in fact heavily funded by the same companies supposedly stealthily advocating denial:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/arti...602161253.aspx

British Petroleum’s (BP) reputation has been marred by the April oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill which is still gushing more than 40 days later. But according to The Washington Post, the reputation of some left-wing environmental groups has also been polluted by the incident.

“[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years,” Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.

It’s not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon.


...

And one has to look no further than Earth Day 2010 to see the corporate fingerprint on so-called green activist efforts. Major U.S. corporations like Proctor & Gamble, Siemens, Wells Fargo, AT&T, UPS, Philips and Ford all had a major presence at the so-called Earth Day “Climate Rally” on the National Mall back on April 25. That’s in addition to a sponsorship from NASA, a federal government entity and media outlets, including The Washington Post and Gannett’s USA Today.

[ggirod]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

It would be interesting to quantify the deniers, plotted from the optimistic 50s to the present malaise.

Thinking back to the '50s the only large denial movement I remember was the Anti-Fluoride movement and anti-vaccination movements that saw fluoridation and vaccines as a Communist plot. Fifty years later, when cavities in children are rare and polio is unheard of, repetition continues relatively unabated on sites such as Prison Planet. I was too young in 1953 to understand ads like this one ....

from here: In the words of Carl Sagan: "We've arranged a global civilization in which most critical elements depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster."

[Ghent12]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

How dare you have a principled position on this matter based upon coherent reasoning? Just stop c1ue.

I saw this issue of New Scientist a while ago, and thought myself the prudent man to not waste my money on it. So far that decision has been justified and reinforced.

As an aside: why isn't this in Climate Change or Rant and Rave?

[ggirod]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

As an aside: why isn't this in Climate Change or Rant and Rave?

I guess I thought it to be news based on its publication in a respected mainstream magazine with credible spokesmen explaining a topic important to us all. As for Climate Change or Rant and Rave, I guess the discussion could go off the rails into either category but I personally think it might be more interesting to consider the principles underlying the phenomenon. Tobacco and vaccinations don't share much in common with climate, except for the techniques used in promoting the positions.

Frankly, I thought the topic interesting and that maybe the iTulip people might find other good examples. A few I thought of were ....

Deficit Denial - Deficits don't matter? .... hmmmm
Resource Limits vs No Limits
Other topics?

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

It depends primarily on one's socio-economic environment. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, America was aghast and angry. Bells rang throughout Chiang's China in jubilation- America would now side with China. Concomitantly, when major powers engage in open warfare with each other, its often seen as a happy time for those nations normally dominated by the combatants. It would be interesting to quantify the deniers, plotted from the optimistic 50s to the present malaise.

I guess you're trying to prove that Charles Lindbergh was right that the reasons given to the American People regarding World War II were lies, and that in the end no one would "win" besides bankers and communists?

[c1ue]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Tobacco and vaccinations don't share much in common with climate, except for the techniques used in promoting the positions.

So let me ask you a question:

Do you deny that banning DDT has killed millions of people and that therefore DDT should never have been banned?

This is a classic straw man argument: the DDT ban has unquestionably killed millions of 3rd world children. Equally DDT should have been banned for use in the United States.

But the question has now forced you to either 'confirm the consensus' that DDT should have been banned, or 'deny' that said ban has killed millions when in fact the situation is not so clear cut.

The 'two legs bad', color-blind, Rachel Carson 'Silent Spring' hysteria pushed through the law banning both the use AND production of DDT in the United States.

The same 'two legs bad', color-blind, Al Gore 'Inconvenient Truth' threatens to do the same with an otherwise potentially useful focus on alternative energy which is NOT mutually packaged with a ban on carbon emissions.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Thinking back to the '50s the only large denial movement I remember was the Anti-Fluoride movement and anti-vaccination movements that saw fluoridation and vaccines as a Communist plot.

Fifty years later, the forces of evil are still pushing fluoridation and excessive vaccinations by ridiculing the opposition. Some things never change. (Not that you're evil, ggirod. Squirrels are cute. But I disagree with your apparent take on these issues.)

I pay good money for water filters to get rid of the fluoride, chlorine and other poisons in my water supply. I avoid vaccinations, and if I had more children (rather unlikely at my advanced age and marital status - not) I'd go out of my way to minimize the vaccinations they received to the least I could get away with.

[ggirod]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Do you deny that banning DDT has killed millions of people and that therefore DDT should never have been banned?

I probably could not compose a better answer to that issue than this one, so read it as you like. It is lengthy and not suited to copying in this discussion. In addition, making up absolutist dichotomies around nuanced topics is generally not a great path to understanding or communication.

[don]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

I guess you're trying to prove that Charles Lindbergh was right that the reasons given to the American People regarding World War II were lies, and that in the end no one would "win" besides bankers and communists?

Wow, Serge. You do a lot with a little. And relevancy plays little or no part.

Looking forward to your sci-fi novels.

[ggirod]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Fifty years later, the forces of evil are still pushing fluoridation and excessive vaccinations by ridiculing the opposition.

From WIKI:

At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio would paralyze or kill over half a million people worldwide every year.

I was fortunate because I got the shot before I got the disease. Many in my cohort were not and those lucky enough to survive have had ongoing problems ever since. Public health issues are almost always complex and trade-offs need to be considered and understood.

[zoog]

Re: New Scientist "Special report: Living in denial"

Fifty years later, the forces of evil are still pushing fluoridation and excessive vaccinations by ridiculing the opposition. Some things never change. (Not that you're evil, ggirod. Squirrels are cute. But I disagree with your apparent take on these issues.)

I pay good money for water filters to get rid of the fluoride, chlorine and other poisons in my water supply. I avoid vaccinations, and if I had more children (rather unlikely at my advanced age and marital status - not) I'd go out of my way to minimize the vaccinations they received to the least I could get away with.

I happen to live in the largest city in the US that does not fluoridate its water, which is fine with me. I am not thoroughly convinced that the usual doses of added fluoride are harmful, but I'm also not convinced that they're benign or helpful either. So I'd rather do without. I think dental hygiene and reducing sugar/corn syrup intake play a far greater role in reducing tooth decay anyway. (By the way, the EPA considers our water source clean enough that the city does not run it through filters. So TPC, feel free to come up here and fill all four stomach chambers from one of the public drinking fountains downtown. Just don't put your lips on it... the water might be reasonably clean, but the nozzles, yikes.)

There was a recent Frontline report on the vaccine debate. Frontline: The Vaccine War