Here is a thought provoking piece outof the USA. I’m fairly confident having had exchanges with many deniers and sensible conversations with those that accept the consensus position that this sort of thing is entrenched here in Australia as well,although I am pleased that the number of people in the consensus camp is far greater and the deniers are becoming more of a fringe element.
“People everywhere employ ideological filters that reflect their identity, worldview, and belief systems. These filters are strongly influenced by group values, and we generally endorse the position that most directly reinforces the connection we have with others in our referent group—what Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan refers to as “cultural cognition.” In so doing, we cement our connection with our cultural groups and strengthen our definition of self. This tendency is driven by an innate desire to maintain a consistency in beliefs by giving greater weight to evidence and arguments that support preexisting beliefs, and by expending disproportionate energy trying to refute views or arguments that are contrary to those beliefs. Instead of investigating a complex issue, we often simply learn what our referent group believes and seek to integrate those beliefs with our own views.”
Now, I’m sure the deniers would insist that this applies to we who accept the consensus position and they would be right, but here is the rub…. “by giving greater weight to evidence……” The overwhelming evidence suggests that the consensus position is the correct position. We don’t need to put on the blinkers of wiful ignorance and cherrypick our evidence. That’s the difference.
Here is the full article.
If some will only accept the science by believing that it will not be bad and therefore will take action makes no sense to me at all.
Abstract
Though scientific evidence for the existence of global warming continues to mount, in the United States and other countries
belief in global warming has stagnated or even decreased in recent years. One possible explanation for this pattern is that
information about the potentially dire consequences of global warming threatens deeply held beliefs that the world is just,
orderly, and stable. Individuals overcome this threat by denying or discounting the existence of global warming, and this process
ultimately results in decreased willingness to counteract climate change. Two experiments provide support for this explanation
of the dynamics of belief in global warming, suggesting that less dire messaging could be more effective for promoting public
understanding of climate-change research.
Less dire? why not just tell the public exactly what the science is stating,
No understating and no embellishment, just the facts.
I agree. I guess though they are suggesting there is some sort of desensitisation maybe? That might be the case but in that case, maybe the cold hard facts are what’s needed and it needs to be let known that climate change will affect food security,will affect land values, will hurt their bottomline. Money talks…as does loss of money.
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Hi Mike, I think there is still a cultural divide in the UK. Schalk Cloete summed it up in a recent comment on my site, wherein he highlighted the difference between those who want to debate whose version of scientific truth is correct and those willing to have a dialectical discussion about what is probably the best course of action to take.
Sadly, my recent exchanges with the likes of Lord Monckton and Rev. Philip Foster (retired) have demonstrated that there are still a group of people out there who are not willing to entertain the possibility that they are wrong about anything. I hope to publish more about this on Monday (and will send you a link to it if and when I do).
I was therefore very amused last night (i.e. 12 hours ago) to discover that the website of the Global Warming Policy Foundation had been hacked by some Islamic Fundamentalist warning all non-Muslims they are going to hell… Sadly, it is back to normal this morning – telling Muslim and non-Muslim alike that there is no cause for alarm… This is a shame, the Islamic message was far more rational…
Is the divide getting larger or smaller? I think anywhere that is influenced by the USA in terms of news content, television, magazines, internet whatever, get most of their information on climate from there and level of polarisation is really obvious. This influences the process of polarisation where that information is flowing to as people will relate to one side or the other. Thankfully here, the vast majority of our population see the Republicans as batshit crazy. That said, it seems they are still going to vote conservative at the next election.