posted August 05, 2013 06:44 PM            

Public divide on climate change: Right wing nature or human nature?

A study shows that cultural identity trumps ideology.

by Scott K. Johnson - Aug 5 2013, 9:30am PST

Arguments over publicly controversial scientific issues like climate change commonly include a lot of accusations of ignorance, naïveté, and ulterior motives. Take a step back from “why is this person such a lughead?” though, and a much better question arises: why are opinions so strongly tied to political affiliation? Why should liberals and conservatives come to such different views of what the scientific evidence does or does not show? If your brain just started compiling a laundry list of reasons why those on the other side of the issue from you obviously become mislead, stop for a moment and consider your side as well.

Researchers have come up with several possible explanations for these systematic divergences in public opinion. A new study in the journal Judgment and Decision Making describes a head-to-head test of the most prevalent ones, done in an attempt to find out which one best describes what’s really going on.

There are three hypotheses in play here. The first refers to what’s known as “dual process reasoning,” a model of human thinking in which we can engage with ideas on two levels. The first is quick and dirty, leaning on intuition and emotion. The second is slow and deliberative, resulting in more objective and rational decisions. If people are forming their opinions on the quick and dirty level without careful, logical consideration, then public controversies may be inevitable.

The second explanation pins the blame on purported differences between the thought processes of liberals and conservatives. This view, popularized by Chris Mooney in books like The Republican War on Science and The Republican Brain, holds that conservatives shy away from complexity or uncertainty. This would make the right side of the political spectrum more susceptible to being misled on complex issues such as climate change.

The third hypothesis is essentially “cultural cognition,” a concept developed by the current study’s author, Yale’s Dan Kahan. The idea here is that everyone (to some extent) judges the reliability of information based on its implications for our cultural identity. Disregarding climate change—and its regulatory consequences—can be part of maintaining a group identity for someone who identifies as a conservative. Opposing genetically modified food can be important for someone who identifies as a liberal in a community of like-minded liberals.

In the study, a group of 1,750 people representative of the US population (by political affiliation, race, education, etc.) responded to some survey questions meant to test these hypotheses. Participants first described themselves politically (strong Republican to strong Democrat) and ideologically (very conservative to very liberal). They then took a test that is commonly used to assess deliberative, reflective thinking; it consisted of three mathematical questions with seductively intuitive yet incorrect answers. For example, one asked, “If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?” Most people answer these questions incorrectly—the average score here was about 0.7 out of 3.

The respondents were then split into three groups, each of which was asked to assess how effective they thought the test was at indicating how reflective and open-minded a person is. One group (the control) was simply told that psychologists believe the test is, indeed, effective. Two other groups were given additional information that was fodder for culturally weighted reasoning.

A second group was told that the test was effective as well, but they were also told that “in one recent study, a researcher found that people who accept evidence of climate change tend to get more answers correct than those who reject evidence of climate change” and so are judged to be more open-minded. The third group was told the opposite—that a recent study showed that people who reject evidence of climate change fared better on the test.

The three hypotheses for politically polarizing issues are all different avenues by which someone could end up employing “motivated reasoning”—reasoning that comes to convenient conclusions rather than the most objective ones. People who accept climate change are likely to chafe at the suggestion that their fellow “accepters” are more closed-minded than climate skeptics. As a result, they could be motivated to come to the conclusion that the test isn’t very reliable. This is meant to simulate the way in which people judge reports of evidence for or against the positions they hold.

If this was primarily a question of intuitive versus deliberative thinking, you would expect those with lower scores on the test to display stronger motivated reasoning, regardless of political orientation. If conservatives are more prone to motivated reasoning than liberals, you’d expect that to be the most important factor. But if cultural identity is the central issue, both ends of the political spectrum should show stronger motivated reasoning than the middle. In fact, people who think more deliberatively (as measured by the test) on the far-left or far-right would show the greatest degree of motivated reasoning, since deliberative thinking gives them time to recognize threats to their identity and come up with better reasons why inconvenient evidence could be flawed.

The test results showed no difference in intuitive/deliberative thinking between ideologies (liberal/conservative). Just considering party affiliation, however, did show a statistically significant gap. Republicans averaged a little over 0.1 points (out of 3) higher than Democrats.

The experimental groups evaluating the effectiveness of the test displayed a fair amount of motivated reasoning, as expected. One average, liberals rated the test as less effective when told that people who accepted climate change performed poorly on it, and they rated it as more effective when told that it was the climate skeptics who didn’t do as well. Conservatives did the same thing, and to a similar degree.

So far, the “conservatives don’t think as objectively” hypothesis is in trouble, as conservatives showed no more motivated reasoning than liberals. So were the people who scored poorly on the deliberative thinking test more likely to be motivated reasoners? Nope. Bad news for the “dual process reasoning” hypothesis.

That leaves us with cultural identity. It turns out that higher scores on the test were associated with stronger motivated reasoning on the far left and far right. So not only were people polarized along political lines, but the ones who were supposedly more deliberative thinkers were even more polarized, as predicted.

This study adds its weight to others that have shown the importance of cultural identity in our evaluation of information—regardless of which cultural group we identify with. Kahan doesn’t see this as a bias so much as a practical adaptation to life in social groups.

But it can lead, Kahan says, to a situation like the “tragedy of the commons," where rational decisions for individuals (I’ll raise more cattle on this public pasture land) result in negative outcomes for all (the land has been overgrazed). The individual tendency to preserve the connection with one’s cultural group can ultimately split society as a whole, preventing it from acting on the best available evidence. So instead, we call each other lugheads.

Judgment and Decision Making, 2013. (Open Access) http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/public-divide-on-climate-change-right-wing-nature-or-human-nature/

(If you guessed one hundred minutes on that question, you tackled it too fast. The answer is five minutes, because the rate a machine can make the widgets at is one per five minutes. One hundred machines would make one hundred widgets in five minutes.)

posted August 05, 2013 07:04 PM            

So, if global warming is false, then why do so many credible people believe in it? Can that many people be duped? And if so, how? A brief analogy might help to explain it.

We all have streptococcal bacteria in our mouth and throat. Yet, few of us will ever develop strep throat. Why? This bacteria (like just about all bacteria) exists to break down dead (or dying) tissue. It attacks food that we eat. Bacteria cannot devour living tissue. Saliva keeps it in check. But let's say one smokes (or any number of other irritants). Over time, smoking damages the lining of the throat, so the strep bacteria begin to proliferate, and the natural balance (homeostasis) is thrown off. The bacteria do what they are created to do--break down the dying tissue and proliferate even more. Let me ask you a question: Did the streptococcus bacterium cause the strep throat? Or did the smoking cause it? One could say that streptococcal bacteria cause strep throat the same way that flies cause garbage!

Now, let's take it a step further. Let's make an assumption that many of you will scoff at. But suspend your skepticism for a moment. What if Pasteur was WRONG? What if the germ theory of disease were false? Jump ahead to several hundred years in the future. Modern medicine has moved beyond profit motives, pharmaceutical companies have fallen, and doctors now treat the cause of disease and not the symptoms. We would then look back at the past in shock--much like we, today, look at those doctors who bled to cure disease in our distant past. If the germ theory of disease is false, then every study, every medicine, and every technique to cure contagious disease is based upon a lie. From viruses to vaccinations--all BS. We attack the symptoms and not the cause. Now, I am not asking you to believe that contagion is false. This is just a fantasy journey we are on at the moment. Everyone assumes that germ theory is true. We base everything else in modern medicine upon that foundation. It is as unquestioning as gravity. Gravity is a law. Hypotheses are good guesses. But an hypothesis is not a law. An hypothesis that is testable and replicatable can become a theory. Theories tend to be true, but they can change in light of new information. For example, Newtonian physics is considered true, but it was also expanded upon and replaced by Einsteinian physics. So, theories do change. What does all of this have to do with global warming? Read on.

Climatologists all (actually not all of them, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's call it a concensus) agree that CO2 levels are causing a rise in global temperatures (and other cataclysmic events). They also agree that this is man-made (despite mounds of solid evidence that man creates only a fraction of the resulting CO2 in the atmosphere). If these two hypotheses are false, then every single study of theirs is thus tainted!

posted August 05, 2013 07:05 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
This is kind of fascinating:

[b]Public divide on climate change: Right wing nature or human nature?

A study shows that cultural identity trumps ideology.

by Scott K. Johnson - Aug 5 2013, 9:30am PST

Arguments over publicly controversial scientific issues like climate change commonly include a lot of accusations of ignorance, naïveté, and ulterior motives. Take a step back from “why is this person such a lughead?” though, and a much better question arises: why are opinions so strongly tied to political affiliation? Why should liberals and conservatives come to such different views of what the scientific evidence does or does not show? If your brain just started compiling a laundry list of reasons why those on the other side of the issue from you obviously become mislead, stop for a moment and consider your side as well.

Researchers have come up with several possible explanations for these systematic divergences in public opinion. A new study in the journal Judgment and Decision Making describes a head-to-head test of the most prevalent ones, done in an attempt to find out which one best describes what’s really going on.

There are three hypotheses in play here. The first refers to what’s known as “dual process reasoning,” a model of human thinking in which we can engage with ideas on two levels. The first is quick and dirty, leaning on intuition and emotion. The second is slow and deliberative, resulting in more objective and rational decisions. If people are forming their opinions on the quick and dirty level without careful, logical consideration, then public controversies may be inevitable.

The second explanation pins the blame on purported differences between the thought processes of liberals and conservatives. This view, popularized by Chris Mooney in books like The Republican War on Science and The Republican Brain, holds that conservatives shy away from complexity or uncertainty. This would make the right side of the political spectrum more susceptible to being misled on complex issues such as climate change.

The third hypothesis is essentially “cultural cognition,” a concept developed by the current study’s author, Yale’s Dan Kahan. The idea here is that everyone (to some extent) judges the reliability of information based on its implications for our cultural identity. Disregarding climate change—and its regulatory consequences—can be part of maintaining a group identity for someone who identifies as a conservative. Opposing genetically modified food can be important for someone who identifies as a liberal in a community of like-minded liberals.

In the study, a group of 1,750 people representative of the US population (by political affiliation, race, education, etc.) responded to some survey questions meant to test these hypotheses. Participants first described themselves politically (strong Republican to strong Democrat) and ideologically (very conservative to very liberal). They then took a test that is commonly used to assess deliberative, reflective thinking; it consisted of three mathematical questions with seductively intuitive yet incorrect answers. For example, one asked, “If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?” Most people answer these questions incorrectly—the average score here was about 0.7 out of 3.

The respondents were then split into three groups, each of which was asked to assess how effective they thought the test was at indicating how reflective and open-minded a person is. One group (the control) was simply told that psychologists believe the test is, indeed, effective. Two other groups were given additional information that was fodder for culturally weighted reasoning.

A second group was told that the test was effective as well, but they were also told that “in one recent study, a researcher found that people who accept evidence of climate change tend to get more answers correct than those who reject evidence of climate change” and so are judged to be more open-minded. The third group was told the opposite—that a recent study showed that people who reject evidence of climate change fared better on the test.

The three hypotheses for politically polarizing issues are all different avenues by which someone could end up employing “motivated reasoning”—reasoning that comes to convenient conclusions rather than the most objective ones. People who accept climate change are likely to chafe at the suggestion that their fellow “accepters” are more closed-minded than climate skeptics. As a result, they could be motivated to come to the conclusion that the test isn’t very reliable. This is meant to simulate the way in which people judge reports of evidence for or against the positions they hold.

If this was primarily a question of intuitive versus deliberative thinking, you would expect those with lower scores on the test to display stronger motivated reasoning, regardless of political orientation. If conservatives are more prone to motivated reasoning than liberals, you’d expect that to be the most important factor. But if cultural identity is the central issue, both ends of the political spectrum should show stronger motivated reasoning than the middle. In fact, people who think more deliberatively (as measured by the test) on the far-left or far-right would show the greatest degree of motivated reasoning, since deliberative thinking gives them time to recognize threats to their identity and come up with better reasons why inconvenient evidence could be flawed.

The test results showed no difference in intuitive/deliberative thinking between ideologies (liberal/conservative). Just considering party affiliation, however, did show a statistically significant gap. Republicans averaged a little over 0.1 points (out of 3) higher than Democrats.

The experimental groups evaluating the effectiveness of the test displayed a fair amount of motivated reasoning, as expected. One average, liberals rated the test as less effective when told that people who accepted climate change performed poorly on it, and they rated it as more effective when told that it was the climate skeptics who didn’t do as well. Conservatives did the same thing, and to a similar degree.

So far, the “conservatives don’t think as objectively” hypothesis is in trouble, as conservatives showed no more motivated reasoning than liberals. So were the people who scored poorly on the deliberative thinking test more likely to be motivated reasoners? Nope. Bad news for the “dual process reasoning” hypothesis.

That leaves us with cultural identity. It turns out that higher scores on the test were associated with stronger motivated reasoning on the far left and far right. So not only were people polarized along political lines, but the ones who were supposedly more deliberative thinkers were even more polarized, as predicted.

This study adds its weight to others that have shown the importance of cultural identity in our evaluation of information—regardless of which cultural group we identify with. Kahan doesn’t see this as a bias so much as a practical adaptation to life in social groups.

But it can lead, Kahan says, to a situation like the “tragedy of the commons," where rational decisions for individuals (I’ll raise more cattle on this public pasture land) result in negative outcomes for all (the land has been overgrazed). The individual tendency to preserve the connection with one’s cultural group can ultimately split society as a whole, preventing it from acting on the best available evidence. So instead, we call each other lugheads.

Judgment and Decision Making, 2013. (Open Access) http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/public-divide-on-climate-chang e-right-wing-nature-or-human-nature/

(If you guessed one hundred minutes on that question, you tackled it too fast. The answer is five minutes, because the rate a machine can make the widgets at is one per five minutes. One hundred machines would make one hundred widgets in five minutes.)

This is fascinating. I think most people in this forum have thought other people were leaving inconvenient information out of their rational decision-making. [/B]

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posted August 06, 2013 01:09 PM            

Now, I will read the article.

posted August 06, 2013 01:16 PM            

I go with the first two explainations:

quote:

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There are three hypotheses in play here. The first refers to what’s known as “dual process reasoning,” a model of human thinking in which we can engage with ideas on two levels. The first is quick and dirty, leaning on intuition and emotion. The second is slow and deliberative, resulting in more objective and rational decisions. If people are forming their opinions on the quick and dirty level without careful, logical consideration, then public controversies may be inevitable.

The second explanation pins the blame on purported differences between the thought processes of liberals and conservatives. This view, popularized by Chris Mooney in books like The Republican War on Science and The Republican Brain, holds that conservatives shy away from complexity or uncertainty. This would make the right side of the political spectrum more susceptible to being misled on complex issues such as climate change.

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posted August 06, 2013 01:48 PM            

quote:

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You're right--CO2 levels keep rising, and so do the temps. We are all doomed!

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I really don't mind you being an optimist about the world surviving. It's just seeing arguments that have been tackled, some even tackled years ago, that gives me pause. There's no causation versus correlation issue. That's a discussion that played out ages ago. CO2 both lags and precedes warming. It's proven. It's been likened to making the atmospheric "blanket" thicker.

posted August 06, 2013 06:41 PM            

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If that's the case, then why are they worried about man-made CO2 causing warming?

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I don't understand the question. CO2, whether manmade or otherwise, contributes to warming. Why are they worried about it? Because the planet is warming faster than usual.

quote:

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Why all the hooplah over man-made CO2, which is just a small percentage overall?

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Because it's a known factor in the warming.

quote:

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Do you at least concede that the compuer models' predictions (which are what started the panic in the first place) failed?

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Sure. I can concede that models don't get things perfect. However, those models continue to be improved, and the prognosis isn't changing. Whenever we hear updates on the anticipated effects of warming, I'm sure models have been involved. You can't say that because a model was wrong once that they will forever be wrong.

Here's a sight (EPA) where you can learn about the models, and how they're evolving: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html#

posted August 06, 2013 07:38 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by juniperb:
I still have to read AG`s article on Right wing nature or human nature but I , as aways , add global warming has skipped these parts. We are 10 degrees below normal and are expected to be through til winter.

Now, I will read the article.

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The medieval warming period begat the little ice age. Out here in New England we're looking forward to anther "year without a summer" aka 1815. Very seriously though, when increased temps mess sufficiently with the gulf stream, you'll find Gracie and I chillin under the ice.

posted August 06, 2013 08:47 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by shura:
The medieval warming period begat the little ice age. Out here in New England we're looking forward to anther "year without a summer" aka 1815. Very seriously though, when increased temps mess sufficiently with the gulf stream, you'll find Gracie and I chillin under the ice.

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Seriously, it has been a year without summer here. The jet stream stationed over us for 6 days and the rest of the time the Canadian air was in play. Freezes in June and frosts in July.

Climate change, sure . A natural progression of time and earth movement. Certainly we animals make a difference but to which extreme is in doubt.

1815 was a an agricultural disaster. Much like we see today for different reasons.
Us earthlings are all going to hell in an earthly handbasket and I`m certainly not worrying over a few degrees either way.

posted August 06, 2013 09:47 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
I think you totally missed my points. All of this hysteria began by being based on cataclysmic computer models that failed miserably, as bad data will. Man contributes a very small amount of the CO2 levels; therefore, these costly efforts to reduce man's tiny contributions (relatively speaking) are futile. But the doomsayers can go on prophesying about falling skies all they want. I will just enjoy the sunshine and be thankful for the lush green earth and the prevalent CO2 that is a healthy byproduct thereof.

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Randall, it's not that simple. We don't live in a greenhouse (no pun intended). Yes, plants love CO2; heat stress and drought they're not so fond of. What's more, the earth is many things presently but 'lush' ain't one of them. Animal and vegetable species disappearing, soil depletion, desert encroachment ... not lush, my friend. All the CO2 Gaia can muster won't save her from the poisons our oil, coal, pesticide, nuclear et al industries are pouring down her throat.

posted August 06, 2013 10:07 PM            

quote:

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We better learn how to build igloos

Seriously, it has been a year without summer here. The jet stream stationed over us for 6 days and the rest of the time the Canadian air was in play. Freezes in June and frosts in July.

Climate change, sure . A natural progression of time and earth movement. Certainly we animals make a difference but to which extreme is in doubt.

1815 was a an agricultural disaster. Much like we see today for different reasons.
Us earthlings are all going to hell in an earthly handbasket and I`m certainly not worrying over a few degrees either way.

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As it's not that simple, it's also not that easy. "Build an igloo' is a haha funny remark here and now, not so funny when you consider the damage done to agriculture (food is good!) or rising sea levels (mass exodus is a logistical pain in the ass). Because, yes, high CO2 levels mean higher global temps and higher global temps mean higher sea levels. Remember the Pliocene? Good times, right? Lush vegetation for our friend Randall and the magic number - 400 ppmv. Temps were 1 or 2 degrees warmer, with 75' higher sea levels. Better tell Miami and Boston and NYC and New Orleans to high tail it outta there. Who is going to handle that problem? And is there room in rural Michigan for them?

posted August 06, 2013 10:12 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
Well-said, Juni. In the grand scheme of things, humanity is but a drop in the primordial bucket. The amount of time we have been on this planet is a blink of an eye. The earth has gone on its merry cyclical way long before we existed and will continue to do so till our sun supernovas, and there is nothing we can do about any of it. We are inconsequential.

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This from a man running an occult website? Human life is not inconsequential, Randall.

posted August 08, 2013 12:22 PM            

quote:

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I think you totally missed my points. All of this hysteria began by being based on cataclysmic computer models that failed miserably, as bad data will. Man contributes a very small amount of the CO2 levels; therefore, these costly efforts to reduce man's tiny contributions (relatively speaking) are futile. But the doomsayers can go on prophesying about falling skies all they want. I will just enjoy the sunshine and be thankful for the lush green earth and the prevalent CO2 that is a healthy byproduct thereof.

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It's easy to miss points when the "points" are moot.

There are still cataclysmic computer models, and they're getting better all the time. I gave you a link, so you could view their accuracy for yourself. That said, they are still evolving, and, once again, there's no good rationale for thinking that because something was wrong before, it's always going to be wrong. Even the skeptic funded by the Koch brothers came to the same conclusion. There's nothing about harkening to the past, or a past "argument" that's going to hold new relevance today.

quote:

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Man contributes a very small amount of the CO2 levels

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I guess perspective is everything.
Current CO2 levels haven't been seen in about 4.5 million years when the temperature was warmer by 3 or 4 degrees Celcius.

quote:

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I will just enjoy the sunshine and be thankful for the lush green earth and the prevalent CO2 that is a healthy byproduct thereof.

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This is reminiscent of your view on healthcare where you thought that because you desire to never have a medical need, you never will. It seems like wishful thinking, a "faith-based" approach.

quote:

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The "warming" part of global warming never manifested, so to prevent themselves from looking foolish, they adopted "climate change" instead.

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That's not true on both counts. The world has warmed...indisputably, and the two terms, "global warming" and "climate change", are still used interchangeably.

quote:

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And one would hope their computer models work this time,

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I'm rather surprised that you keep pursuing this illogical line of thought.

quote:

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Sea levels are actually not rising. Al Gore made that up.

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One couldn't ask for a more perfect piece of evidence that you don't understand climate science. I think your bluff is in trouble. May day may day.

quote:

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Shura, how do we know temps were one or two degrees higher in the Pliocene? Because people input that data and created some pretty tables and graphs when threy told us that? We can't even accurately predict the weather more than a week in advance, so do you really think we can know what the exact temperature was millions of years ago? Really? I know we have scientific ways of getting in the ball park, but come on--the idea of detecting a one or two degree variance from five million years ago is absurd!

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Once again, a telling statement that undermines your bluff. Now you're supposing that scientists have no way of gauging previous climates? Really? Fossils, geology, ice core samples...I guess they don't paint a picture of what was where, and what type of climate MUST have been around for such things to exist in such places.