Separation of Politics and Science!

There are some political topics I find much more interesting than others. Climate change is not one of them. So when I saw this in the science section of Google News, I noticed but did not click:

Then later in the day I saw this on Facebook, specifically from the "I F***ing Love Science" page.

After seeing the claim twice in a short period I got curious and decided to check it out. I ended up on a website called "skepticalscience.com" that claimed:

A new survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers by our citizen science team at Skeptical Science has found a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are causing global warming.

 If you click on the link in "a new survey" it takes you to a journal called "Environmental Research Levels" and, specifically, a paper called "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature." And this is what it says:

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.

 Let me just highlight part of that for you:

We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.

First of all, how is 11,944 papers "over 12,000"? But far more importantly: The Guardian's headline that "97% of climate science papers agree" and Skeptical Science's claim that they "found a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature" that global warming is anthropogenic (man-made) are total bullshit.

In fact, the study they're citing found that 32.6%--not 97%--of the papers they reviewed claim global warming is man-made. Where did the 97% number come from? Well again, quoting from the abstract:

Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.

So why did about 2 out of 3 papers reviewed fail to take a position on the anthropogenic question? I don't know, I haven't reviewed the nearly 12,000 papers myself. I'm sure there are many facets to climate science and these papers didn't all seek to answer the same questions. I also wouldn't be surprised if some experiments were unable to determine the relationship between human activity and climate change, and so could not state a position on it one way or another. Either way, to twist the results around to make a much, much stronger claim than the data shows only furthers my suspicion that the science is too politicized, and too at-risk of corruption.

If you're really just about objectivity and truth (science) over politics, you don't post a twisted stat to further an agenda. You post what people found. How much could the administrators at "I F***ing Love Science" really "love science" if they can't even be bothered to read a whole abstract before eagerly re-posting a misleading graphic? And likewise, why should I trust the people at Skeptical Science to give me useful, honest information if they can't handle correctly interpreting one study?

Ugh.

Science Denial

Came across this short article from the National Center for Science Education. In it, author Joshua Rosenau discusses the causes of science denial (denying evolution, climate change, vaccinations).

Rosenau claims there's a disconnect between scientists and science deniers: scientists will focus on scientific facts and evidence, while deniers will focus on moral and social repercussions.

The conversation might begin with a dispute about the evolution of the bacterial flagellum, the significance of antibiotic resistance, or the veracity of Archaeopteryx fossils, but before long the discussion leaps to the implications of evolution for the human soul, morality, or religious truth. Discussions about vaccines may open with fears about autism, heavy metals in preservatives, or how many antigens a baby’s body can handle, but rapidly shift to anger about limits on parents’ rights to make choices for their children. Climate change conversations rapidly shift from science to free market capitalism and private citizens’ right to make decisions about their families and their homes. Without addressing these fears first, it is impossible to correct scientific errors and undo the harm caused by science denial. [emphasis added]

Rosenau explains that science denial gets rooted in social identity. Perhaps creationists feel they can't really be Evangelicals if they accept evolution. Same thing with climate change and being conservative. Maybe parents of children with autism feel more socially supported by the anti-vaccine groups than by medical offices.

Trying to force feed evidence to people is only so effective when we don't address the social, emotional, and psychological reasons for denial in the first place. It may be more effective to highlight people within these social groups that already do accept the scientific claims. As Rosenau says,

The messengers most likely to break through will be those who share a social identity with the science-denying audience. Their mere existence undercuts the belief that an individual cannot belong to this group and accept the science.

He goes on to list examples of people already working from this strategy.

I think most people prefer to see the world in black and white; it's easier to understand and work with. In fact, a big part of why I like the sciences is because the answers are black and white. Objective evidence is unaffected by human emotion, social custom, or even morality. Scientists (being human) may cloud the truth through error or even sabotage, but with enough people following the scientific method, the truth wins out. Science leads to more than never-ending, conflicting opinions; it leads to verifiable answers. I love that.

While scientific truths may be black and white, peoples' beliefs are all shades of gray. Our thought processes are complex, and we form our beliefs based on many factors in addition to (or in spite of) raw evidence.

Promoting scientific truth, then, may require a more complex strategy than reiterating  evidence and deriding anyone who resists. We'd like for everyone to be purely logical and rational, but that's not how people are. We can't just talk about chemistry, biology, or physics; we need to talk about emotions, social identity, religious beliefs, political views, psychological states. Science denial isn't just about physical reality; it's about people.