On becoming part of a polluted science communication environment while studying it….

Dear National Geographic Forum,

I read with interest the cover story of the March 2015 issue “The War on Science”.

I am an engineer who, in addition to engineering-related courses, also studied geology, geophysics and even a little astronomy at the undergraduate and graduate level. In short, a big fan of science and rational thought, especialy applied science like engineering.

I firmly believe in climate change but find that the claim that it is “human-made” is total rubbish.

Rather I think the human-made claim is driven by “tribalism”, just like Professor Dan Kahan of Yale Law School ascribes to the “barber in a rural town in South Carolina”. (And seriously, good he be any more elitist and patronizing? North vs. South, City Mouse vs. Country Mouse, Perfesser of Law vs. Barber, etc.)

In fact, the tribal forces at work on researchers and politicians are much more pronounced.

It’s not just about losing customers, it’s about fame, glory, popularity and – most important – money.

Think Oscars, think Nobel Prizes, think tapping into the hundreds of millions of dollars (billions?) out there for the taking.

All you have to do is run the same flawed computer programs, fiddle with the data when necessary, and confirm, affirm, re-affirm The Consensus.

And, if that isn’t enough enticement, you also get to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude when talking about “Skeptics”.  I mean, it’s no accident that your article states “How to convert the skeptics?”

Maybe you should take a look in the mirror.

When you liken the more than half of Americans who don’t believe the Earth is warming because humans are burning fossil fuels to “loopy… flat-Earthers” you are reinforcing tribalism.

Sincerely,

Thanks, ***.

I’m going to put aside “who is right” on climate change and also how the sorts of influences I study bear on the production of climate science or any other form of science. One can’t reliably draw any inferences from studies of how dynamics like identity-protective cognition affect public opinion, on the one hand, to how the same dynamics affect the expert judgments of scientists or any other group of professionals (like judges, say!), on the other.  If one wants to figure out if the conclusions of expert decisionmakers are being biased by identity-protective cogntion or comparable dynamics, then one has to perform valid studies on samples of the experts in question as they apply their professional judgment to the types of problems for which it is suited.

But I agree with the science-communication points you are raising here.

I don’t think it is useful at all to characterize as “anti-science” the 50% of US general population who, using exactly the same forms of reasoning as those who conclude that best evidence supports belief in AGW, conclude that the best evidence doesn’t support it.

On the contrary, I think the dynamics that generate these sorts of characterizations are exactly what prevent culturally diverse citizens from converging, as they usually do, on what science knows.

Some papers that address these points; happy to receive the benefit of any comments (including critical ones) you have on them:

Kahan, D.M. What is the “Science of Science communication”? J. Sci. Comm. (in press).

Kahan D.M. Climate-Science Communication and the Measurement Problem. Advances in Political Psychology (in press).

Kahan, D. Fixing the Communications Failure. Nature 463, 296-297 (2010).

I often find my and my collaborators’ research cited — by both “left” & “right” (those are crude ways to characterize the relevant cultural groups, but they are good enough here) — to “explain” why the “other side” is dogmatic, anti-science, stupid, etc.

That sort of misinterpretation of our findings is part of exactly the phenomenon we are studying: the forces that drive people to misconstrue empirical evidence in patterns congenial to their cultural outlooks.

Indeed, for a study of how people misconstrue evidence relating to the open-mindedness & critical reasoning capacities of those who disagree w/ them on contested science issues, take a look at Kahan, D.M. Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection, Judgment and Decision Making 8, 407-424 (2013).  The most demoralizing thing is that this tendency is most pronounced in individuals with highest proficiency in critical reasoning….

Makes me wonder sometimes whether there’s any point in trying to use empirical evidence to fix this problem.

But it takes only about 15 seconds to conclude that of course that would be the wrong conclusion to draw.

Because for one thing, any scholar who gets the benefit of being supported by a liberal democratic society to do scientific research would have to be a moral cretin not to recognize that he or she owes that society’s members whatever he or she can contribute to protecting their science communication environment from the sort of toxins that deprive liberal democratic citizens of the benefits of all the scientific knowledge their way of life makes possible.

There is one more thing I want to be sure I express my agreement with:  I don’t doubt for a second that I myself, in the course of trying to address these matters, will blunder, either as a result of being subject to the same dynamics I’m studying or to simple failings in judgment or powers of expression.  And as a result, I’ll end up conveying, contrary to my own intentions and ambitions, the very sort of partisan meanings that I believe must be purged from the science communication environment.

I don’t resent being told when that happens; I am chastened, but grateful.

Take care.

–Dan

p.s.

It’s in people’s self-interest to form beliefs that connect rather than estrange them from those whose good opinion they depend on (economically, emotionally, and otherwise).  As a result, we should expect individuals’ cultural outlooks to have a very substantial impact on their climate change risk perceptions.

At the same time, the beliefs that the typical member of the public forms about climate change will likely have an impact on how she gets along with people she interacts with in her daily life. A Hierarchical Individualist in Oklahoma City who proclaims that he thinks that climate change is a serious and real risk might well be shunned by his coworkers at a local oil refinery; the same might be true for an Egalitarian Communitarian English professor in New York City who reveals to colleagues that she thinks that “scientific consensus” on climate change is a “hoax.” They can both misrepresent their positions, of course, but only at the cost of having to endure the anxiety of living a lie, not to mention the risk that they’ll slip up and reveal their true convictions. Given how much they depend on others for support—material and emotional—and how little impact their beliefs have on what society does to protect the phys-ical environment, they are better off when they form perceptions of climate change risk that minimize this danger of community estrangement.

In contrast, what an ordinary individual believes and says about climate change can have a huge impact on her interactions with her peers. If a professor on the faculty of a liberal university in Cambridge Massachusetts starts saying “cliamte change is ridiculous,” he or she can count on being ostracized and vilified by others in the academic community. If the barber in some town in South Carolina’s 4th congressional district insists to his  friends & neighbors that they really should believe the NAS on climate change, he will probably find himself twiddling his thumbs rather than cutting hair.

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