The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science
By Chris Mooney

A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF), in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial—the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that—this was the 1950s—and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study in psychology.

Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, "Sananda," who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.

Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea swallowed much of the United States. The disciples even went so far as to remove brassieres and rip zippers out of their trousers—the metal, they believed, would pose a danger on the spacecraft.

Festinger and his team were with the cult when the prophecy failed. First, the "boys upstairs" (as the aliens were sometimes called) did not show up and rescue the Seekers. Then December 21 arrived without incident. It was the moment Festinger had been waiting for: How would people so emotionally invested in a belief system react, now that it had been soundly refuted?

At first, the group struggled for an explanation. But then rationalization set in. A new message arrived, announcing that they'd all been spared at the last minute. Festinger summarized the extraterrestrials' new pronouncement: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction." Their willingness to believe in the prophecy had saved Earth from the prophecy!

From that day forward, the Seekers, previously shy of the press and indifferent toward evangelizing, began to proselytize. "Their sense of urgency was enormous," wrote Festinger. The devastation of all they had believed had made them even more certain of their beliefs.

In the annals of denial, it doesn't get much more extreme than the Seekers. They lost their jobs, the press mocked them, and there were efforts to keep them away from impressionable young minds. But while Martin's space cult might lie at on the far end of the spectrum of human self-delusion, there's plenty to go around. And since Festinger's day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges her belief in divine creation—a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information—and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. "They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs," says Taber, "and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they're hearing."

In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial.

That's a lot of jargon, but we all understand these mechanisms when it comes to interpersonal relationships. If I don't want to believe that my spouse is being unfaithful, or that my child is a bully, I can go to great lengths to explain away behavior that seems obvious to everybody else—everybody who isn't too emotionally invested to accept it, anyway. That's not to suggest that we aren't also motivated to perceive the world accurately—we are. Or that we never change our minds—we do. It's just that we have other important goals besides accuracy—including identity affirmation and protecting one's sense of self—and often those make us highly resistant to changing our beliefs when the facts say we should.

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Posted at 11:00 AM ET, 04/12/2011
Congress turns a blind eye to climate science
By Andrew Freedman

Congress turns a blind eye to climate science - Capital Weather Gang - The Washington Post

Last week was a bewildering one for those who recognize the abundance of compelling scientific evidence showing that the climate is changing mainly due to human activities and that these changes pose risks to human health and welfare. While the news cycle was dominated by the down-to-the-wire budget negotiations in Washington, ongoing unrest in the Middle East, the nuclear crisis in Japan, a major congressional debate on climate change regulations took place in the House (and Senate) that vividly demonstrated how far off the rails we’ve gone in public discourse of climate science and policy.

Let me state right off the bat that I tend to shy away from directly discussing politics in this column, instead sticking to scientific developments in the sprawling and fascinating field of climate research. At the same time, I recognize that climate science has become so politicized that it’s impossible to steer clear of politics entirely. This is understandable considering that many of the potential solutions to climate change could involve major policy changes, from federal regulations of emissions from cars, trucks, and power plants to a carbon tax on gasoline.

The controversy surrounding the science is largely a front for concerns over potential regulation, as is vividly demonstrated in the book, “Merchants of Doubt”, by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway.

With the passage on April 6 of a bill that would stop the U.S. EPA’s regulations of greenhouse gases from moving forward, the House of Representatives signaled in crystal clear legislative language that it flat out does not believe that manmade climate change is a real phenomenon that poses risks to Americans’ health and welfare.

I say this because, during the debate on the EPA measure (which failed in the Senate and was not attached to the 11th hour budget agreement), the House held a separate vote on an amendment which for the first time put all Members on record about whether they agree with the scientific evidence showing that the global climate is warming, and this warming is likely due in part to human activities. This vote was as close to a climate science litmus test as you’re ever going to get.

Offered by three Democrats - Henry Waxman, Jay Inslee, and Diana DeGette - the amendment would have added language to the bill stating that Congress agrees with the EPA’s findings on climate science.

The amendment stated: “Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency that climate changes is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.”

The EPA’s findings were in turn based on peer reviewed scientific research and the findings contained in reports from groups such as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. government’s Global Change Research Program, and the National Academy of Sciences.

From a scientific perspective, the amendment’s language was rather benign. It was not a climate alarmist statement, nor did it overstep the science as expressed by highly-regarded research groups, not to mention the trove of peer reviewed scientific studies on climate change that seem to multiply by an order of magnitude each week.

The fact that it failed by a vote of 184 to 240 (three Democrats were among those who rejected the amendment; one Republican supported it) signals the depth of the problem that scientists, environmental policy advocates, environmentalists, and others face in pushing for climate change action at the federal level. A majority of one chamber of the Congress just does not agree with the conclusions of most publishing climate scientists. This is a remarkable turn of events, considering that the last Congress narrowly passed a sweeping greenhouse gas regulation bill, which died in the Senate.

Speaking on the House floor, Congressman Waxman said it best when he stated last week, “As long as Congress pretends that climate change isn’t occurring, we can justify not addressing it.”

Rep. DeGette also framed the issue well. “We in Congress can certainly change the laws of this country, but last I heard we cannot change the laws of nature.”

Now before I portray all Republicans as a bunch of climate science know-nothings bent on destroying the planet, there are many reasons one might vote to halt the EPA’s climate regulations and oppose the Waxman amendment, reasons that have nothing to do with the climate science.

Climate policy scholars have long argued over what the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and EPA regulations have typically been viewed as a last resort rather than a front line weapon because they are thought to be more cumbersome and potentially more costly as other regulatory tools. In fact, during the debate last week many Republicans argued that Congress, not the EPA, should address this issue.

However, that’s not likely to happen if many Members don’t recognize that the problem exists.

The House vote is particularly disturbing given that it comes at a time when climate scientists are issuing increasingly dire warnings of what’s in store for a super-greenhouse future, and many other countries are making serious attempts at addressing the problem. For example, a recent study concludes that the temperature target countries agreed to during the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 is no longer feasible because emissions are rising too quickly. And the American Medical Association just warned doctors that they have to plan for increasing public health impacts from climate change.

As someone who speaks with climate scientists every day to learn about their research, and who believes passionately in the importance of a healthy relationship between scientists and policy makers, it’s simply embarrassing to see lawmakers act with such disregard for scientific evidence.

It also raises an unsettling question: where do we go from here?

The views expressed here are the author’s alone and do not represent any position of the Washington Post, its news staff or the Capital Weather Gang.

By Andrew Freedman | 11:00 AM ET, 04/12/2011

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"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

When the Rapture is your baseline scenario, climate change doesn't sound too worrying...

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