When Beliefs and Facts Collide 725
schnell writes A New York Times article discusses a recent Yale study that shows that contrary to popular belief, increased scientific literacy does not correspond to increased belief in accepted scientific findings when it contradicts their religious or political views. The article notes that this is true across the political/religious spectrum and "factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction, health care reform and vaccines." So what is to be done? The article suggests that "we need to try to break the association between identity and factual beliefs on high-profile issues – for instance, by making clear that you can believe in human-induced climate change and still be a conservative Republican."
Don't let politicians control the discussion then. (Score:5, Interesting)
The big mistake the AGW people made was letting politicians control the discussion.
They allowed some politicians to use it as a weapon against other politicians which turned the issue into a partisan weapon.
Around the time you saw Al Gore pushing an inconvient truth, that was when the AGW movement shifted from being about science to being a weapon.
Seriously... Al Gore has personally done more damage to the AGW cause then anyone else in the world.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but some of us are willing to accept that the universe doesn't give a fuck about ideology.
When AGW first became a big issue in the 1990s I was talking against it as a big scam on Usenet; particularity my old haunt talk.origins. it was when one of the regulars, a biologist (why any scientist would waste his time debating Creationists I'll never understand), pointed out to me that the theory was reasonably well supported, there were a boatload of papers and that science isn't the product of emotional need, and I finally accepted that AGW, even if it suggested things that I didn't like, was legitimate science.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you shot all the people you believe are demon possessed, there will be far less people you believe to be demon possessed. That doesn't make demon possession real.
Eugenics is based in part on gross oversimplifications of genetics and in part on the absurd idea that attributes like economic status are biologically heredity.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that admitting it puts you at a significant disadvantage at debates. If you can no longer summon the (self-)righteous fury your opponent can, not only are you more likely to give in from sheer exhaustion, but people viewing the debate are likely to consider your opponent as dominant and confuse that as being right. This, in turn, can have unfortunate consequences if the topic is something actually important, rather than just a means to establishing pack hierarchy.
I don't know if it's possible to tame your inner alpha male to the point where you can let it handle poo-flinging contests with other monkeys while still keeping your human intelligence in control of what you believe in or do, but if it is we'd better learn how fast, because we're running out of time. Or perhaps the problem is precisely the idea that it needs to be "tamed", rather than recruited as a member of the internal team. Perhaps we should simply accept that humans tend to establish pecking order, and practice how to do so without slipping into abuse or idiocy.
Then again, that would require admitting that people who think mainly in terms of pack hierarchy and territory aren't necessarily any less intelligent than people who think mainly in terms of logic and science, they just interpret the same message through a different lens. And that might be an unbearable blow to quite a few egos.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't matter if it's people, foxes or peas, for genetics the same principles apply to all living things that reproduce in the same fashion, as in two sexes that combine their genetic material into an offspring.
Agriculture has used selective breeding for plants and animals, that follows the very same principle, for ages with great success.
The big difference between us and 'lower animals' as well as plants is that we created a system of morals and ethics that mostly apply to us and not those other lifeforms. And since most of us aren't sociopaths unable to feel empathy we don't like the concept of eugenics applied to the human society because it would have very inconvenient consequences. I wouldn't want it. But all that doesn't change the fact that the basis for Eugenics is in fact scientific.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:1, Interesting)
I had a very similar experience - the more you applied any sort of rational skepticism, the more defensive the proponents of AGW got. It became a team sport, rather than a scientific inquiry.
The truth is, humans have a non-zero effect on our environment.
The truth is, this effect is almost surely completely unpredictable, and quite likely insignificant.
When expressing rational doubt is greeted with censure, and demands to "step in line", you've stopped doing science, and started preaching yet another religion.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:5, Interesting)
Origin of Species was a great work for it's time, but it's probably not worth spending much time on it as it's so outdated. It works at the wrong abstraction. Natural selection works at the level of genes, not species.
This is poor advice at two levels. First, natural selection does work at the level of species too. Else there wouldn't be identifiable species or the possibility of species going extinct. Darwin wouldn't have gotten far with the theory of evolution, if it weren't for the huge variety of observable species.
Nor should one read Darwin just for the science, but rather to see how a master writer and scientist puts together a beautiful and profound scientific argument. So much of scientific writing today is crap. It's poorly written and stuffed with cliche, sometimes not even understood by the author much less anyone else who reads it.