Born to be wild: cognitive dissonance, conservatives, and the Great American Socialist Experiment

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Jul 18, 2010 at 20:14:14 PM MST

...the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. Otherwise, the movement will come to be defined--and discredited--by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.

Sounds good! I mean, I'm no free-market conservative...but if someone can posit a free-market solution to global warming (any solution!) and sell it, I'm all ears!

But the interesting point here is when Kay examines the psychological readiness among conservatives - who are otherwise, according to Kay, so practical when it comes to policy-making - to believe in wild illogical claims about climate change conspiracies:

But there is something deeper at play, too--a basic psychological instinct that public-policy scholars refer to as the "cultural cognition thesis," described in a recently published academic paper as the observed principle that "individuals tend to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce one or another idealized vision of how society should be organized ... Thus, generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings."

In simpler words, too many of us treat science as subjective -- something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live.

Why, yes...that does make sense. I'm sure I've been victim to similar bits of cognitive dissonance, sure.

In the case of global warming, this dissonance is especially traumatic for many conservatives, because they have based their whole worldview on the idea that unfettered capitalism -- and the asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture it has spawned -- is synonymous with both personal fulfillment and human advancement. The global-warming hypothesis challenges that fundamental dogma, perhaps fatally.

"Unfettered capitalism"? "Spawned" the "asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture"?

Come again?

If there's any part of our lives that's been more underwritten and centrally planned than our asphalt crusin' gas guzzling, I'm not aware of it. The construction of the nation's highway system wasn't the result of free-market pressure by consumers looking for someplace to drive cars. It was a huge government-subsidized project to build highway and paved road infrastructure largely at the behest of corporate magnates who needed a market for oil and automobiles, and rigged  taxation and public funding to derail (pun intended) the streetcar and passenger train system already in place.

Calls for a green economy and transportation system represents nothing new, as far as government ventures are concerned. And, if it were up to me, it wouldn't involve any extra funding. If I were dictator, I'd simply start trimming money earmarked for highway projects, and giving it to mass transit projects. And, frankly, in building a green economy, we have a chance to do so openly and democratically, and not at the behest of corporations

But that just underscores the cognitive, dissonance, right? I mean, resistance to climate change legislation isn't opposition to a conspiracy of environmentalists looking to destroy American industry; instead, it's a blind defense of a kind of American socialist experiment that went horribly wrong. Admitting that the last century of car culture was a big mistake implies admitting it's nothing but a big government project, even if it does feel free-spirited to roll your window down and stick your elbow out the window while you drive 278 from Jackson to Dillon...

The demise of climate change is greatly exaggerated

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Apr 09, 2010 at 09:15:15 AM MST

Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.

Citing flatlined public support for belief in climate change, Nordhaus and Shellenberger advocate moving away from using immediate weather events - especially natural disasters - as a basis for supporting good, progressive low-carbon energy policy that's in our nation's "economic, national security, and environmental interest." (However, they never mention what line of reasoning should be used to support said policy.)

I'm down with avoiding using specific weather events to support climate change. That's something I can get behind. But that's not why I received the link. The reader sent the link to discourage me from mentioning climate change at all when I write about energy, as if somehow we've reached a state where the doubt of enough misinformed Americans trumps scientific reality, as if somehow the state of the climate were a battle of wills, not levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Of course, that's a foolish notion. For one, policy should not be based on irrational public opinion. As Todd Tanner writes in New West, most climate skeptics are "past the point where scientists can convince them or where logical arguments can persuade them," and that they've become ideologues, and whether they're driven by religion or politics or their distrust of the science is ultimately irrelevant." Tanner:

Here's what we need to know. The science is clear and unequivocal. We are dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and all that carbon is warming the planet and making our oceans more acidic. Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a worldwide crisis that threatens every single aspect of our lives.

And, yes, wouldn't it be great if we could find some rhetorical silver bullet that utterly convinced the country that we need to wean ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction - if not for the carbon, say, but for the deadly air pollution? Of course, I don't even agree that talk around climate change has failed just because a handful of people still claim it doesn't exist. A vast majority of Americans believe the US government should put a "great deal" (pdf) of effort into dealing with global warming, and a plurality believe the US sign on to an international treaty to "reduce significantly greenhouse gas emissions." If this is failure of message, I'd love to see the numbers on a successful public campaign. (Numbers, by the way, courtesy of Tanner.)

But the fact is that there are deep-pocketed people out there who have a strong interest in burning fossil fuels, who will work actively to combat any effort to change our energy infrastructure, and who will sow misinformation and doubt among the citizenry and who will politicize health and safety to thwart reform. That is, it doesn't matter what rhetoric you use to support progressive energy policy, you will be attacked. It's better to ignore the concern trolls and forge on ahead with values that most Americans share, like a clean and healthful environment and a better future for our children.

Climate change exists. We need to do something about it.

On climate skeptics' magic wands

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 14:02:20 PM MST

The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God's sakes. It's not some mystery. One hundred and fifty years ago this year, John Tyndall discovered CO2 traps heat, and that was the same year the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania. The oil industry has outpaced the building of a public consensus of the implications of climate science.

But the basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!-physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it? The scientists have long held that the evidence in their considered word is "unequivocal," which has been endorsed by every national academy of science in every major country in the entire world.

If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters or some other special interest who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn't take place, I'm sure we'd have a robust debate about it right now.

More on "climategate"

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 18:33:24 PM MST

The raw data from CRU is not "lost":

So what did happen? CRU took the raw data from various primary sources, aggregated it and then made adjustments. It is some of the aggregation that they threw out when they moved a few decades ago. This means that the original data still exists at the primary sources and can be reaggregated. In fact, CRU is busy doing that just now.

Where did I get this information? From one of the largest thorns in the AGW community's side, Roger Pielke Jr., who seems completely satisfied with their explanation.

Mikkal Fishman reminds us that scientific data is often jealously guarded by scientists when new discoveries are made, or hypotheses. "Climategate" may actually benefit climate change science by forcing climatologists to "develop a standardized way of disseminating their data and models to the public," which will be a good thing.

The NYTimes' Andrew Revkin notes that the controversy has, at least, caused CRU to make their data available. Still, as an Illinois climatologist notes, the exposed emails served as "a complete distraction from the body of evidence pointing to a human hand on the planet's thermostat." After all, even the harshest, "rational" critics make no bones about the substance of climatology's findings, just the style of  scientists....

...which brings us back to yesterday's post, which noted that it's the kind of behavior you'd expect from folks who have been on the receiving end of a massive, years-long, corporate-funded disinformation campaign.

Discuss!

The real hoax in "climategate"

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 11:37:37 AM MST

The sad news in all of this is that there is a real conspiracy surrounding climate science, but it's not scientists and environmentalists working for - what? One-world government? Bison running free on the Northern Plains? (It's never explained, really.) Instead, there's real conspiracy of big industry to muddy the water on science and to sow enough doubt in the minds of Americans and others so that passing real and effective climate change legislation - which would be harmful the profit margins of fossil fuel companies - will be difficult or impossible.

Never mind, you know, the catastrophic effects to our children and grandchildren.

As Jeff Masters points out, the campaign of misinformation is nothing new, but following the well-heeled trail that industry used to thwart or delay legislation on cigarettes, asbestos, and chlorofluorocarbons.

Masters:

You'll hear claims by some contrarians that the emails discovered invalidate the whole theory of human-caused global warming. Well, all I can say is, consider the source. We can trust the contrarians to say whatever is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view. Rather, I see dedicated scientists attempting to make the truth known in face of what is probably the world's most pervasive and best-funded disinformation campaign against science in history. Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change--which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines--is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.

What he said.  

Time for some "sacred groves"

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 14:31:35 PM MST

So what led to the downfall of the Maya? Whether it was the gods' displeasure or not, the answer came from the heavens.
"When you clear all the forests, it changes the hydrologic cycle," says Lentz. "The world is like a flat surface with all the trees acting as sponges on it. The trees absorb the water. Without the trees, there is no buffer to stop the water from runoff. That causes soil erosion, which then chokes the rivers and streams. With no trees, you lose water retention in the soil or aquifers so the ground dries up and then there is less transpiration, so therefore less rainfall as well."

In addition to using the trees as timber, the Maya also burned the trees, adding carbon to the air in the form of carbon dioxide. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air and return oxygen in its place, thus cleaning and purifying the air.

"Forests provide many benefits to society," says Lentz. "The Maya forests provided timber, fuel, food, fiber and medicine in addition to the ecosystem services of cleansing the air and water. Just as forests provided essential resources for the ancient Maya, the same is true for our civilization today."

(H/T Metafilter.)

The myth of fingerprinting

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Jul 27, 2009 at 12:29:13 PM MST

Read it. Recall that the conservative-dominated SCOTUS decided that convicts have no right to test DNA from their police case files. Remember Arnold Melnikoff and what his "testimony" did for the reputation of the Montana Crime Lab. And realize that the head of the Montana Crime Lab has neither experience in forensics nor a science background.

So...what is the Montana Crime Lab doing to ensure that Montana Crime Lab forensics are science-based?

Next up from NASA: robot sex slaves!

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 22:01:06 PM MST

For the basis for this advocacy, Wolfe paraphrases NASA scientist Wernher von Braun:

It's been a long time, but I remember him saying something like this: Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of.

"What NASA needs now is the power of the Word," writes Wolfe. "But that['s] something NASA's engineers [have] no specifications for. At this moment, that remains the only solution to recovering NASA's true destiny, which is, of course, to build that bridge to the stars."

Expect a lot of this in the coming days as we celebrate the moon landings. Frankly I find this kind of romantic hyperbole kind of silly. NASA's promises of manned space flight to Mars or building a base on the moon seem to me a folly, a colossal waste of resources expended to achieve little or no scientific value. Gregg Easterbrook on a moon base:

...the idea of a permanent, crewed moon base nevertheless takes the cake for preposterousness. Although, of course, the base could yield a great discovery, its scientific value is likely to be small while its price is extremely high. Worse, moon-base nonsense may for decades divert NASA resources from the agency's legitimate missions, draining funding from real needs in order to construct human history's silliest white elephant.

And on NASA's 2007 budget, Easterbrook wrote:

At this point, the shuttle exists almost solely to service the space station, while the station exists almost solely to give the space shuttle a destination to fly to. Two space shuttles have exploded on national television. Yet the program drags on owing to the desire of aerospace contractors, and members of Congress who represent shuttle districts, for launches that cost nearly $1 billion each.

NASA has never really recovered from its top-dog status during the space-race years, and ever since has tried to milk Wolfe-ian romantic longing for travel to the stars to win priorities for its missions and bulk up its budget instead of concentrating on worthy and crucial scientific study. You could almost argue that NASA exists to win funding for itself.

Amusingly enough, NASA essentially agreed with Easterbrook's points in an open letter to the author. NASA is a showboat enterprise, suggesting manned missions to win public notice and interest? Well...sure!:

The American public...believes that human space exploration should be at the heart of NASA's efforts. That finding is consistent in poll after poll for the past forty years. No matter how much you disagree with your fellow citizens who foot the bill (and you have been disagreeing with them for many years), your opinion is in the minority.

"Scientific inquiry" as the result of a popularity contest. With this reasoning, NASA should forget manned missions to Mars and look into developing robot sex slaves.

As for the purpose of a lunar base? It's self evident!

Now, let's take a deeper look at NASA's stated priorities, particularly with regard to the new lunar exploration program, which you disparage with rather dismissive language. Rather than taking your playful interpretation, we'll quote NASA directly, which recently spent much time and effort thinking this through.

The stated themes of NASA's lunar exploration program are: human civilization,scientific knowledge, exploration preparation, global partnerships, economic expansion, and public engagement. While we can quibble on the margins, we believe this is a good foundation to build a space program on, and we think most Americans agree.

That's right, they can't come up with a single reason for a lunar base.

Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek just as much as the next basement-dwelling, dirty hippie blogger. But it's...you know...fiction. And while von Braun's wistful gaze on faraway star systems is romantic, the implosion of the sun is still billions of years away, so there's still time to build a bridge to the stars, should we survive our immediate environmental crises. And it's also somewhat poignant that this interstellar fantasy was cooked up by an ex-Nazi: forget the lust for Lebensraum, think about the irony of a scientist responsible for the German V-1 project celebrating humanity as "the only meaningful life." I mean, we probably should get our sh*t together before we start shooting ourselves into far-flung galaxies, right?

Religious-based coursework fails to earn UC accreditation

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Aug 14, 2008 at 12:31:04 PM MST

A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

Sounds about right to me. I've always maintained that if you inject religion into, say, science, you're missing the entire point of science. Teaching evolution to students isn't about indoctrinating people into an absurd sort of secular "church," it's an exercise of applying scientific principles to observing the natural world.

The Christian extremist group, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, whose goal appears to be to merge their particular brand of Evangelical Christianity with the state, is appealing the case, claiming that the ruling legitimizes the UC system's attempt to "secularize private religious schools." Pshaw. Religious schools are free to teach whatever they want; but they shouldn't be free from the consequences of their actions. If any school fails to educate students properly, that education shouldn't be recognized by accredited institutions.

Interestingly, the court case touched on a humanities class that was rejected by the UC university system:

For example, in Friday's ruling, Justice Otero upheld the university's rejection of a history course called Christianity's Influence on America. According to a UC professor on the course review committee, the primary text, published by Bob Jones University, "instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events" and evaluates historical figures based on their religious motivations.

Again, seems clear cut to me. Assuming any text is "unerring" in the practice of history is a big no-no. The purpose of history is to evoke different narratives from the past by scrupulous and unbiased research into historical records. To ignore all other interpretations or records in favor of a single text supporting a preconceived bias - well, that's anathema to the discipline.

It's worth repeating that none of this has anything to do with restricting anybody's First Amendment rights. Private schools are free to teach courses stuffed with factually inaccurate material as a form of religious indoctrination -- but they're not free to receive equal academic accreditation for those courses.

Creatures of illusion

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Jun 25, 2008 at 13:02:08 PM MST

Merian truly spawned across many disciplines: art, science, printing and literature, even adventure.

It's with disappointment then, that I heard that the exhibit would be reviewed by the Los Angeles Times...in its "Home" section.

Kinda' reminds me of the opening of Virgina Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," in which she's contemplating a topic she's been assigned - "women and fiction" - on the campus of Oxford University. Only she's chased by a beadle from the park where she sat musing by the river, and denied entrance to the university library to do research...because she's a woman.

That's the thing with sexism today, isn't it? It isn't heavy-handed, but still puts up a velvet rope to steer women away from serious topics. Get out of line, and the beadle shouts at you.

Speaking of Woolf, I've written out a couple of interesting quotes from the same book below the fold...

Choteau shuts out Steve Running

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 13:59:30 PM MST

The evening speech went off ...but the speech to students was canceled by Choteau superintendent Kevin St. John, who is new to the community and the school district.

"The perceptions were apparently out there about what he would talk about, and that caused some people to start calling the school board," St. John said Wednesday. "Not enough phone calls were coming to me, so I didn't really get a chance to talk to people about Dr. Running."

With pressure bearing down on him from some school board members, St. John canceled the appearance.

"If Dr. Running hadn't been also speaking at the school again that night, it might have been a different decision," St. John said. "But I felt like people were still going to get to hear him, and I didn't want all the controversy at the school, because that takes away from what we're trying to do here."

Of course, because Running was essentially censored, there's more controversy than ever.

Classy. It's a shameful thing that some parents and school board members are so afraid of science that they won't allow a Nobel Prize laureate talk to their children.

Choteau student, Kip Barhaugh:

Our school leaders seem to be under the impression that high school students are not able to hear about what some deem 'controversial issues' and form individual judgments," Barhaugh wrote [in a letter to the Great Falls Tribune]. "This raises the question of what public high school education is. Is it the spoon-feeding of information to America's next generation or is it presenting this generation with all the facts and allowing students to decide how those facts are interpreted?

Essentially the decision to censor Running was the triumph of politics and propaganda over science. Congratulations to the Big Energy backers: you've succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.

Creation Museum

by: V

Thu May 31, 2007 at 09:50:39 AM MST

Regardless, I don't think that the monkey trial caused the damage to religion that it is chalked up to have caused.  In reality, the intellectual greed of some religionists caused a natural reaction from scientists.  This is like a regular old turf war.  You don't have to abandon some intellectual pluralism in order to be faithful.  Faith, not creation, is the province of religion.  Put another way, God (raised Catholic...but I think the same holds true for most other Dieties) could probably not care less that Creationism is not taught in public schools.  I think that he would care that people have decided faith isn't good enough any more.

Update -- In related news, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) has an op-ed in the NYT. trying to explain his view on evolution.  He feels that raising his hand against evolution in the presidential primary debate was not explanation enough of the issue.  I think he is right about that, and, while I disagree with a lot of his views, they are certainly worth a read.

Double-Punch Cancer Strategy

by: V

Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 12:34:33 PM MST

By joining a sugar to a short-chain fatty acid compound, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a two-pronged molecular weapon that kills cancer cells in lab tests. [It] has not yet been tested on animals or humans...[but] it represents a promising new strategy for fighting the deadly disease.

Fighting cancer is not really a partisan issue, because it is hard to find anyone who hasn't lost someone to this terrifying affliction.  I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed that this might be the solution.