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Motivated Rejection of (Climate) Science: Causes, Tools, and Effects
Bath, March 2016
Stephan Lewandowsky
School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot InstituteUniversity of Western Australia
Twitter: @STWorgwww.shapingtomorrowsworld.org
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The ProblemG
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The ProblemG
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Mann et al. (2016)
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The ProblemG
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• The climate is changing.
• Humans are causing it.
• It’s a problem.
97.1%agreement
in climate
literature
97.5%agreement
among climate
scientists
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Another Problem
Oklahoma State Capitol“With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.”
—U.S. Senator James InhofeCongressional Record, 2003
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Historical Context:President George W. Bush (2.5.2003)
• “In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing ….
• Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave—and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
• The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror …”
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Benefits of Skepticism (Lewandowsky et al., 2005, 2009)
• Examined the role of skepticism in information processing surrounding the Iraq War
• People who were skeptical about official motives for the Iraq War
– disbelieved things they knew to be false
– believed accurate information
• People who were not skeptical
– believed in things they knew to be false
Scientific literature is based on skepticism
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Denial is not Skepticism:AIDS and South Africa
• President Mbeki’s government (1999-2008) rejected Western medicine as “racist”
• Rejected offers of antiretroviral drugs
• Preferred to treat AIDS with garlic and beetroot instead
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Denial is not Skepticism:AIDS and South Africa
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Denial vs. Skepticism:The Triage
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Contrarian Media Coverage
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Contrarian Media Coverage
7
6 2013
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Contrarian “Think” Tanks
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From the Heartland Institute’s 2010 Prospectus
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Heartland Institute
• “National Snow and Ice Data Center records show conclusively that in April 2009, Arctic sea ice extent had indeed returned to and surpassed 1989 levels.”
– Heartland Institute, 24 January 2011
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The Data
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Another Look
• “National Snow and Ice Data Center records show conclusively that in April 2009, Arctic sea ice extent had indeed returned to and surpassed 1989 levels.”
– Heartland Institute, 24 January 2011
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NSIDC Data 1989 and 2009
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As of Today
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Adjudication?
• “… manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” (U.S. Senator Inhofe)
• Climate scientists say otherwise
• How to adjudicate?
• Blind test of representative contrarian arguments
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Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians
• Public statement by the CEO of the supreme widget corporation (SWC), made a few months ago:
– “our auditors' records show conclusively that in April 2009, our profits had indeed returned to and surpassed 1989 levels.”
– “the underlying trend in our profits has been consistently negative between 1989 and 2009.”
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Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians
• 6 different scenarios involving various climate indicators
– contrarian statements sampled from media and online sources
– climate experts judged their prevalence to be high
– Google search reveals high prevalence on contrarian blogs
– mainstream scientific statements checked by climate experts
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Sample Trial
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Combine items into correctness score
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Blind Test With Economists
Heartland
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Blind Test With Statisticians
Heartland
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Denial vs. Skepticism:The Triage
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Conspiratorial Denial of Science is a Global Phenomenon
• [xxxxxxx research is] “a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence.”
• “billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the xxxxxxxxxxindustry in the last 20 years.”
–
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Conspiratorial Denial of Science is a Global Phenomenon
• [Medical research is] “a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence.”
• “billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the anti-smoking industry in the last 20 years.”
– internal memo of the tobacco industry (1983)
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Scientific Facts
• HIV causes AIDS
• Tobacco smoke causes lung cancer
• Greenhouse gases cause climate change
or Conspiracies
• Western medicine is racist
• Medical research is an oligopolistic cartel
• Global warming is a hoax
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“The experts had … been twisting the evidence, abusing the scientific process, … illegally hiding or deleting emails … and silencing dissent…”
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Nothing is an Accident
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Adjudication?
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What Do People Make of This?(Lewandowsky et al., 2015)
• Blogosphere response to one of my papers provided potentially conspiratorial material
• Blind and naïve participants rated web content on attributes of conspiracism
• “To what extent does the content express …”
Nefarious intent
Deep-seated suspicion
Nothing is an accident
(0-9 scale)
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Web Content (Comments & Posts)Nefarious Suspicion Nothing is anintent accident
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Web Content vs. Scholarly Critique
• PhD students asked to be as “critical as possible” to generate comparison stimuli
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Web Content vs. Scholarly CritiqueNefarious Suspicion Nothing is anintent accident
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Web Content vs. Scholarly Critique
“…reasonable and well thought out criticism of the research?”
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Conspiratorial Discourse
• In the eyes of naïve and blind participants ….
• … climate blogosphere discourse is identified as conspiratorial using well-established attributes.
• Climate blogosphere discourse is not judged to be reasonable and thought-out criticism.
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
Public is denied the right to be adequately informed about risks it
is facing
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Why do People “Buy” Organized Denial?
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Worldview (“Ideology”)
• People’s basic beliefs about how society should be structured and how goods should be distributed.
• Nuanced concept
– cultural cognition (e.g., Kahan, 2012)
– here focus on people’s view of the free market (Heath & Gifford, 2006)
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Worldview and Science(Lewandowsky et al., 2013)
Free market:
Climate:
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Worldview and Science(Lewandowsky et al., 2013)
-2 -1 0 1 2
-2
-1
0
1
2
Free Market
Clim
ate
r = -.70
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Worldview (“Ideology”) and Science
• Worldview trumps other variables
• Among Republicans in U.S., acceptance of science decreases with increasingeducation.
–31% without tertiary education.
–19% with college degree.
– reverse (52 vs. 75%) for Democrats.
Hamilton (2011)More information can make things worseMore education can make things worse
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Rejection of (Climate) Science
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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Public
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Analysis of Media Opinion Pieces(Elsasser & Dunlap, 2013)
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Problem: Misperception of Scientific Consensus
Public
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Consensus as a Gateway Belief
Ding et al. (2011)
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Scientific Community
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“Seepage”
• Climate scientists operate under very difficult conditions
– institutional support not necessarily sufficient
– death threats
– hate mail
– repeated “hacks” of personal correspondence
– serial misrepresentation by certain media organs
• Climate scientists have shown great courage
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Linguistic Landscape of Science
• Scientific “reticence” (Hansen, 2007; Risbey, 2008)
– inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise
• IPCC AR4 conservative (Freudenburg & Muselli, 2010)
– 85% of news articles reveal climate disruption to be worse than expected
• “Erring on Side of Least Drama” (Brysse et al., 2013)
– public backlash if predictions are too “alarmist”
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From Conservatism to “Seepage”
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Seepage
• Tacit acceptance of a particular frame or narrative
• Highlighting one aspect over another in a complex situation
– e.g., uncertainty rather than firm knowledge
• Not massive and not easily detectable
• Departure from previously accepted scientific practice without explicit justification
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(30 August 2015)
IPCC WG1 (2013)“uncertain” > 2,200
times
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The “Pause” in Global Warming
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2006
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2004 – 2015: Google Trends
GW StoppedGW Pause
GW Hiatus
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What “Pause”?G
lob
al t
emp
erat
ure
an
om
aly
(C
)
Year
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Forensic Cognition
• Present “skeptic” statements to experts in a blind test:
– A prominent Australian critic of conventional economics, Mr. X., publicly stated in 2006, that `There IS a problem with the growth in world agricultural output—it stopped in 1998.' A few months ago, Mr. X. reiterated that `. . . there's no trend, 2010 is not significantly more productive in any way than 1998.'
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Forensic Cognition
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Forensic Cognition
Strongly disagree Strongly agree(1) Midpoint = 3.5 (6)
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The “Pause” in Global Warming
• Does not pass blind expert test
• No statistical evidence for slowing or stopping
• However, for some time there was the appearance of a departure between projected temperatures and observations
• Linguistic framing inappropriately seeped into the scientific community
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Thank You
Skepticism Denial
“Supply” “Demand”
Psychological predictors
Tools Effects
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END
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A Partial List of Tools
• Underscoring scientific consensus– Lewandowsky, Cook, Myers, Maibach
• Providing factual information (400 words)– Ranney
• Framing solution as business opportunity (nuclear) and losses as foregone gains– Kahan, Lewandowsky
• Framing climate change (and solutions) as a health issue– Maibach, Nisbet Is this enough?
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Critique of Cook et al. (2013)
"There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct." (p. 704)
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Conspiracies and Science
• [Medical research is] “… a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence”– internal memo of the tobacco industry (1983)
• “With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.”– U.S. Senator James Inhofe (July 28, 2003)
If virtually all scientists agree that evidence is overwhelming,but evidence is too threatening,
then it’s a conspiracy
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Exposing rather than Engaging
• Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes).
– similarity to tobacco
– ideological underpinning
• “Cool dudes” (Dunlap, McCright).
– ideological motivation
• Conservative “think” tanks (Jacques, Dunlap).
– 92% of “skeptical” books have think tank background
• Psychological variables (Lewandowsky, Smith).
– conspiratorial thinking
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Scientific Facts
• HIV causes AIDS
• Tobacco smoke causes lung cancer
• Greenhouse gases cause climate change
or Conspiracies
• Western medicine is racist
• Medical research is an oligopolistic cartel
• Global warming is a hoax
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Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science
• Survey items
– “Human CO2 emissions cause climate change”
– “A powerful and secretive group known as the New World Order are planning to … replace sovereign governments”
– “Area 51 in Nevada is a secretive military base that contains hidden alien spacecraft”
Lewandowsky et al. (2013) PLOS ONE
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Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science
Climate Consp.
Climate Science
-.57
Representative U.S. sample
-2 -1 0 1 2
-2
-1
0
1
2
X
Y
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Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science
• Vaccinations -.54
• Smoking and lung cancer -.55
• HIV and AIDS -.55
• Genetically modified foods -.13
• Climate -.20 to -.57
Lewandowsky et al. (2013) PLOS ONE; Lewandowsky et al. (2013) Psychological Science
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Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science
• Vaccinations -.54
• Smoking and lung cancer -.55
• HIV and AIDS -.55
• Genetically modified foods -.13
• Climate -.20 to -.57
Lewandowsky et al. (2013) PLOS ONE; Lewandowsky et al. (2013) Psychological Science
20% of Representative U.S. sample:
Climate change “… is a hoax perpetrated by corrupt scientists who wish to spend more taxpayer money ...”
(Lewandowsky et al., 2013b, PLOS ONE)
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False Consensus Effect(Leviston et al., 2013)
The greater this discrepancy, the
more resilient to change
Actual
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Perils of Motivated Cognition
• Small group of people who deny that climate is changing. – motivated cognition
– epistemological closure
– false consensus effect
– conspiracist ideation
• Very difficult target group.
• Engagement fraught with risk.
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Perils of Motivated Cognition
• Small group of people who deny that climate is changing. – motivated cognition
– epistemological closure
– false consensus effect
– conspiracist ideation
• Very difficult target group.
• Engagement fraught with risk.Do not mistake the opinion of this group for a plurality (let alone majority) opinion
Sample overall
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Contrarian Media Coverage
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But Sometimes “Irrelevancies” Are Not Irrelevant
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“Climategate”: Public
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“Climategate”: Blogosphere
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Distribution of Mislead Scores
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But There is no Houston
In whose hands the future?