Are scientists alienating "Americans" from climate change and evolution?

[BurtWorm]

Nisbet and Mooney think so:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302064_pf.html

Thanks for the Facts. Now Sell Them.
by Matthew C. Nisbet and Chris Mooney


If the defenders of evolution wanted to give their creationist adversaries a boost, it's hard to see how they could do better than Richard Dawkins, the famed Oxford scientist who had a bestseller with "The God Delusion." Dawkins, who rose to fame with his lucid expositions of evolution in such books as "The Selfish Gene," has never gone easy on religion. But recently he has ramped up his atheist message, further mixing his defense of evolution with his attack on belief.

Leave aside for a moment the validity of Dawkins's arguments against religion. The fact remains: The public cannot be expected to differentiate between his advocacy of evolution and his atheism. More than 80 percent of Americans believe in God, after all, and many fear that teaching evolution in our schools could undermine the belief system they consider the foundation of morality. Dawkins not only reinforces and validates such fears -- baseless though they may be -- but lends them an exclamation point.

We agree with Dawkins on evolution and admire his books, so we don't enjoy singling him out. But he stands as a particularly stark example of scientists' failure to explain hot-button issues, such as global warming and evolution, to a wary public.

Scientists excel at research; creating knowledge is their forte. But presenting this knowledge to the public is something else altogether. It's here that scientists and their allies are stumbling in our information-overloaded society -- even as scientific information itself is being yanked to center stage in high-profile debates.

Scientists have traditionally communicated with the rest of us by inundating the public with facts; but data dumps often don't work. People generally make up their minds by studying more subtle, less rational factors. In 2000 Americans didn't pore over explanations of President Bush's policies; they asked whether he was the kind of guy they wanted to have a beer with....

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Global warming and evolution are not hot-button issues.

If the "public" is "wary" it's their own damn fault.

[Psephos]

27. I disagree completely

These are hot-button issues because of the way popular media presents science issues to the public. Media needs circulation to make money; people respond with vastly more attention to news items that involve them emotionally. Peruse any LBN page here for direct proof. As a result, science issues are usually presented in a way that frames them as political conflicts.

The reading public may be ignorant, but they are not stupid, and most will respond to appeals to reason if their hackles aren't raised first. Unfortunately, when emotional buttons have been pushed first, reason is short-circuited - literally, as anyone who knows the function of the amgydala can tell you. This is as basic as human nature gets.

As regards global warming, I keep seeing the same meme repeated over and over here on DU. Namely, that RWers don't believe in it. That's simply not true. Most Americans (and a good majority of RWers) do believe in global warming. The disagreement is over what its causes are. Most do believe, also, that human activity is responsible to one degree or another for the warming we've seen. Conservatives tend to think the human component is overstated; progressives tend to think it's not. One can find scientific evidence for both views, which to an apolitical observer means there's more work to be done scientifically. As progressives, we can do the most good by de-emphasizing the dogma that human activity is the sole driver of GW, and by doubly emphasizing that regardless of the precise contribution, the rational course is to develop alternative energies, promote conservation, and move away from carbon. This is a far easier sell to conservatives when you point out that shifting money out of fossil fuels will also de-fund some of the most tyrranical Middle Eastern countries, too.

Same with evolution. Our promotion of science should use scientific understanding of the nature of learning. Colliding directly with someone's religious beliefs, and telling them they're morons, is itself moronic. Doing that is actually a religious act itself. No different from Protestants/Catholics in Ireland, or Jews/Muslims in the Holy Land, trying to force their beliefs on each other.

Emotion is an on/off switch for learning. We should use that knowledge to our advantage.

My opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

[warren pease]

38. Mostly agree, although grudgingly, and two disagreements

It's not possible to know if Americans are just uninformed or are, in fact, truly stupid. But why quibble? Either way, the outcome is the same. Their belief in fairy tales, and their parallel suspicion of peer reviewed, demonstrable fact, is getting in the damn way. By teaching evolution as just another competing theory, we guarantee that kids will be both uninformed and stupid, since they're not challenged to examine the intricacies of natural selection, thereby exercising their brains and developing critical thinking skills, but are encouraged to believe in ridiculous fantasies which form the moral foundation for the worst president in history.

And as to the global warming "debate," I'm not aware of any serious peer reviewed papers or studies that are ambivalent about the role humans play in causing or accelerating climate change. There's plenty of junk science out there masquerading as dogma, but no credible scientists that I'm aware of -- credible in that they're not paid to act as apologists for government policy or the fossil fuels industry -- dispute the premise that the key driver behind global climate change is human activity.

But let's say the "uninformed" like pretty pictures. They can see the graphs showing CO2 atmospheric concentrations that exactly duplicate the graphs showing increased average global temperatures over the past 50 or 60 years. And if they're real good and eat their vegetables, they can look at the ice cores that show the same thing, although obviously not caused by burning fossil fuel. And if they want dessert, they first have to also look at the graphs that show methane atmospheric concentration and its synchronous dance with average global temperatures over x time.

So what's in dispute? There's no credible argument against human causation. There are only rationales for continuing to live far beyond the limits of sustainability. As Cheney so eloquently put it, "The American lifestyle is non-negotiable." So that's that. And fuck the rest of the world if they can't handle it.

Which would be fine if I were a narrow-minded conservative -- and in your post you mention that conservatives diminish the role humans play -- but I'm doomed to be a curious, skeptical agnostic who can tell a scientific fact from an irrational belief system. Global climate change is a scientific fact, and humans are the main problem. The belief that either god will fix everything or, worse yet, let the earth simmer because the rapture's at hand, are the dangerous ravings of the religiously delirious and only in America do they carry any weight.

So... uninformed or just plain stupid? Doesn't matter, except that one is curable -- although I doubt anyone who believes the earth is 6,000 years old wants to be "cured" -- and the other is not. Just our luck we get to live in a country infested with them.


wp

[Psephos]

41. Good points, good discussion

I'm a curious and skeptical too, and can't stand it when, as you aptly put it, irrational belief systems cause people to think there is no consequence to living beyond the limits of sustainability.

It's a matter of time as to when we take our medicine. Now, when we don't like it, or later, when we REALLY won't like it. But we will be taking it.

Peace.

[warren pease]

47. Likewise; my pleasure

As to taking our medicine, I'm becoming increasingly skeptical that medicine will do much to help the problem. The latest IPCC reports are pretty bleak. They suggest that it's already too late to stop global climate change; it's only a question of how soon the effects become catastrophic and if anything can or will be done to keep temperatures from reaching a level that's beyond what most large mammals, rodents, birds and fish can tolerate. And coral and plankton and algae and...

At projected temperature increases -- estimates I've seen range from 8 to 14 degrees celcius by 2100 -- land animals and birds will keep migrating north (or south in the other hemisphere) but they'll far exceed the carrying capacities of the former tundra areas. Competition for meager food supplies will result in continuous inter-species wars, with humans competing with grazing animals for precious agricultural acreage. Ultimately, massive species extinctions are a given.

But I'm encouraged by the way our administration is hustling to take the lead in fighting these impending disasters. Sorry; got a little delusional there.

Honestly, the only good news I've seen applies to bugs and germs, since they thrive in hot, moist environments.

So more mosquitos and gnats and flies, and more hostile microbes to invade all the open wounds resulting from the bug bites. Kind of makes me wish I could believe in the god of planetary repair and restoration.


wp

[BlooInBloo]

2. You right but you're mean! Wah! Call the wahmulance!

LOL! God Americans can be cretins.

[BurtWorm]

5. Can you imagine anyone arguing that Europeans or Japanese are alienated from climate change

and evolution? Because of *scientists*?!

:spray:

[gravity]

3. Religion is alienating "Americans" from climate change and evolution

[distantearlywarning]

4. I disagree.

I think stupidity is alienating Americans from climate change and evolution. ;-)

[Nederland]

6. Dawkins needs to look in the mirror

Atheism is not a conclusion that a rational scientific mind would come to. When you weigh all the empirical evidence for and against the existence of God, the sensible conclusion is agnosticism, not atheism. Like many atheists, Dawkins is guilty of the same error he mocks Christians for: claiming certainty in a matter that has none.

[BurtWorm]

7. Are you certain that Dawkins claims certainty?

;)

Dawkins (and I) call ourselves atheists because we don't believe in God. Neither one of us is arguing that God certainly doesn't exist.

[Nederland]

10. No

But the assumption is based upon the notion that Dawkins is an intelligent man who knows the difference between atheism and agnosticism. If he thought the existence of God was uncertain, he should label himself an agnostic, not an atheist.

[BlooInBloo]

13. Name ONE atheist that claims certainty...

... Else admit you're simply making shit up.


EDIT: "Like many atheists, Dawkins is guilty of the same error he mocks Christians for: claiming certainty in a matter that has none."

Just in case it magically disappears.

Name one. Just one.

[Nederland]

19. Okay

Eric Berman.

[BlooInBloo]

20. LOL!

[Nederland]

22. Something funny?

You asked me to name one and I named one...

[BlooInBloo]

23. Maybe it really did go over you're head... Sigh.. ok...

No he didn't.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. Perhaps, being an intelligent man...

he came to the conclusion that the difference between agnosticism and atheism is rather trivial, and not worth arguing about.

:shrug:

[BurtWorm]

18. Oh, well why didn't you tell him that before he embarrassed himself this way?

:eyes:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

43. I don't believe the roulette ball is going to land on black 6 twelve times in a row.

That doesn't mean I'm certain it won't.

[Evoman]

9. You need to look in a mirror.

A-PinkUnicornism is not a conclusion that a rational scientific mind would come to. When you weigh all the empirical evidence for and against the existence of a pink unicorn, the sensible conclusion is agnosticism, not A-pinkunicornism. Like many A-pinkunicornists, you are guilty of the same error he mocks Christians for: claiming certainty in a matter that has none.


*p.s. Dawkins doesn't claim certainty (100% sure)...he simply claims that there is a high probability god does not exist.

[Nederland]

16. Let me clarify

If asked if I thought a pink unicorn existed (or a Flying Spagetti Monster, or any such equivalent) I would respond, quite rationally, that I could not prove the existence or non-existence either way.

*p.s. Dawkins doesn't claim certainty (100% sure)...he simply claims that there is a high probability god does not exist.

Have a link for this? Just curious how he phrases his belief...

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Example: "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God"

We explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle and Darwin's principle of natural selection. That combination provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary. It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html

[BurtWorm]

29. Here's something from his Web site.

This argument also appears in The God Delusion:


http://richarddawkins.net/article,126,Who-Owns-the-Argument-from-Improbability,Richard-Dawkins

...

The design argument is fatally wounded by infinite regress. The more improbable the specified complexity, the more improbable the god capable of designing it. Darwinism comes through the regress unscathed, indeed triumphant. Improbability, the phenomenon we seek to explain, is more or less defined as that which is difficult to explain. It is obviously self-defeating to try to explain it by invoking a creative being of even greater improbability. Darwinism really does explain complexity in terms of something simpler--which in turn is explained in terms of something simpler still, and so on back to primeval simplicity. It is the gradual, escalatory quality of nonrandom natural selection that arms the Darwinian theory against the menace of infinite regress. I suspect that 'inflation theory' may perform a parallel role in cosmology, but I should need to be more learned in theoretical physics before attempting a confident defence of my conjecture. My colleague Daniel Dennett uses the vivid word 'crane' for theories that do this kind of explanatory lifting work.

Design is the temporarily correct explanation for some particular manifestations of specified complexity such as a car or a washing machine. It could conceivably turn out, as Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel once facetiously suggested, that evolution was seeded by deliberate design, in the form of bacteria sent from a distant planet in the nose cone of a space ship. But the alien designers then require their own explanation: ultimately they must have evolved by gradual, and therefore explicable, degrees. It is easy to believe that the universe houses creatures so far superior to us as to seem like gods. I believe it. But those godlike beings must themselves have been lifted into existence by natural selection or some equivalent crane. The argument from improbability, properly applied, rules out their spontaneous existence de novo.

Sooner or later, in order to explain the illusion of design, we are going to have to terminate the regress with something more explanatory than design itself. Design can never be an ultimate explanation. And--here is the point of my title--the more statistically improbable the specified complexity, the more inadequate does the design theory become, while the explanatory work done by the crane of gradualistic natural selection becomes correspondingly more indispensable. So, all those calculations with which creationists love to browbeat their naïve audiences--the mega-astronomical odds against an entity spontaneously coming into existence by chance--turn out to be exercises in eloquently shooting themselves in the foot....

[Dhalgren]

15. If you are an "agnostic" it means you do not believe. If you do not believe,

as far as a "theist" is concerned, you are an atheist. "Agnostic" is just a "wiggle" word...

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. 'Agnostic' means 'without (certain) knowledge'

There is an appreciable difference between that and 'atheist'.

[Dhalgren]

45. So an "agnostic" believes in gods?

I thought that agnostics did not believe in gods. If an agnostic can believe in gods, then what does "agnostic" mean again?

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. A typical agnostic will say there may be gods, there may not be

and they're undecided. An article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy comparing agnosticism and atheism].

[Dhalgren]

52. So that means that they don't believe in gods. I mean you can't say,

"I believe in gods and I believe that gods may exist or not exist." Again, I think that "agnostics" are trying to have it both ways - they can hang with the atheists and at the same time, stay on the good side of the god-fearers...

[PassingFair]

42. I agree.

I gave up the agnostic title years ago.

Best definition, in my book:

An agnostic is an atheist with an inferiority complex.

They both signify "without" belief in supernatural claims, to me, anyway.

[Warren DeMontague]

34. Yes. He should be agnostic on Zeus just like he should be agnostic on "God".

Just like he should be agnostic on the Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, Unicorns and gnomes that fix people's shoes while the Cobbler is asleep.

[BurtWorm]

36. I reserve judgment on all of those.

;)

[toddaa]

44. Dawkins claims no certainty

The only people who are dead certain of what they believe are agnostics. They are dead certain that they think they know what an atheist is, despite all the atheists telling them that they don't.

One more time:

Atheism - without belief in God
Agnosticism - without knowledge of God

Richard Dawkins is both and I hazard to guess that you are too.

[SteppingRazor]

8. Note the first sentence of the second paragraph...

it's the only way they could even argue against the guy. Kinda sad, really.

[BurtWorm]

17. Most of the criticisms of Dawkins' book that I've seen are about his style.

Very few of the points made against him have anything to do with the validity of his arguments. The only one I can think of that takes issue with his points is the NYBR review that questions whether his "Ultimate 747" argument against God, which basically throws Fred Hoyle "747 in a junkyard" argument back at the ID types by pushing their analogy back a step, is a valid argument. But most of even that review chides Dawkins for being rude to the nice theologians.

[BlooInBloo]

21. Americans aren't thinkers. They can ONLY criticize style.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. "Frank Drake"? Fred Hoyle, surely

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle

There's quite a difference between the two. :D

[BurtWorm]

30. D'oh!

:crazy:

Thank you! :toast:

[whatelseisnew]

11. More crappy fake journalism from the wapo

Its not journalists job to convey scientific fact, but to balance it with theocratic propaganda. /sarcsm off.

don't bother clicking the link

[BurtWorm]

32. This link is more worth clicking on:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,881,Nisbet-and-Mooney-in-the-WaPo-snake-oil-for-the-snake-oil-salesmen,PZ-Myers

Here's a sample of what you'll find there:


Good grief, this is bogus beyond belief. Let's pretend: let's say I shut down my blog, Dawkins refuses to lecture on atheism anymore, Dennett retires to a grass shack in the South Pacific, and Sam Harris converts to Mormonism. Furthermore, every scientist in the country shies away completely from ever mentioning religion, except of course for people like Collins and Miller, who continue their "I'm a scientist, and I believe in Jeeezus!" schtick. We'll forget about the odious implications for the freedom of speech for atheists in this suggestion, and just ask whether it would make the slightest difference in accommodating the public to evolution.

The answer is no, except perhaps in the negative sense that the religious would feel freer to push their science-free beliefs on the public, and that some of the sharpest, clearest voices in the argument (I'm not counting mine in that praise) would be silenced. It's not as if the NCSE and ACLU have been pro-atheist organizations, for instance — both are clearly advocates for very specific issues, and are careful to avoid entangling themselves in the anti-religion struggle — but they still get accused of being atheist organizations. We still get the creationists on the ground banking on those fears of the godless. Candy-coating the implications of science has never worked, and never will work.

And it certainly is true that Dawkins puts an exclamation point on godlessness, and good for him. The path we've taken in the past, the cautious avoidance of the scarlet letter of atheism, has not worked. Dawkins represents a different, bolder, more forthright approach — we are staking out a place in the public discourse and openly discussing our concerns, rather than hiding in fear of that old Puritan scowl. We will not go back in the closet.

Even more offensive is the accusation that Dawkins is an example of failure to explain. That is entirely wrong. Dawkins has clearly stated his position, and there isn't any ambiguity there, either in his statements about evolution or atheism. What Nisbet and Mooney are complaining about is not that he has done a poor job of presenting his ideas to the public, but that they and some members of the public are offended by his ideas. I would have been interested if the object of this discussion was to improve our ability to communicate difficult, uncomfortable views to a wary public, but instead these articles have been a call to suppress a subset of those ideas that they don't care for.

If they wanted to impress me or win me over, a more interesting exercise would have been to explain how 'framing' could help us get our message of the virtues of freethought across to that reluctant public. Instead, we get prescriptions to hide away that part of the story, and worse, to hide away the meat of science.

[depakid]

39. Never, ever trust the Post on scince or policy matters.

They invariably slant their copy and play fast and loose with the facts.

Many of the "science" articles I've read are just laughable. Almost tabloid-like.

As in "some say <insert absurd comment>"

[wtmusic]

12. More subtle, yet less rational

Words fail to describe the imbecility of this viewpoint.

[Rex]

24. But we didn't want to have a beer with George, none of us.

And we all asked in 2000, wtf is going on here? Fuck beer, this guy cheated! I doubt 80% of Americans believe in The God that Mooney worships. Another worthless article from the Faux Prince of Peace.

[hatrack]

25. Shh! Don't offend Biff and Muffy! Don't damage anyone's self-esteem!

And whatever you do, don't expect people to respond to facts, with facts by means of facts!

After all, we wouldn't want an icy cloud of empiricism & logic to suddenly descend across America and distract people from their previously unchallenged assumptions about reality, now would we?

Why, it might hurt their feelings, and then they'd blame us liberals!

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. "The public cannot be expected to differentiate between his advocacy of evolution and his atheism"

Would it be too much to ask that the American public move into the 20th century from the 19th? I think they've got in in them. The rest of the developed world accepted the scientific theory of evolution generations ago, whatever their religious beliefs. Why should Americans be unable to do this? And I don't think Dawkins is the problem - it's taken American educators a couple of generations at least to do what their counterparts elsewhere managed. Why blame a British scientist now?

[BlooInBloo]

33. Well, he's right. It's far too much to expect of an idiot.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. "Shut up, Atheists! Just Shut Up!"

You're costing us votes and alienating the heartland, the geniuses who voted for Bush because they "wanted to have a beer with him".

:eyes:

Right. Some Americans are in deep denial about evolution and global warming- and it's those damn Scientists' fault- you know, for not being more 'accessible'.

Good fucking grief. Like we haven't heard this line of bullshit, before.

How about it's the fault of the corporate media outlets who give petroleum industry shills and right wing theocrats airtime to create "controversy" and "debate" where there IS NONE???

[warren pease]

37. 80 percent believe in a deity?

That's just pathetic. That's a level of religiosity not seen today except in primitive societies. That's what you would expect to find in the Middle Ages, when it was an act of mercy to burn witches and heretics, and the pope was the most powerful political figure in the western world.

In contrast, Europe's religiosity runs around 15 - 17 percent, and that number keeps dropping. But significant numbers of Americans are either too poorly educated or too chronically dense, or both, to handle a simple, provable, demonstrable, repeatable FACT. But they have no problem believing in fairy tales. They're 100 percent certain of an unprovable fantasy, but fear and deny the beautiful logic behind natural selection or the life-saving potential of stem cell research.

The very least these dimwits could do is stay home on election day. But no. They'd rather pollute the electoral process by voting for the one with the best hair, or the best posture, or the best tailor, or the best looking spouse. Issues? We don't got to deal with no stinking issues.

And what's the result? Georgie the boy king, who everybody wants to have a beer with. Let's all have a kegger with George. He's such a great guy, a real bundle of laughs. Maybe we can get him to do that hilarious looking-for-the-WMDs stunt he did at the correspondents dinner a couple of years ago. He might even get drunk enough to choke on another pretzel, and wasn't that a kick in the ass. We're all just rolling on the floor laughing and joking with this great, great guy. Mission accomplished; bring it on; putting food on the family -- ahhhh, this guy just kills me.

Meanwhile, another hundred or so people died in Iraq during the past few minutes, some madman blew away more than 30 college kids while exercising his sacred Second Amendment rights, and the rest of the planet's people shivered uncontrollably at the possibility that the world's most dangerous rogue state -- fronted by a violent dunderhead and led by a greedy, lying war-monger -- might decide their resources are next on the list and bring the chaos and carnage to them.


wp

[sutz12]

46. The religious nuts have been undermining our schools since the 70's

Unfortunately, their stealth campaign has been working.

Time to take our schools and our science back.

[Orsino]

48. Our Department of Education is alienating Americans from science.

It doesn't take a lot of smarts to understand global warming theory, but when the school system breaks down and the media are shouting at you to pay attention to other things, then yes, you're gonna feel like those egghead scientists are the ones divorced from reality.

[TZ]

50. Why must we always blame the scientist?

Scientists have not changed in the last 6 years the way they practice science. Its more like the media and the bushie's have fostered a climate in this country where the scientific method is under attack (a very midievil attitude). I would also blame poor scientific education in the public schools as well. I am constantly shocked by the ignorance of even very basic scienctific knowledge in the general population

[Solly Mack]

51. "more subtle, less rational factors"

People need to make up their minds about facts by "studying more subtle, less rational factors"?

Not for nothing, but the lack of an appeal to emotion is just one of those pesky factors that separates science from belief.

"So, Billy, would you have a beer with this fact?"

"No?"

"Well, then we'll disregard this fact because it's not beer friendly"

LMAO