What, Me Worry? (Part 2 of 2)

We’re all puppets controlled by the winds of social conformity.

~ Dr. Joe Hanson, host, It’s Okay to be Smart

Last time we looked at equality bias and its role in climate change denial.  Here are two more reasons that rational arguments alone won’t convince people.    

2.    The way our brains are wired

The American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Digital Studios has a nifty channel on YouTube called It’s Okay to be Smart.  I featured their segment, Climate Change: What you need to know, in my Global Warming 101 post. 

In his short video (below), host Joe Hanson talks about our wiring, among other things.  He talks about PAIN, the role of uncertainty, and how a need to belong shapes our beliefs:

So you can see that a number of subtle influences disrupt our objectivity.  Still, after equality bias and our wiring, a third contributor to climate change denial is our posse.  I have a great pun to insert here, but out of respect for Jay Heinrichs and my denialist friends, I shall restrain myself. 

3.    Our Tribe

Who’s your tribe?  Who are your homeys?  This is big. 

Climate change denial isn’t not knowing, or refusing to know. It’s about choosing not to notice or talk about it, so they don’t rock the in-group boat. 

~ Stanley Cohen, sociologist

Jay Heinrichs has written a ground-breaking, masterful, and entertaining book on rhetoric that is being used widely in universities like Harvard and elsewhere.  Thank You for Arguing will teach you the art of persuasion and make you laugh while you learn.  Jay has consulted with NASA, the US Department of Defense, Harvard, Walmart (don't hold that against him), Southwest Airlines, and more. 

Jay, who is the big brother of my childhood friend, has launched a video channel on YouTube called ArgueLab.  ArgueLab is a video forum in which “rhetorician Jay Heinrichs, and YouTube star Christina Fox, reveal the secrets of rhetoric, the art of persuasion.”  Its short videos offer entertaining tools for talking. 

In a recent segment, Jay talks about tribal identity using the anti-vaccination movement as a backdrop.  The parallel to climate science is exact. 

Equality bias, our brain’s wiring and tribal identity all work to muddle the facts.  You can't blame it on your brain though, because now you know.  In future posts we'll look at positive feedback loops, and how bad will be it anyway?  

Next time:  When Positive Feedback is a Bad Thing 

  

Denialists: What, Me Worry? (Part 1 of 2)

Here are three reasons why facts alone aren’t enough. 

We can look at science all day, but many folks – a LOT of folks, especially Americans, continue to deny climate science.  We might look at the disproportionate way in which big American money is funding the climate denial movement, much the way the tobacco industry resisted health warnings on cigarette boxes, and sought to raise doubt about health risks. 

The politics of denial is a topic for another time.  Right now, we’re just looking at the individual as part of a group, and the psychology, sociology and biology of it if you will.  So in the next two posts we’ll look at three contributing factors to denialism. 

1.      Equality Bias

I once worked with someone who was (still is) the nicest guy in the world.  He really is.  Brilliant too.  The problem was that whenever we leaders sat around our table solving the problems of the universe (or of the organization, at least), he’d always take a middle ground position, no matter how hair-brained someone on one side of the issue was being.  He is a gentle man and probably did this to protect feelings.  It seems reasonable.  It appears fair.  Even when someone is a crackpot. 

Chris Mooney, in his Washington Post column, The science of protecting people’s feelings: why we pretend all opinions are equal, details this very phenomenon.  Apparently it is a thing, it has a name, and it’s called equality bias.

 [Psychologists have] shown that people have an “equality bias” when it comes to competence or expertise, such that even when it’s very clear that one person in a group is more skilled, expert, or competent (and the other less), they are nonetheless inclined to seek out a middle ground in determining how correct different viewpoints are.

Chris Mooney

The study is recent, multi-national, and shows similar results across cultures.  You can read the study here.

Mooney describes in accessible terms how the study was conducted.  The bottom line is this:

[H]uman groups (especially in the United States) err much more in the direction of giving everybody a say than in the direction of deferring too much to experts. And that’s quite obviously harmful on any number of issues, especially in science, where what experts know really matters and lives or the world depend on it — like vaccinations or climate change. 

It’s only “fair,” right?  We see it in interviews, where one climate change believer (often Bill Nye the Science Guy), is juxtaposed with a single denier, when the reality is that 97% of scientists agree human-caused climate change is real and an immediate threat.  John Oliver illustrated this humourously in a video I featured last time. 

Next time: The other two reasons why facts are not enough: 2) our wiring and 3) our tribe 

Global Warming 101

The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died...

Revelation 8

When I cite sources, wherever possible I will cite diverse, original, scholarly, independent sources. You get what you pay for, and here at There’s More in You, everything’s free (charges by your internet services provider may vary), so how much time do you have? 

Have 6 minutes?  Watch this clever video by the US-based Public Broadcasting System published in December 2014: 

Have half an hour?  The following twenty-six minute video, Climate Change: Lines of Evidence, produced in 2012 by the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council and the Academy of Natural Sciences gives a succinct overview. 

Overwhelmed by despair?  Needing a smile?  I give you four and a half minutes of John Oliver.  NOTE:  F Bomb warning.  

Next time: The Psychology of Denial