I’ve discovered a fine line between “skeptic,” “cynic,” and “loon.” While it’s usually very good to approach each new claim with a bit of skepticism, at what point, how much evidence do you need, before you actually accept a new claim?
That line seems different with various people.
For example, check out the latest from NPR:
HIV does not cause AIDS. Smoking does not cause lung cancer. And burning fossil fuels does not contribute to global warming.
What do these three statements have in common? They’re all rejections of well-established scientific consensus, and recent findings in psychology suggest that people who believe one or more of them are also more likely to believe a number of conspiracy theories: that the New World Order is planning to take over the planet, that the Apollo moon landing was faked in a Hollywood film studio, that the death of Princess Diana was an organized assassination, that an alien spaceship in New Mexico was covered up by the United States’ military, and even more.
That’s right: climate-change denial, discussed in last week’s post by Adam Frank, is associated with conspiratorial thinking.
The paper that reports this finding, forthcoming in the leading journal Psychological Science, has already caused a major flurry in the blogosphere, particularly among those who reject climate science. Assorted bloggers denounce the paper’s “Anthropogenic warmist nonsense,” suggest that the paper is “not scientific or competent,” and describe it as “an ad hom[inem] argument taken to its absurd extreme,” an “inane, irrelevant and completely biased rant study.”
Stephan Lewandowsky, the paper’s lead author is under fire from conspiracy theorists.
Disgruntled climate skeptics have gone beyond digs at the science to suggest “hidden motivations” for the paper — perhaps a systematic attempt by left-wing academics to discredit those who reject climate science. And in support, they’ve cycled through a number of hypotheses for how the results were obtained: by deliberately biased sampling, by collecting data from “warmists” posing as “skeptics,” or by statistical sleight of hand, among others. This sounds awfully … conspiratorial (a point made here and here).
Meanwhile, calls for the paper’s retraction and accusations of ethics violations on the part of the researchers have come to naught. The fact is, the paper reports solid research, with all major findings now replicated in a new sample and with several specific critiques addressed in detail by the authors in a series of posts at ShapingTomorrowsWorld.com. So why the aggressive (and ironic) response?
While the conspiracy theorists are slamming his work, here’s how some members of the scientific community reacted:
I have yet to see anyone within science who is surprised by the finding that conspiratorial thinking and science don’t mix well, because anybody who knows anything about science and anybody who knows anything about conspiratorial thinking will know that the two are, you know, the opposites of each other.
The sad thing is that most conspiracy theorists I’ve encountered aren’t big into fact checking, instead relying on speculation, rumor, and second hand information. Lewandowsky’s experience is similar.
As is all too common, the public perception of controversy isn’t an accurate reflection of the status of particular findings or ideas within the scientific community. Lewandowsky’s research on memory, for example, is arguably more controversial within psychology, where there are ongoing theoretical debates about forgetting and the role of memory interference.
When I asked, Lewandowsky confirmed: “I haven’t gotten any hate mail, and I haven’t got any death threats, for my research on memory.” And no Freedom of Information requests, either.
