I've been watching this discussion...

Neil Jones neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk
Wed Feb 23 08:25:50 EST 2011


On 19/02/2011 20:41, John Shuey wrote:
> A lot of this discussion has to do with the poor state of science
> education in the US (perhaps the only country where people will argue
> without embarrassment that deism-based creation is a science).  Where
> most people don't know the difference between climate and weather. Where
> most people are unaware that the greenhouse effect is responsible for
> this planet being habitable, and Venus being uninhabitable.   Where
> statistical probabilities are so poorly understood that they are
> dismissed if they don't align with personal biases.
>
> I'd guess that most people have never studied the basics of science
> philosophy or heard of Carl Popper (not even a guess on this one) - that
> the basic premise of science is that you can never "prove" anything,
> just set up hypothesis to be tested to determine if they are not true.
> A few people have heard of Occam's razor - but that doesn't stop them
> from building convoluted if, and, or but arguments.  Nor are they aware
> of the role falsified hypotheses play in refining theories (or even what
> the differences between these two terms are).
>
> These and other attributes of the US population (such as short-term
> financial interests) synergize to create a population unmotivated to
> explore the issue on their own - preferring to take the word of their
> chosen experts - true for both sides of this issue.
>
> So it all adds up to cherry picking what one "expert" says to support
> your views around here - because by and large, we are just too lazy to
> actually learn about the issues in enough depth to draw our own
> conclusions....
>
> John Shuey

I wouldn't say that science education is wonderful over here either but 
we don't have pressure
groups trying to ban biology!.I have just counted up each British 
creationist I have met ON THE FINGERS OF ONE HAND!
One was a Jehovah's Witness I walked into after stepping out of the door 
and I put him to the test. He did not leave happy!
  Another was someone who also believed that stage magicians were in 
league with the devil. I think that is crazy!
People laugh at creationism here. It was raised in a conversation by 
someone else in a group I was with only last week and we all laughed. 
Creationists are seen as being figures of fun. Climate change denialism 
is commoner but unlike the US we didn't have the tobacco lobby to 
promote it initially.  It is quite easy to see how an industry so bereft 
of moral that it promotes people becoming cancer stick junkies can move 
on to telling people to deny what the expert consensus tells us we 
should do.

We know much more about human behaviour than we used to even now to a 
biochemical level and there is definitely good evidence
of cognitive deficits being involved. It is no accident that there is 
what Americans would call a "Liberal Bias" in academia.
It is probably a matter of biology. The latest stuff on brain chemistry 
is fascinating in that regard. Most people here can probably see
that racist bigots are not very clever anyway. :-)  Some people are 
neophobic and concentrate on the immediately concrete  rather than
the abstract. This is shows very clearly when you see someone saying we 
had a cold winter (weather) when the whole of the world was actually 
warmer over all. The climate/weather and similar dichotomies and the 
ability to see the difference seems to  have some basis in brain 
biochemistry.

I have actually studied the science behind climate change properly. Not 
just read sources from one side or another.
The two sides are not equal, despite the biased outpourings of certain 
sources in the USA. If ninety nine doctors told me
I was going to die if I didn't take some kind of action and one said 
not. I'd go with the ninety nine, but I would still want to understand
the science behind it.

You are right of course that we cannot prove anything absolutely but 
things like evolution, the earth going around the sun and being round 
not flat
have so much evidence for them that we can regard them as facts. The 
greenhouse effect is similarly one of those facts and that is why the 
experts are concerned about us increasing it.
Imagine just how future generations of Americans will judge the climate 
change deniers. They will make Benedict Arnold seem like a national hero!

Neil Jones
neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk



 
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