Denialism: What is it and how should scientists respond?

macca · 20 May 2012

I have read the opening attachment and I am not really sure what it is trying to say, TBH.

On one hand it talks of stacking the argument to create a false impression as being bad and yet it uses the IPCC as being an example of a victim. I note that the article was written 2009 and time has since proven that the IPCC was wrong, exactly as forecast by the so called deniers. So wrong in fact that the IPCC has had to admit that the climate is not changing as modelled

I have found that on average, most skeptics are older than those who have embraced the current generational fear campaign, because they are older they have witnessed similar campaigns of fear before. As is common, each generation likes to look for something different to embrace and protest about from the previous generation.

Here in Oz some people have this misguided belief that our actions actually matter to the world, sorry, but they don't ! Until such times as the Northern hemisphere manufacturers cease pumping out pollution there will be no changes in any effect that mankind is having on the environment.

All I can see is our children and grandchildren are being brainwashed and frightened by the very teachers they need to trust and a huge debt being incurred for them to pay back.

moXJO · 20 May 2012

Hard to deny there is a lot of spin in the air. And this is one instance. If the facts were so clear relating to CC then don't muddy the waters with bs. But that's not the case we seem to get scare campaigns, dodgy numbers and out right lies from both sides, so it is hard to form an opinion one way or the other.

THE accuracy of the ABC's reporting on climate change has been called into question by an activist who uncovered documentary evidence that undermines one of the national broadcaster's most sensational reports on the subject.

Climate change blogger Simon Turnill told The Weekend Australian the contents of 11 emails he uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act were at odds with last year's ABC report that death threats had been made against climate scientists at the Australian National University.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/abc-climate-death-threats-reports-undermined/story-e6frg996-1226360656074

Glen48 · 20 May 2012

Do you mean wet fush WL?

Commonsense tells you putting any sort of pollution into your lungs is not what nature wanted,people in poor countries who use wood fires indoors get lung cancer etc and the push is on to use smoke free pellets, smoking and cancer is all about money the CEO of R J Reynolds sent his private jet to pick up his dog how many cancer stick would that take to pay for the trip.
Every thing is about money, ego, money.power and money besides once the depression starts we will have less power consumption,less cars/ trucks on the road, less industry which will give us our reduction in all those things claimed to cause GW and more smokers sitting around giving us population reduction.
Ever one has their price it's just a matter of how much to sell your soul and swap sides.
Drug dealers when pulled over by police kept offering money to the copper until he let them go didn't matter if it was 1k or 100's.
So we have to guess who is tell the truth with what information we have and if the Feds can keep the local's happy they are not going to ask questions.

cynic · 20 May 2012

basilio said:
Came across an interesting paper in a Public Health journal which explored the issue of misinformation.

Worth a read.

Black is white and White is black
"HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BC.Smoking doesn't cause cancer.. "

http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/1/2.full.pdf

Thanks for the link Bas. Yes! Another fine example of subjectivity from select members of academia whom deem it necessary to allow their opinions to influence their findings.

If that paper truly defines denialism, then I am proud to declare myself as a denier!

For those whom were wise enough not to invest their time reading the aforementioned "paper", a small excerpt follows:

The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are.

I believe we can all recognise how the abovementioned approach to debate, can readily break down into an: "I am right! Therefore you are wrong/inferior/dysfunctional!"
type of argument(hardly conducive to objective discovery).

Thanks again Bas. for making yet another fine contribution to the argument against AGW.

prawn_86 · 20 May 2012

Who cares? GW either is or isnt happening WITHOUT human influence same as it has done millions of year bofore-hand

cynic · 20 May 2012

prawn_86 said:
Who cares? GW either is or isnt happening WITHOUT human influence same as it has done millions of year bofore-hand

+1

I believe it is happening in accordance with the natural evolutionary processes. Mankind (and accompanying technology) is currently an essential part of this natural process.

Julia · 20 May 2012

prawn_86 said:
Who cares? GW either is or isnt happening WITHOUT human influence same as it has done millions of year bofore-hand

We care because the spin is resulting in an unnecessary and damaging tax on an economy already under stress.

basilio · 20 May 2012

I can understand why many posters have jumped up to defend their views on climate change. But as I repeated the paper I quoted did not discuss CC as any particular example of denialism. It focused on the arguments used by the tobacco industry over 60 years to preserve their capacity to market cigarettes without reference to health effects.

Cynic hit the nail with his quote from the paper on how a science approach would look at the arguments used to defend or promote a position.

The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are.

When you go back to the paper as whole they dissect the arguments used by the tobacco industry and it becomes clear they never looked as the whole evidence, they used deliberate distortions and logic was not their strong suit...

Wayne suggested that the use of the word denier with regard to the holocaust was quite appropriate

If people are denying a 'truth' or 'reality' it would be a perfect tag, such as denying the Holocaust happened. Well it did happen! There may be some debate about exact numbers, the evidence is irrevocable

But the whole point about that debate as I saw it was that a significant body of work was created by some historians and interest groups to deny the reality of the Holocaust. This was done under the name of freedom of speech until finally governments decided the construction of outright lies or the distortion of evidence that caused serious harm to people was not acceptable and acted accordingly.

If we go back to the Tobacco industry issue we can see a fair comparison. Again a deliberate distortion of facts and a construction of lies that would allow people to be hurt by tobacco related illnesses. Perhaps the right word in these cases are criminal lies rather than the "nicer" term denial.

I can see a concern about using the word "denier " loosely. It can be an cheap way to dismiss an opposing point of view and as Wayne suggests associate the arguer with Holocaust denial. That is why the discussion in the paper was focused on the balance and quality of evidence and logic.

basilio · 20 May 2012

Another thought.

What would be your thoughts about the attitude of the Poker machine industry to the question that their machines were designed to create addictive behaviors in players and extract as much money as possible from them ?

Do you think it would be an act of denial on their part to say the machines were not designed to be addictive and that they were not trying to empty peoples pockets ? Is simply depending their economic interest a sufficient reason to promote a dangerous product ?

Ideas ?

sails · 20 May 2012

moXJO said:
Hard to deny there is a lot of spin in the air. And this is one instance. If the facts were so clear relating to CC then don't muddy the waters with bs. But that's not the case we seem to get scare campaigns, dodgy numbers and out right lies from both sides, so it is hard to form an opinion one way or the other.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/abc-climate-death-threats-reports-undermined/story-e6frg996-1226360656074

Agree moXJO - there are many things that are creating doubts in the minds of people. Healthy questioning is not denying reality.

If I told you the earth was flat, sure I would be denying reality. However, climate science does not offer anything so concrete. Their failed predictions are causing many to question just how much of this so called "science" is actually science and how much is politically based propaganda.

This was posted some time ago, but probably worth another mention. It confirms the article link I posted from Aussie scientist Garth Paltridge. It does question how much scientists are expected to promote co2 regardless of their actual findings.

Australian physicist Professor Brian J O'Brien who was closely involved in the Apollo moon missions speaks out on global warming the last part of this interview (from about the 45 minute mark) he speaks out on global warming:

From the ABC: ABC interview with Brian J O'Brien

And a few snippets of the interview from Bolt's Blog (not Bolt's opinion):

" It's "certainly not proven" that man is largely to blame for any warming.

- An Australian professor of physics told him he.... had to keep his team of 65 researchers going with work, and "the only funding I can get for them and to get their PhDs is greenhouse funding from Canberra or whereever".

- “For 20 years people have been indoctrinated with the abuse of language” so that “climate change” is meant to suggest that all change is man-made. Of course, there’s climate change. That’s not the question "

Read more here:professor speaks out: money has corrupted our global warming debate

Interesting. Seems plenty of funding for scientists for AGW believers. Surely, there is clear potential conflict of interest for scientists receiving government funding on political matters.

Here is the link again for Garth's article:
http://www.au.agwscam.com/pdf/Garth Paltridge on the consensus.pdf

rumpole · 20 May 2012

basilio said:
Is simply depending their economic interest a sufficient reason to promote a dangerous product ?

Ideas ?

I'm sure that those whose livelihood depend on selling dangerous products like liquor , tobacco and gambling would tell the public anything they could that sounds plausible to defend their business, whether they actually believed it or not.

Calliope · 20 May 2012

rumpole said:
I'm sure that those whose livelihood depend on selling dangerous products like liquor , tobacco and gambling would tell the public anything they could that sounds plausible to defend their business, whether they actually believed it or not.

I agree. There is little doubt that the alarmists know they are selling a dangerous product.

So_Cynical · 20 May 2012

wayneL said:
If people are denying a 'truth' or 'reality' it would be a perfect tag, such as denying the Holocaust happened. Well it did happen! There may be some debate about exact numbers, the evidence is irrevocable.

However catastrophic global anthropogenic climate change is not a truth or reality, it is a hypothesis reliant on highly subjective observations and models that have so far failed to predict anything.

The Holocaust was a series of events that happened over a 5 year period, roughly 1940 to 1945 (from memory) ~ man made global warming and associated climate change has been going on since (arguably) the end of WW2 and will continue for a century or more.

Stupid comparison i know but on a time line basis for GW its early 1941, Auschwitz is just a little former polish military camp with no prisoners....i suppose for any big series of events that happen in slow motion its easier for information to flow and for vested interests to gear up and get their message out.

macca said:
I have read the opening attachment and I am not really sure what it is trying to say, TBH.

On one hand it talks of stacking the argument to create a false impression as being bad and yet it uses the IPCC as being an example of a victim. I note that the article was written 2009 and time has since proven that the IPCC was wrong, exactly as forecast by the so called deniers. So wrong in fact that the IPCC has had to admit that the climate is not changing as modelled

Wrong...the IPCC was wrong??? or the modelling has not proved to be 100% accurate...notice the use of the word MODEL and what it imply's.

wiki link said:
A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system.

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

Julia · 20 May 2012

basilio said:
Another thought.

What would be your thoughts about the attitude of the Poker machine industry to the question that their machines were designed to create addictive behaviors in players and extract as much money as possible from them ?

Do you think it would be an act of denial on their part to say the machines were not designed to be addictive and that they were not trying to empty peoples pockets ? Is simply depending their economic interest a sufficient reason to promote a dangerous product ?

Ideas ?

If you're intending this as an analogy with regard to belief in AGW or otherwise, I don't think it's really valid.

People have the opportunity to exercise personal responsibility and free will when it comes to using poker machines. We have not been given the same freedom of choice when it comes to the carbon tax.

I don't give a stuff about poker machines one way or the other. I've never used them and have no interest. But I know plenty of people who do use them for recreation and are not addicted. So the argument seems pretty shonky imo.
If they were oh so dreadfully dangerous, you'd imagine everyone using them would have a problem. They don't.

Sure, some people do. But those same people will likely have addictive tendencies in various other aspects of their lives also.

My own argument here could well be unfairly influenced by my total hatred of the increasing interference in people's lives by the nanny state. If the decisions declaring what is good for us and otherwise continue at this exponential rate, in a couple of generations we will become dependent automatons, incapable of thinking for ourselves.
Rant over, with apologies.

rumpole · 20 May 2012

Julia said:
My own argument here could well be unfairly influenced by my total hatred of the increasing interference in people's lives by the nanny state. If the decisions declaring what is good for us and otherwise continue at this exponential rate, in a couple of generations we will become dependent automatons, incapable of thinking for ourselves.
Rant over, with apologies.

No need to apologise, you have a valid viewpoint. Would you agree that it is a matter of degree how far the government intervenes that is at question ? Let's face it, a small number of irresponsible people can cause the majority of us a great deal of hardship, as evidenced by such things as alcohol fuelled violence and road accidents, lung cancers from cigarette smoking and other cancers from alcohol abuse and obesity.

If you add up the effect on the health bill we are all paying for these abuses one way or the other, even if we are not run over or mugged on the street by drunken yobs. Do we just accept the fact that these things will happen and clean up the mess afterwards with everyone's money, or transfer the price of the abuse onto the abusers, e.g. by increasing cigarette and alcohol prices , and try and prevent the abuse instead of it leaving wreckage behind for others to clean up ?

The principle of insurance is that those at most risk of liability (physical, financial etc) should pay the most in premiums. Then the rest of us could have ours reduced.

Would you agree ?

That's my rant over.

awg · 20 May 2012

On the topic of denialism, and whether the word itself is insulting,
it seems to have come into usage in the context of "god-deniers" as well.

The word is used with invective by one side, but it seems to have been proudly adopted by Dawkins, for instance.

In my younger day, I would have classified myself as a God denier, as I strongly did not believe in God, based on scientific evidence. These days, it would be correct to "label" myself as a God "skeptic", because, although I still do not believe, I cannot disprove Gods existence, and accept that I might be wrong.

I wouldnt feel insulted if labelled a God denier though.

Is it vastly different?...one could say that there is (*some* {insert term of own choice here} scientific evidence for humanGW, and not much really for God

Garpal Gumnut · 20 May 2012

Denialist
Unbeliever
Heretic
Black
White
Christian
Jew
Muslim

It depends on how any of the words above are said, and who is saying it, and what self righteousness is in their voice, and what madness is stirring society at that particular time.

Be careful with words and the context in which you use them.

gg

Julia · 20 May 2012

rumpole said:
No need to apologise, you have a valid viewpoint. Would you agree that it is a matter of degree how far the government intervenes that is at question ? Let's face it, a small number of irresponsible people can cause the majority of us a great deal of hardship, as evidenced by such things as alcohol fuelled violence and road accidents, lung cancers from cigarette smoking and other cancers from alcohol abuse and obesity.

If you add up the effect on the health bill we are all paying for these abuses one way or the other, even if we are not run over or mugged on the street by drunken yobs. Do we just accept the fact that these things will happen and clean up the mess afterwards with everyone's money, or transfer the price of the abuse onto the abusers, e.g. by increasing cigarette and alcohol prices , and try and prevent the abuse instead of it leaving wreckage behind for others to clean up ?

To be honest, I'm not sure. My thinking on this swings. I'm all for people individually taking responsibility but in a practical sense I don't see how it could work for, say,
a drunk being held financially and in every other sense responsible for causing a road accident.

Let's assume the drunk had no capacity to pay for the care of anyone he injures. (very likely). What happens then?

The taxes on cigarettes more than pay for the healthcare expended on smoking related diseases as I understand it, so that seems reasonable enough.

I just don't know where you would draw the line if undertaking an 'individual responsiblity for everything approach'. You'd have e.g. the situation of someone with diabetes, probably lifestyle induced. Are you going to withhold treatment from such a patient?

Or the drug addict who is seeking rehab. Are we going to say, 'tough luck, baby, you did the drugs, you caused your problem, no help from the taxpayer'?

Is that the sort of society we really want?
Part of me likes the idea of not nursing people along when they fail to take responsibility as much as possible for their own health and financial outcomes, but I can see massive flaws in such an approach, such that would render our society the poorer.

I might be quite wrong. Would be interested in the views of others.

The principle of insurance is that those at most risk of liability (physical, financial etc) should pay the most in premiums. Then the rest of us could have ours reduced.

An example of this occurred recently when Suncorp declined to write any new insurance over properties in a couple of flood prone Qld towns. Suncorp explained that this was to prevent overall rises across their customer base becoming unreasonable. Made absolute sense to me but there was a huge outcry against Suncorp.

Glen48 · 20 May 2012

Guess it depends on what sort of society you want to live in my day ( damn i said it ) pubs closed at 10 as well as bottle shops people were not as mobile and were taught to accept responsibly.

But if by some bad luck nature gives you a hole in the heart should you pay or expect the general public to foot the bill.
Who will decide on who should pay what and if the damage is done do you say bad luck and park them in a corner.
We have been conditioned to accept the feds should look after us and I suggest most people think the feds are like some big multi national not a bunch of freeloading scammers.

Garpal Gumnut · 20 May 2012

Agree Julia and Glen.

Just like Funeral Insurance.

Who needs it.

gg

Denialism: What is it and how should scientists respond?

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moXJO

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