
The history of science reveals how to talk to science deniers – Quartz - smb111
https://qz.com/1515246/the-history-of-science-shows-how-to-change-the-minds-of-science-deniers/
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radford-neal
The article talks only about climate change, not other sorts of "science
denial". The problem with this is that issue of climate change is not typical
of actual science, but rather more like engineering.

Suppose that Boeing decided that test flights for new aircraft were too
expensive. Instead, they propose to just simulate the performance of the
aircraft on a supercomputer. If the simulation says the aircraft works well,
they just build it and load paying passengers for the first flight.

Of course, everyone would see this as ridiculous. Even though the basic
science underlying aerodynamics is well-established, the application of this
science to a complex system like an aircraft (and the environment it flies in)
is far from straightforward, involving both approximations necessitated by
computational limits and uncertainty in simulation inputs. There is no reason
to place any great trust in the results of the computer simulation.

There is similarly no reason to place great trust in the output of the climate
models that are the basis for predictions regarding warming due to CO2. In
fact, there's less reason than for aerodynamic simulations, which can be
tested on existing aircraft, whereas we don't have a supply of other planets
for testing climate models (not earth-like ones, at least). Furthermore, the
sociology of this scientific field is unfavourable, with large potential for
bias due both to ideological preferences and the huge financial impacts of
policy decisions (including impacts on levels of scientific funding, as for
many fields).

Of course, the basic science does tell us something. CO2 does have a warming
effect. The direct effect from plausible increases in CO2 is not negligible,
but not particularly alarming. The alarming predictions come from models with
positive feedbacks, but the magnitude of the net feedback is highly uncertain.
That's why the IPCC range for the equilibrium effect of doubling CO2 is from
1.5 to 4.5 degrees C - from not too worrying to significantly worrying (though
not catastrophic - that comes from unhinged activist propaganda).

It is striking that this consensus range for the effect of doubling CO2 has
stayed the same for about 30 years - that is, there has been essentially no
scientific progress on the central question underlying this debate for
decades. Perhaps the best scientific minds don't go into this field?

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rossdavidh
There are people working on the actual science of science communication. This
blog
[http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/](http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/)
has some interesting summaries on that work. I see none of that knowledge
reflected in this article. People advocating for science, and against alleged
science deniers, do not seem terribly interested in the science of science
communication, or what has been empirically determined in this regard.

For example, it has been well demonstrated that conservatives and progressives
who have higher levels of science literacy, have HIGHER levels of disagreement
about climate change, than conservatives and progressives who have lower
levels of science literacy. This article would not lead you to suspect any
such thing.

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symlock
Understanding non-altered History, science communication, one-or-more
scientific fields, marketing, and the human mind is much more than almost
anyone can hope to achieve.

This means that both bad science and improper understanding of science will
continue.

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petermcneeley
This article reads like its own satire due to the rhetorical oxymoron phrase
"science denial".

