Rational denial of undeniable climate change: Science in an era of post-truth politics

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1 Rational denial of undeniable climate change: Science in an era of post-truth politics Stephan Lewandowsky School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute University of Western Australia Gothenburg, May, 2017

2 Post-Fact World Post-Truth Politics post-fact post-truth Number of media hits post-truth Word of the year 2016 (Oxford Dictionaries)

3 U.S. Presidential Candidates Politifact score card of election campaign

4 Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements (MISINFORMATION) true or false attributed to Trump or unattributed obtain belief ratings Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT)

5 Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements (MISINFORMATION) true or false attributed to Trump or unattributed obtain belief ratings Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT) Rebut (affirm) false (true) statements ask for belief ratings immediately or week later

6 Belief Ratings (Swire et al., 2017)

7 Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2017)

8 Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2016) Degree of belief change after correction of misinformation did not correlate with change in voting intentions

9 Facts Don t Matter: Now What? Climate change was the crucible of the post-truth world

10 The Problem

11 The Problem The climate is changing. Humans are causing it. It s a problem. 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% agreement among climate scientists

12 Another Problem With all the hysteria, all the fear, Oklahoma State Capitol all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is. U.S. Senator James Inhofe Congressional Record, 2003

13 Rejection of (Climate) Science Skepticism Denial Supply Demand Tools Effects Psychological predictors

14 Rejection of (Climate) Science Skepticism Denial Supply Demand Tools Effects Psychological predictors

15 Benefits of Skepticism (Lewandowsky et al., 2005, 2009) People who were skeptical about official motives for the Iraq War disbelieved things they knew to be false believed accurate information People who were not skeptical believed in things they knew to be false

16 Denial is not Skepticism: AIDS and South Africa President Mbeki s government ( ) rejected Western medicine as racist Rejected offers of antiretroviral drugs Preferred to treat AIDS with garlic and beetroot instead

17 Denial is not Skepticism: AIDS and South Africa

18 Rejection of (Climate) Science Skepticism Denial Supply Demand Tools Effects Psychological predictors

19 Denial vs. Skepticism: The Triage

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23 official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong. [in 2007] none of them predicted a temporary fall in global temperatures of 0.7 degrees, equal to their entire net rise in the 20th century Christopher Booker, 22 October 2016

24 fall of 0.7 degrees 0.7 C

25 January 2007 January 2008

26 Implications of Cherry-Picking By design, it never ceases When pineapples grow in Alaska.. and Miami is just a distant memory.. there will still be opportunities for cherrypicking

27 Adjudication? manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people (U.S. Senator Inhofe) Climate scientists say otherwise Public highly polarized 20% of Representative U.S. sample: Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by corrupt scientists who wish to spend more taxpayer money... (Lewandowsky et al., 2013, PLOS ONE)

28 Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians 6 different scenarios involving various climate indicators contrarian statements sampled from media and online sources Google search reveals high prevalence on contrarian blogs mainstream scientific statements checked by climate experts

29 Sample Trial

30 Combine items into correctness score

31 Statisticians Misleading contrarian interpretations reduce people s acceptance of climate science (Ranney & Clark, 2016; McCright et al., 2016)

32 Denial vs. Skepticism: The Triage

33 Conspiratorial Denial of Science is Pervasive [xxxxxxx research is] a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel that manufactures alleged evidence. billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the xxxxxxxxxx industry in the last 20 years.

34 Conspiratorial Denial of Science is Pervasive [Medical research is] a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel that manufactures alleged evidence. billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the anti-smoking industry in the last 20 years. internal memo of the tobacco industry (1983)

35 Scientific Facts or Conspiracies HIV causes AIDS Tobacco smoke causes lung cancer Greenhouse gases cause climate change Western medicine is racist Medical research is an oligopolistic cartel Global warming is a hoax

36 Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science Vaccinations -.54 Smoking and lung cancer -.55 HIV and AIDS -.55 Genetically modified foods -.13 Climate -.20 to -.57 Lewandowsky et al. (2013) PLOS ONE; Lewandowsky et al. (2013) Psychological Science

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38 Rejection of (Climate) Science Skepticism Denial Supply Demand Tools Effects Psychological predictors

39 Why do People Buy Organized Denial?

40 Worldview ( Ideology ) People s basic beliefs about how society should be structured and how goods should be distributed. Nuanced concept 2 cultural cognition (e.g., Kahan, 2012) here focus on people s view 0 of the free market (Heath & Gifford, 2006) -1 Climate Free Market

41 Worldview ( Ideology ) and Science Worldview trumps other variables Among Republicans in U.S., acceptance of science decreases with increasing education. 31% without tertiary education. 19% with college degree. reverse (52 vs. 75%) for Democrats.

42 Worldview ( Ideology ) and Science Hamilton (2011) More information can make things worse More education can make things worse

43 Rejection of (Climate) Science Skepticism Denial Supply Demand Tools Effects Psychological predictors

44 Does it Matter?

45 Broader Context activists with ties to the Tea Party brand preserving open space as a United Nationsled conspiracy to deny property rights They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes and smart meters... New York Times 3 February 2012

46 Broader Fallout of Conspiracism

47 Now What? Denial is not irrational but a highly effective political operation How to counter? suspicion and inoculation communicate scientific consensus focus on solutions

48 Suspicion and Inoculation Research on misinformation: Correction effective if people are: skeptical of a source suspicious of motives people who doubted that Iraq War was over WMD processed information more accurately (Lewandowsky et al., 2005, 2009) Important to analyze denial and publicize their techniques

49 Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% Inoculation messages neutralized effects of false balance agreement among climate scientists

50 Take-home Message?

51 Take-home Message? 13 months after founding a new party from scratch a strongly pro-eu and pro-climate candidate, who made fake news a campaign issue and tackled them head on, and who ran against a person riling against globalist elites, Rational and democratic was elected President political of France leadership by a 2-to-1 can be margin effective and electable

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