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At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant portio

by brentm 9y ago

At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant portion of either side of the debate. Denying climate change is easy. We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater and the problem is so abstract it's easy to call BS. Short of Trump changing his mind and using his super power of convincing conservatives to go along with things they otherwise never would have gone along with we will continue in this pattern for probably our life time.

zipwitch 9y ago
Climate change denialism has more in common with Flat Earth Theory than religion of any stripe. (Which makes so many Americans buying into it all the more frighting.)
- bleachedsleet 9y ago
  ...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion. I'm sorry, but it is impossible to be a truly intelligent person that also believes in any religion without serious cherry picking or psychological compartmentalization. I say this as someone that loves studying religion (I have a degree in it), but I study it as an artform of human expression or an oddity that once was, not as a serious pursuit of self-completion. Hopefully, we can one day study those that deny basic climate science and geology the same way...
  - discoursism 9y ago
    > ...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion. I wouldn't say so. At least not in the epistemic/anti-epistemic way that parallels climate-change denialism. Most religions make a lot of unfalsifiable claims. Since opponents cannot conclusively falsify those claims, it gives religious adherents an epistemic place to hide and claim personal religious experiences, etc. Most religions have not, in the main, been conclusively refuted, since they involve events that happened thousands of years ago, and even when something is shown to have not happened, the adherents have good precedent for claiming that a given portion is allegorical. Since religious interpretation is rife with different viewpoints, they'll even have a respected theologian to point to who called it in advance. Flat-eartherism is a horse of a different color. It makes a bunch of falsifiable predictions, which have subsequently been falsified many different ways. Then its proponents just ignore the evidence and keep on believing their viewpoint anyway. Epistemologically, climate change denial has a lot more in common with this than it does with religion. I say this as an anti-theist. I don't have much good to say about religion, but I'd rather deal with someone who believes things which can't be proven rather than someone who believes things that have been conclusively disproven. Religious people are in that way a lot like anyone else. They aren't as deluded as someone who can look at clear evidence and simply ignore it.
    - enraged_camel 9y ago
      >>Most religions have not, in the main, been conclusively refuted That's because most religions have as their central tenet a completely unfalsifiable claim: that there is a god.
      - discoursism 9y ago
        This is just what I said, but, yes, you are grasping the thrust of my comment.
      - erikpukinskis 9y ago
        One should remember that many unfalsifiable things are true. Zero falsified things are true (plus some false negative rate) Personally, I believe in God because it’s tautological. Saying there is a god is like saying half of children are above average. As soon as you reference a line in the universe, there is inevitably an ultimate point on it. Edit: I will add that I don’t think God is truly omnipotent. She is bound by the laws of physics, same as us, and will die with the universe. Perhaps sooner. But my article of faith is that she will long outlast me. If I’m wrong, and God dies on my watch, that’s a bridge I needn’t worry about til I get there.
  - tntn 9y ago
    I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment? I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are. I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence has arisen since the 19th century that makes religion so foolish. Take Maxwell for example. He knew about the age of the Earth and recognized the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution. Yet he was by all accounts a very religious man.
    - svskeptic 9y ago
      Lets start with why you think the particular religion you practice is the one? If you think, all are the same, then you are now moving towards existence of a superior being and possibly creationism.
      - erikpukinskis 9y ago
        Pretty much all major religions are compatible with each other. You can move towards a particular sect if you have specific needs. A polytheist Christian would tend towards Catholicism, etc. I don’t think you need to adhere closely to one single tradition in order to be “religious” if that’s what you’re getting at. To answer your question directly though, I was raised in a Christian church. I adhere to some basic form of that. Humility, forgiveness, we were made in Gods image, the original sin of the knowledge of good and evil, etc.
    - bleachedsleet 9y ago
      I think your example of Maxwell makes my point. Let's assume Christianity for a moment, since Maxwell was a Christian. In order to accept the consensus of evolutionary theory while still maintaining one's faith, one must either cherry pick ("the Genesis account was wrong"), compartmentalize ("I accept evolution as true and ignore the conflict with my faith") or appeal to the problem of interpretation that all religions face ("Genesis was obviously not meant to be taken literally and is mere metaphor"). The last option tends to fall under cherry picking itself since it changes with time. Until evolution was accepted as fact, it was mostly taken for granted that the Genesis account was literal. Now days, unless you adhere to creationism, you must assume part of your theology to be metaphorical under no rational basis or risk being outed as a fool that believes in fairy tales. Thus, while Maxwell was a great scientist and definitely had smarts in that area, it would seem to me that he compartmentalized, accepting a philosophy as true that his own scientific pursuit would otherwise find false. A modern example would be William Lane Craig who I find to be a very eloquently formed speaker and obviously quite learned, but for some reason, ignores basic scientific truths in order to preserve his faith.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  "Flat Earth" is not about convincing normal people Earth is flat. Sure you get a few that genuinely believe it because they lack the skills to evaluate evidence, but that's not the point. By using it, you have "fallen" for it's utility. It's a common theme if you study disinformation.
- derriz 9y ago
  I think religion is a better comparison or at least an aspect of religion. Climate change denialism strikes me as having similar features with creationism. Both require believing in a vast global conspiracy of compromised academics - motivated by atheism or liberalism. Both willfully dismiss scientific evidence and consensus if it challenges their world view. But they will proudly admire the very rare academic (invariably not qualified in climate science or biology) who - outside of normal scientific process - become celebrities by providing bias reinforcement.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Actually claiming there are a lot of climate change denialist out there is probably more religious. Most skeptics if not all of them agree there is climate change, most of them even agree some of it is man-made. The discussion is how much and you won't find any consensus on that no matter how much you try to ask for it.
tinco 9y ago
As someone who is convinced of climate change, I like to think my mind would be changed rather easily with some comforting graphs and believable theories on how those graphs show the earth is in fact not warming ever more rapidly since the industrial revolution. I mean, that would be really really nice.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  Oh man, if someone dug up actual, solid data that showed that all of our understanding of ice cores and historic temperature and co2 was wrong, and irrefutably so, I'd be overjoyed. This is, after all, rather like living with the sword of Damocles over my head. I'd really rather not have it dangling there, glinting menacingly at me, but wishing the sword wasn't there doesn't help one jot.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  As far as I understand the argument from people like Alex Epstein and a host of other climate alarmist sceptics is a little different. Everyone is agreeing there is climate change, in fact there have always been climate change and according to them the climate have been much worse than it is now. Most sceptics even agree that humans affect the climate. The discussion as far as I can understand is to what degree do humans affect it. I.e. is it enough for us to worry about it. There is as far as I have been able to learn no actual consensus, in fact, ICSC has been lowering their projections over the last 10 year or so. If you want to figure out whether you should worry or not may I suggest you try and find out what the official consensus on humans effect on the climate is. You will be surprised how little certainty you will find. I certainly was.
  - polotics 9y ago
    Enough certainty for us to have now solidly moved from prisoner's dilemma to campers' dilemma http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.ch/2017/06/facing-climate-bear-campers-dilemma.html?m=1 http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.ch/2017/06/facing-climate-be...
    - 9y ago
loverofthings 9y ago
In similar ways, majority of people that believe in climate change do nothing (or barely anything) to fight it. No one is reducing their heating/cooling, no one is changing their diet, no one is measuring their heating patterns and trying to optimize it (by no one I mean barely anyone). People still want their 24/7 AC, their steaks, their huge cars, their big heat inefficient houses, their plane flights etc. No one does a thing. Believing in climate change, or not believing, when reflected in the actions of people, is in my eyes completely equivalent.
- mirimir 9y ago
  That's not true. Many people in "developed" countries reduce their energy use, and their use of energy-intensive products, in order to help reduce climate forcing. And they've done so for decades. However, it is true that too few people in "developed" countries do that. And it's also true that too many people in "less-developed" countries lust after energy-intensive lifestyles. So overall, its unlikely that overall climate forcing will decrease. Unless solar energy and battery usage take off exponentially enough. Even worse, there's already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to drive substantial climate change. And the poles are warming fast enough to drive substantial CO2 and CH4 outgassing from melting permafrost. So maybe it's just too late. And so maybe the rational option for those alive now is to party hearty. Russia and China probably like that path.
  - jtzhou 9y ago
    Or live wisely so you have the financial means and health to move you and your family elsewhere when need arrives, probably in our lifetimes for 80% of the world.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Right. That's arguably the prudent take on "party hearty". There's always the tension between "do fun stuff now when you can enjoy it most" and "save for later when you'll have more free time and less likely income".
umanwizard 9y ago
> We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater How do you know?

by brentm 9y ago

zipwitch 9y ago

Climate change denialism has more in common with Flat Earth Theory than religion of any stripe. (Which makes so many Americans buying into it all the more frighting.)

bleachedsleet 9y ago
...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion. I'm sorry, but it is impossible to be a truly intelligent person that also believes in any religion without serious cherry picking or psychological compartmentalization. I say this as someone that loves studying religion (I have a degree in it), but I study it as an artform of human expression or an oddity that once was, not as a serious pursuit of self-completion. Hopefully, we can one day study those that deny basic climate science and geology the same way...
- discoursism 9y ago
  > ...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion. I wouldn't say so. At least not in the epistemic/anti-epistemic way that parallels climate-change denialism. Most religions make a lot of unfalsifiable claims. Since opponents cannot conclusively falsify those claims, it gives religious adherents an epistemic place to hide and claim personal religious experiences, etc. Most religions have not, in the main, been conclusively refuted, since they involve events that happened thousands of years ago, and even when something is shown to have not happened, the adherents have good precedent for claiming that a given portion is allegorical. Since religious interpretation is rife with different viewpoints, they'll even have a respected theologian to point to who called it in advance. Flat-eartherism is a horse of a different color. It makes a bunch of falsifiable predictions, which have subsequently been falsified many different ways. Then its proponents just ignore the evidence and keep on believing their viewpoint anyway. Epistemologically, climate change denial has a lot more in common with this than it does with religion. I say this as an anti-theist. I don't have much good to say about religion, but I'd rather deal with someone who believes things which can't be proven rather than someone who believes things that have been conclusively disproven. Religious people are in that way a lot like anyone else. They aren't as deluded as someone who can look at clear evidence and simply ignore it.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    >>Most religions have not, in the main, been conclusively refuted That's because most religions have as their central tenet a completely unfalsifiable claim: that there is a god.
    - discoursism 9y ago
      This is just what I said, but, yes, you are grasping the thrust of my comment.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      One should remember that many unfalsifiable things are true. Zero falsified things are true (plus some false negative rate) Personally, I believe in God because it’s tautological. Saying there is a god is like saying half of children are above average. As soon as you reference a line in the universe, there is inevitably an ultimate point on it. Edit: I will add that I don’t think God is truly omnipotent. She is bound by the laws of physics, same as us, and will die with the universe. Perhaps sooner. But my article of faith is that she will long outlast me. If I’m wrong, and God dies on my watch, that’s a bridge I needn’t worry about til I get there.
- tntn 9y ago
  I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment? I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are. I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence has arisen since the 19th century that makes religion so foolish. Take Maxwell for example. He knew about the age of the Earth and recognized the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution. Yet he was by all accounts a very religious man.
  - svskeptic 9y ago
    Lets start with why you think the particular religion you practice is the one? If you think, all are the same, then you are now moving towards existence of a superior being and possibly creationism.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      Pretty much all major religions are compatible with each other. You can move towards a particular sect if you have specific needs. A polytheist Christian would tend towards Catholicism, etc. I don’t think you need to adhere closely to one single tradition in order to be “religious” if that’s what you’re getting at. To answer your question directly though, I was raised in a Christian church. I adhere to some basic form of that. Humility, forgiveness, we were made in Gods image, the original sin of the knowledge of good and evil, etc.
  - bleachedsleet 9y ago
    I think your example of Maxwell makes my point. Let's assume Christianity for a moment, since Maxwell was a Christian. In order to accept the consensus of evolutionary theory while still maintaining one's faith, one must either cherry pick ("the Genesis account was wrong"), compartmentalize ("I accept evolution as true and ignore the conflict with my faith") or appeal to the problem of interpretation that all religions face ("Genesis was obviously not meant to be taken literally and is mere metaphor"). The last option tends to fall under cherry picking itself since it changes with time. Until evolution was accepted as fact, it was mostly taken for granted that the Genesis account was literal. Now days, unless you adhere to creationism, you must assume part of your theology to be metaphorical under no rational basis or risk being outed as a fool that believes in fairy tales. Thus, while Maxwell was a great scientist and definitely had smarts in that area, it would seem to me that he compartmentalized, accepting a philosophy as true that his own scientific pursuit would otherwise find false. A modern example would be William Lane Craig who I find to be a very eloquently formed speaker and obviously quite learned, but for some reason, ignores basic scientific truths in order to preserve his faith.
jakeogh 9y ago
"Flat Earth" is not about convincing normal people Earth is flat. Sure you get a few that genuinely believe it because they lack the skills to evaluate evidence, but that's not the point. By using it, you have "fallen" for it's utility. It's a common theme if you study disinformation.
derriz 9y ago
I think religion is a better comparison or at least an aspect of religion. Climate change denialism strikes me as having similar features with creationism. Both require believing in a vast global conspiracy of compromised academics - motivated by atheism or liberalism. Both willfully dismiss scientific evidence and consensus if it challenges their world view. But they will proudly admire the very rare academic (invariably not qualified in climate science or biology) who - outside of normal scientific process - become celebrities by providing bias reinforcement.
ThomPete 9y ago
Actually claiming there are a lot of climate change denialist out there is probably more religious. Most skeptics if not all of them agree there is climate change, most of them even agree some of it is man-made. The discussion is how much and you won't find any consensus on that no matter how much you try to ask for it.

tinco 9y ago

As someone who is convinced of climate change, I like to think my mind would be changed rather easily with some comforting graphs and believable theories on how those graphs show the earth is in fact not warming ever more rapidly since the industrial revolution. I mean, that would be really really nice.

madaxe_again 9y ago
Oh man, if someone dug up actual, solid data that showed that all of our understanding of ice cores and historic temperature and co2 was wrong, and irrefutably so, I'd be overjoyed. This is, after all, rather like living with the sword of Damocles over my head. I'd really rather not have it dangling there, glinting menacingly at me, but wishing the sword wasn't there doesn't help one jot.
ThomPete 9y ago
As far as I understand the argument from people like Alex Epstein and a host of other climate alarmist sceptics is a little different. Everyone is agreeing there is climate change, in fact there have always been climate change and according to them the climate have been much worse than it is now. Most sceptics even agree that humans affect the climate. The discussion as far as I can understand is to what degree do humans affect it. I.e. is it enough for us to worry about it. There is as far as I have been able to learn no actual consensus, in fact, ICSC has been lowering their projections over the last 10 year or so. If you want to figure out whether you should worry or not may I suggest you try and find out what the official consensus on humans effect on the climate is. You will be surprised how little certainty you will find. I certainly was.
- polotics 9y ago
  Enough certainty for us to have now solidly moved from prisoner's dilemma to campers' dilemma http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.ch/2017/06/facing-climate-bear-campers-dilemma.html?m=1 http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.ch/2017/06/facing-climate-be...
  - 9y ago

loverofthings 9y ago

In similar ways, majority of people that believe in climate change do nothing (or barely anything) to fight it. No one is reducing their heating/cooling, no one is changing their diet, no one is measuring their heating patterns and trying to optimize it (by no one I mean barely anyone). People still want their 24/7 AC, their steaks, their huge cars, their big heat inefficient houses, their plane flights etc. No one does a thing. Believing in climate change, or not believing, when reflected in the actions of people, is in my eyes completely equivalent.

mirimir 9y ago
That's not true. Many people in "developed" countries reduce their energy use, and their use of energy-intensive products, in order to help reduce climate forcing. And they've done so for decades. However, it is true that too few people in "developed" countries do that. And it's also true that too many people in "less-developed" countries lust after energy-intensive lifestyles. So overall, its unlikely that overall climate forcing will decrease. Unless solar energy and battery usage take off exponentially enough. Even worse, there's already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to drive substantial climate change. And the poles are warming fast enough to drive substantial CO2 and CH4 outgassing from melting permafrost. So maybe it's just too late. And so maybe the rational option for those alive now is to party hearty. Russia and China probably like that path.
- jtzhou 9y ago
  Or live wisely so you have the financial means and health to move you and your family elsewhere when need arrives, probably in our lifetimes for 80% of the world.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Right. That's arguably the prudent take on "party hearty". There's always the tension between "do fun stuff now when you can enjoy it most" and "save for later when you'll have more free time and less likely income".

umanwizard 9y ago

> We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater How do you know?