Researchers Develop a ‘Vaccine’ Against Climate Change Denial

There are those among the advocates of the theory of climate change who are so adamant about the truth of their theory, that they are desperately seeking a way to force acceptance of that belief on others. Never mind that there are fine scientists who differ with them. Anyone not accepting the belief that climate change is real and that human activity is the cause is considered to be brain-washed, abysmally stupid, or unable to accept the facts as presented.

Keep in mind that the source we are using here is Vox, a very consistently liberal news source.

In the battle between facts and fake news, facts are at a disadvantage. Researchers have found that facts alone rarely dislodge misperceptions, and in some cases even strengthen mistaken beliefs.

That’s just as true for climate change as it is for any other politically polarized issue in the US. The theory of identity-protective cognition, developed by Yale Law professor Dan Kahan, holds that we subconsciously resist any facts that threaten our defining values — and better reasoning skills may make us even better at resisting. People who are more scientifically literate, for instance, are even more divided about the risks of climate change than those who are less scientifically literate.

So this theory proposes that education actually works against people learning and discovering the truth. If that were true, the implications would be monumental, making a mockery not just of our educational systems, but of the whole purpose of education. It’s difficult to think of a more preposterous or disruptive idea.

Deliberate campaigns against climate change science — like the one launched by the American Petroleum Institute in the late 1990s that’s been much imitated since — have taken advantage of this tendency, encouraging resistance to the facts by exaggerating the uncertainty inherent in the science.

But two recent, preliminary studies suggest there’s hope for the facts about climate change. Borrowing from the medical lexicon, these studies show that it may be possible to metaphorically “inoculate” people against misinformation about climate change, and by doing so give the facts a boost. What’s more, these researchers suggest, strategic inoculation could create a level of “herd immunity” and undercut the overall effects of fake news.

At this point, we need to realize that all this amounts to is a way of changing peoples’ beliefs, regardless of the truth of the matter. In this case, it is assumed as true that the climate change theory is correct. Hence the development of techniques that get people to accept the desired position could just as easily be used to spread falsehoods as the truth.

As a result, this is a dangerous development. A means of bypassing or modifying peoples’ reasoning or thought processes in order to gain consensus on whatever the issue might be can have catastrophic consequences, something we saw in Nazi Germany.

Both Cook [a cognitive scientist at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University] and van der Linden [a psychology professor at Cambridge] say that while we do tend to resist facts that challenge our defining values, that defensive reaction can be circumvented. Previous studies by van der Linden and others show that the scientific consensus on the magnitude and causes of climate change can serve as what van der Linden calls a “gateway belief,” in that its acceptance can be a first step toward a more comprehensive change of views.

“Consensus messages don’t ask people to change their beliefs — they ask them to change their opinion about what other people believe, so they’re not a direct threat to their identity,” says van der Linden. “We’ve found that they’re one way to get people more aligned on the side of climate science.” Because consensus opinions from a respected group tend to be accepted as much if not more readily by conservatives than liberals, he says, they appear to decrease rather than increase polarization.

What is being studied here are methods of thought control. The arbiters of what is to be considered true first establish that “truth,” and then use these “inoculation” techniques to convert people to their beliefs.

This citation sums up the goal of this work very succinctly.

Inoculating Republican leaders and Republican voters against the climate misinformation in their own party platform would surely take time, especially since so many are constantly exposed to new misinformation. But Cook is encouraged, both by his results and by his personal experience: When the right message is combined with the right messenger — one who shares the values of his or her audience — the facts have a fighting chance.

There it is. Someone else will determine what the “right message” is and employ the results of this research in order to get you to accept it. Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” in action.

There is no substitute for the truth and for education. Nor is there a substitute for a vigorous debate over what is true. Delegating the determination of what is true to others works against this process. And when you boil it down to the essentials, what these researchers are proposing is nothing more than a more effective method of spreading propaganda.

Source: Vox

Image: Fair