The Science of Why we don't believe in Science

[scalyblue]

Found a very interesting read here.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Given the power of our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

 

[Cephei]

Makes quite a lot of sense. I've noticed myself that you can get creationists to accept pretty much anything, but as soon as you say "that's evolution", the curtains come down.

 

[Inferno]

Reminds me of the Psychology of Belief series.

 

[Gnug215]

Found a very interesting read here.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Given the power of our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

That is indeed an awesome article. Everyone here should read it!

Heh, while reading it, near the end I found a really awesome quote I wanted to use here. Then I looked back here at the post, and saw it was the same damn quote you, scaly, had put up.

Ah well, here is another good one:

In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values,so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

Awesome stuff.

READ IT, EVERYONE!!!

 

[Inferno]

Now that I've read it, it's incredibly fascinating and (personally) uplifting that I've been saying the same thing for a few years now. I've always been of the opinion that telling creationists "this is the way we are related to chimps and gorillas" is far less effective than saying "this is the way that I'm related to my cousin. Oh and by the way, that's how we're related to chimps".

I've already linked to the first video of the "Psychology of Beliefs" series below, but I'd like to point out that
"Confirmation Bias" (part 3 in the series) is mentioned in the text.

 

[Gnug215]

Now that I've read it, it's incredibly fascinating and (personally) uplifting that I've been saying the same thing for a few years now. I've always been of the opinion that telling creationists "this is the way we are related to chimps and gorillas" is far less effective than saying "this is the way that I'm related to my cousin. Oh and by the way, that's how we're related to chimps".

I've already linked to the first video of the "Psychology of Beliefs" series below, but I'd like to point out that
"Confirmation Bias" (part 3 in the series) is mentioned in the text.

I've had similar thoughts for some time now, I just couldn't formulate (or support) it.

I love how names are put on many of these concepts, like confirmation bias, and also stuff like DK and TMF (although those two not in this article.)

It is indeed uplifting... on the other hand, it's rather terrifying to read this.

Basically, the world will remain split, and it seems there is no resolution to this stuff.

Perhaps we should look at what happened in the past and compare? Is that even possible, given that conditions have changed so much? (Like how it's possible for subcultures to be connected via the Internet, and that there is now so much information out there, that if you look hard enough, you can find ANYthing.)

 

[Inferno]

Basically, the world will remain split, and it seems there is no resolution to this stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't the article state the opposite? It basically said "you can't resolve the issue the normal way" and then there was this "BUT" hidden deep in there.

For example:

This may help explain a curious pattern Nyhan and his colleagues found when they tried to test the fallacy (PDF) that President Obama is a Muslim. When a nonwhite researcher was administering their study, research subjects were amenable to changing their minds about the president's religion and updating incorrect views. But when only white researchers were present, GOP survey subjects in particular were more likely to believe the Obama Muslim myth than before. The subjects were using "social desirabililty" to tailor their beliefs (or stated beliefs, anyway) to whoever was listening.

Ah, so there IS a way to change their minds, it's just a matter of what methods you use! (I don't know if they did a follow-up to see how many actually retained their new-found knowledge.)

Or this part:

In one study, he and his colleagues packaged the basic science of climate change into fake newspaper articles bearing two very different headlines,"Scientific Panel Recommends Anti-Pollution Solution to Global Warming" and "Scientific Panel Recommends Nuclear Solution to Global Warming",and then tested how citizens with different values responded. Sure enough, the latter framing made hierarchical individualists much more open to accepting the fact that humans are causing global warming. Kahan infers that the effect occurred because the science had been written into an alternative narrative that appealed to their pro-industry worldview.

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values,so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

So quite contrary to what you're asserting, there is a way to change their world-view, it just takes a lot of time and effort and the article explicitly mentions them!

 

[Irokesengranate]

Very interesting read indeed, thanks a lot for the link.

 

[Gnug215]

Basically, the world will remain split, and it seems there is no resolution to this stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't the article state the opposite? It basically said "you can't resolve the issue the normal way" and then there was this "BUT" hidden deep in there.

For example:

This may help explain a curious pattern Nyhan and his colleagues found when they tried to test the fallacy (PDF) that President Obama is a Muslim. When a nonwhite researcher was administering their study, research subjects were amenable to changing their minds about the president's religion and updating incorrect views. But when only white researchers were present, GOP survey subjects in particular were more likely to believe the Obama Muslim myth than before. The subjects were using "social desirabililty" to tailor their beliefs (or stated beliefs, anyway) to whoever was listening.

Ah, so there IS a way to change their minds, it's just a matter of what methods you use! (I don't know if they did a follow-up to see how many actually retained their new-found knowledge.)

Or this part:

In one study, he and his colleagues packaged the basic science of climate change into fake newspaper articles bearing two very different headlines,"Scientific Panel Recommends Anti-Pollution Solution to Global Warming" and "Scientific Panel Recommends Nuclear Solution to Global Warming",and then tested how citizens with different values responded. Sure enough, the latter framing made hierarchical individualists much more open to accepting the fact that humans are causing global warming. Kahan infers that the effect occurred because the science had been written into an alternative narrative that appealed to their pro-industry worldview.

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values,so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

So quite contrary to what you're asserting, there is a way to change their world-view, it just takes a lot of time and effort and the article explicitly mentions them!

Well, sure, but here they're basically saying that the change, or the agent of change, has to come from within their own ranks. Right?

So essentially, short of of planting a sleeper agent within their midst or some weird crap like that, we're helpless.

 

[Inferno]

Well, sure, but here they're basically saying that the change, or the agent of change, has to come from within their own ranks. Right?

So essentially, short of of planting a sleeper agent within their midst or some weird crap like that, we're helpless.

I dare say "wrong". Look at the first quote. Non-white researchers, so from what I gather the exact same opposite of the crowd, would change their minds.
I don't know how that would work for "Evo vs Creo" though.

 

[Gnug215]

Well, sure, but here they're basically saying that the change, or the agent of change, has to come from within their own ranks. Right?

So essentially, short of of planting a sleeper agent within their midst or some weird crap like that, we're helpless.

I dare say "wrong". Look at the first quote. Non-white researchers, so from what I gather the exact same opposite of the crowd, would change their minds.
I don't know how that would work for "Evo vs Creo" though.

Well, that's racism, I guess. It's a touchy subject, and probably not a matter of "facts or beliefs" as such.

But yeah, I agree that the article describes certain circumstances in which it's possible for people to change their minds, but we here don't seem to posess any of the conditions.

So my point is that we here don't seem to have any means with which we can change any minds of creationists. We have no tactic or strategy at our disposal that will be of any benefit (although I'd still argue that some tactics/strategies are better than others) in this entire debate. At least in terms of changing the minds of ingrained creationists.
There is, however, something to be said about the less ingrained and the fence-sitters.

 

[Inferno]

That's probably true, but since the article doesn't specifically mention ways in which creationists can be made to change their minds, I'd say that it's possible that there is a yet to be understood/found way to turn them.

 

[Gnug215]

That's probably true, but since the article doesn't specifically mention ways in which creationists can be made to change their minds, I'd say that it's possible that there is a yet to be understood/found way to turn them.

Well, so far all I can think of is to somehow get them to read Ken Miller books.

 

[Inferno]

Well, so far all I can think of is to somehow get them to read Ken Miller books.

Concur button, where art thou? I agree, it's a good start.

 

[Gnug215]

Well, so far all I can think of is to somehow get them to read Ken Miller books.

Concur button, where art thou? I agree, it's a good start.

Now, this is just one side of the topic. Another would be to discuss if the videos, forum posts and debate threads"we" (the religious critics, atheists, etc.) are making are downright harmful and polarizing to "our cause".

Are they?

 

[Memeticemetic]

Now, this is just one side of the topic. Another would be to discuss if the videos, forum posts and debate threads"we" (the religious critics, atheists, etc.) are making are downright harmful and polarizing to "our cause".

Are they?

Well, silence, or only talking amongst ourselves has never worked in the past. These are conversations that need to happen. I actually feel rather guilty for not regularly speaking up before the last few years, despite being a lifelong atheist. I actually met a young woman the other night who said, and meant, "I thought everyone believed in God". If we don't use the media we have at our disposal to, at the very least, let people know atheists exist, we're simply abandoning otherwise intelligent people to languish in superstition without ever challenging their beliefs. As polite and measured as we make our words, many will be offended. Fucking deal with it, is all I have to say to them.

Of course, none of this necessarily has anything to do with science. Most of the scientific advancements made throughout history were made in cultures steeped in superstitious nonsense, including those made in the U.S. I'm quite confident that science will out in the long run. And I've no intention of shutting up about that either.

 

[Ad Initium]

That last alinea of the 4 page article reads:

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values,so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

I can see a problem with this the moment the question of morals pop up. Christians always seem to love to claim that Atheists have no morals, but what this article basically says if I was to debate them on it, I should not use science but discuss the matter of morals using the values they have. But those values would reflect back on morals directly, making it an odd discussion. I as a Atheist and believer in science should promote the moral's issue by using the religious morals in my favor. I would find this a hard thing to do.

I always say "religious people have no morals", with the intend to provoke and brake the discussion open. But the article basically says it backfires and gets them on the defence, making any discussion from that time on, pointless. In fact that is how I approached it in my last video on YT.

Go directly to about 02:45 for the moral part:


If it is true though, I need to figure out another way to bring the message to them :lol: .... I guess I'll have to go and sit on this for a while. :facepalm:

 

[Gnug215]

I always say "religious people have no morals", with the intend to provoke and brake the discussion open. But the article basically says it backfires and gets them on the defence, making any discussion from that time on, pointless. In fact that is how I approached it in my last video on YT.

[...]

If it is true though, I need to figure out another way to bring the message to them :lol: .... I guess I'll have to go and sit on this for a while. :facepalm:

I think it IS true. I mean, it depends on what you're going for. If you're preaching to the choir, then hey, rock on! If you want to convert people, well, you're probably doing it wrong!
If you want to reach the fence sitters, then... it's complicated and needs to be handled delicately, I'd say.

 

[Baranduin]

Another would be to discuss if the videos, forum posts and debate threads"we" (the religious critics, atheists, etc.) are making are downright harmful and polarizing to "our cause". Are they?

I think it IS true. I mean, it depends on what you're going for. If you're preaching to the choir, then hey, rock on! If you want to convert people, well, you're probably doing it wrong!
If you want to reach the fence sitters, then... it's complicated and needs to be handled delicately, I'd say.

At least as long as you are targeting a homogeneous audience, and limited to presenting arguments (for some reason, I don't think the subjects on the studies he mentions were challenged, only presented with arguments. Not having read the original studies, I welcome any argument showing the contrary).

However, presenting arguments or trying to reach a common ground is not the only technique, and it's flat out not possible in some instances. Mooney also ignores the effect that a more combative position can have in a third audience: you may not convince your opponent, but you may convince a silent listener, or at least show that the opponent is a crackpot [undermining the confidence other people put on him], or that your position is not what these people had heard [opening the door for a later speaker]. Not to mention people who doesn't value intellectual honesty or integrity. I also see a problem of degree: one thing is to make them stop denying science, and other very different is embracing it; you might convince them that homosexuality is not unnatural, or that evolution has some point, but that doesn't mean they are going to support gay rights - which is why you usually discuss homosexuality -, or accept any other than a very strong form of theistic evolution. His argument might or not be relevant if your target is for them to accept science, rather than just stop denying a peculiar phenomenon and postponing the problem.

So I don't think 'we' outspoken antitheists are being harmful, but targeting other audiences: people who are not convinced by nice arguments but for emotional investment, or people with no previous emotional investment (thus no reason to evaluate the situation, so they act upon fallacies ad verecundiam, appeal to trust, etc), or people who always considered some things as being of common sense or common knowledge, and thus are full of misconceptions. And yes, those audiences overlap, and some people is going to be reached by arguments not intended for them. I see no problem with that.

I'm aware that I'm sort of corroborating Mooney's point: he has a Templeton fellowship and spends a lot of time defending two positions (NOMA and the "you are not helping" gambit) which I consider deeply wrong, and this article just happens to support that stance. I don't consider him a neutral speaker, and require further evidence.

So, this is interesting and something to take into account (not that is new nor counterintuitive), but only describes a small subset of discussions (with specific issues, techniques, objectives and target audiences). For other groups, who knows?