Stephan Lewandowsky, professor of cognitive psychology and author of Recurrent Fury.
Credit: University of Bristol
A new study has examined the comments on climate science-denying blogs and found strong evidence of widespread conspiratorial thinking. The study looks at the comments made in response to a previous paper linking science denial and conspiracy theories.
Motivated rejection of science
Three years ago, social scientists Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac published a paper in the journal Psychological Science titled NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science.
The paper detailed the evidence the scientists found that, using survey data provided by visitors to climate blogs, those exhibiting conspiratorial thinking are more likely to be skeptical of scientists’ conclusions about vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change. This result was replicated in a follow-up study using a representative U.S. sample that obtained the same result linking conspiratorial thinking to climate denial.
Of course science denial and conspiracies […]
Yes, but it would behoove Lewandowski et.al. to exercise a bit of healthy skepticism regarding scientific consensus. There is virtually nothing that is currently accepted in science that was not formerly derided and dismissed. It is instructive to see these so-called social scientists (i.e., they are not really scientists in the accepted sense of that word) lump together Climate change deniers, Anti-vaccination zealots and opponents of GMO’s. That is an instance of skewed, and remarkably un-skeptical lumping. Presumably these people also think Lee Harvey Oswald, all on his own, killed JFK and that 19 Muslimbeciles streaming out of the hills of Afghanistan took down the World Trade Center all by themselves.
When I showed a paper showing the vaccination for this year’s flu did not work, he understood that the virus mutated. That is the reason the vaccine di not work. anyone who thinks all vaccines work is simply ignorant of the reality of that situation. I am not saying that all vaccines do not work here; don’t get the wrong impression. I am saying we cannot make general statements about things that are isolated and inconsistent with the language of science itself. Doubt and skepticism are the cornerstone of discovery for new ways of thinking about problems and new ways of dealing with those problems.