An article with that title should have mentioned the possibility of an error cascade. Occasionally - not often, but sometimes - the "consensus scientific view" on a subject happens to be wrong. Wrong views can persist for quite a while, and are more likely to do so when the subject is politically charged. Preference falsification even among scientists can lead them to a false belief regarding what their peers believe.
I don't believe error cascade is happening in the field of climate science. A multitude of accepted methodologies using scores of independent datasets from various fields overwhelmingly produce results consistent with anthropogenic global warming.
Additionally there are well funded groups who would love nothing more than to uncover such an error cascade. Yet even a study funded by the same people who run the Heartland Institute produced results consistent with AGW. Visit a website like WattsUpWithThat to witness intelligent people trying their very best to twist data or methods to fit their worldview. If something like this is there to be found, it would have been found by now. The first order science is truly simple. All that is being debated now is when and how severe the effect will be. Sadly by the time we can scientifically confirm the 'Welcome to AGW' sign, we may be 30 years inside the border.
Using the term denier does make convincing those people more difficult. Politically, however, it may be useful to label this small but vocal group as misinformed and stubborn, and get on with transitioning to a sustainable and stable future.
> A multitude of accepted methodologies using scores of independent datasets from various fields overwhelmingly produce results consistent with anthropogenic global warming.
Of course they do. That doesn't mean there's no error cascade surrounding our understanding of what this means.
That past human activity has produced some amount of warming is a pretty uninteresting factoid. In fact, it's trivially true in that land-use patterns alone can have a measurable impact on temperature - you don't even need a theory relating to CO2 to establish that there has been some "anthropogenic global warming" (still less to find that data is merely "not inconsistent with" this notion).
But when alarmists raise alarm, they have something very different in mind. They believe that the warming rate and/or level is unprecedented in human history, that warming has been a bad thing and is likely to produce net negative impacts in the near term. They tend to think it is sensible to talk about "climate sensitivity" having a single value and that this value is high - at least 3 degrees per doubling. All of those are debatable points, and it's wrong to assume scientists agree on them based on their agreement with a much more vaguely defined "consensus view" that humans have caused some undefined amount of warming.
> If something like this is there to be found, it would have been found by now.
Several such things have been found. The post I linked to mentioned a few. The ongoing efforts to hide or minimize the MWP (and thereby show recent temperatures to be "unprecedented") is the usual example, perhaps best documented on ClimateAudit.org .
I think the bigger question this points to is the fact that all human perceptions are a mix of emotion and reason. As humans we seem to keep wanting to live in black and white - in a place where we can name and label the cause and effect of things.
As people who build software, we know how complexity explodes with each option - and people are complex in millions of facets. Combine a few people together, and you have intractable combinations of emotions and environmental factors. At some point you have to give up on 'exact' and just go with 'directionally correct'.
My wish would be that we could somehow find a way to loosen people's grip on "this is the right way and I've proven it."
Scientists and alternative medicine, religious, the irreligious, etc. All seem to think that their brain was able to do what trillions of people before could not. I don't mean to say that there is no truth or 'right' in the universe, just that we are such imperfect measurement tools that we need to walk it out a bit more humbly.
It stands to reason that there's probably some good in the alternative medicine movement - since the goal is for people to feel better and get better. And apparently they are. And there's been good that comes from traditional medicine as we've seen.
One commenter on here was lamenting their parents alignment to some alternative medicine beliefs, stating "They believe this stuff even when it contradicts itself, " How ironic, because I think if you look in to any field there is a great deal of disagreement, and contradiction. You have people refuting and arguing in medical and science journals, both sides being convinced that they are 'correct'.
In many ways I think these behaviors are a symptom of a small-ish brain trying to collect and hold all the complexity of the world - and just failing spectacularly. Of course - we mix in some pride and arrogance, and we get what we've got now. :(
I think throwing the term "emotion" around closes discussion because it is such an ambiguous term. A better model would be reason versus obedience - do we believe our own senses or what we are told? Non-science is rooted in charlatans and manipulative "leaders". We should be examining how people choose who they believe to be authoritative. Then again, appeal to authority is a known logical fallacy so any conclusion based on an "expert" is suspect.
Obedience refers to a specific type of emotion, loyalty/obligations.
The term I try to use when thinking (and explaining) my own thought process is intuition. Often times when I try to issolate the source of my intution I come up with something that would gennerally be considered emotion.
As my parents are getting older (nearing their 60s) it's being more difficult to talk about some subjects. They started believing all sorts of ridiculous stuff, even read Icke's books. It's hard to argue with someone who questions reason itself. It's even more difficult knowing they're teachers, well educated, liberal and open minded usually. They buy into the whole alternative medicine, all sorts of natural cures for cancer, even more bogus explanations about cancer causes. They believe this stuff even when it contradicts itself, how can you believe that cancer comes from high acid levels in the body or emotional conflicts, and then also be afraid of EM radiation? They believe in the sincerity and good intentions of people who publish this alternative material but they are extremely suspicious of "main-stream" science. Anyone having similar experience?
As per the article: You are not in anyway immune to the same processes that you are complaining your parents are beholden to.
Your views and experiences are reinforcing your own beliefs that your parents are not accepting the "facts" you know. Seeing one side as "unreasonable" to logic while your view is "obvious" is exactly the type of behaviour the article is attempting to underline.
Maybe I should re-read the article, but I have a need to further explain my line of thought. I myself have no need to hold strong beliefs. I tend to accept overwhelming evidence from sources that seem credible and I will often juggle opposing views, perhaps even never forming a firm opinion on a subject. But I see a lot of people struggling with that, like never choosing a side or forming a conclusion will kill them or something. It's the same when people think never changing opinions (e.g. political) is a sign of good character.
Also, I am more interested in technology, science, nature etc. than other people and their lives. It seems that my parents', but maybe even the majority of "ordinary" folk's lives, revolves around what other people say, think or do. So much so, they interpret everybody's actions as intentional and try to explain a person's motives and will paint somebody's character based on some trivial event. For example, if I forget to call them, they'll perhaps discuss for hours how ungrateful and selfish I am and fabricate detailed explanations for my actions, e.g. how maybe my girlfriend's mother is pulling me away from them or something like that (I heard such stories from my brother).
In short, people try to find a (hidden) motive behind every action and think there always has to be one. I think it is this way of thinking and functioning that creates a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists.
Somewhat oversimplifying, you can think of hierarchical individualists as akin to conservative Republicans, and egalitarian communitarians as liberal Democrats.
Somewhat? That's like saying that black is a dark colour like navy blue and white is more like royal blue.
Personally, I think the US would benefit by understanding just where in the overall spectrum they fit politically and how limited their "typical" options are.
Americans probably have the most limited options of any modern democracy on the planet, and yet most people think they are so different.
Here's a good discussion of error cascades in the context of climate change: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1642
On the use of terms like 'deniers':
> "Sound theory doesn’t have to be buttressed by demonizing its opponents; it demonstrates itself with predictive success."