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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Lee McIntyre
Read between
February 21 - March 9, 2022
in 2015 Rasmus Benestad and colleagues examined the work of the proverbial 3 percent of scientists who rejected global warming—which consisted of thirty-eight papers that had appeared in peer-reviewed journals in the previous decade—and found that all of them were methodologically flawed!
“We are more sure that greenhouse gas is causing climate change than we are that smoking causes cancer.”
Smithsonian Magazine estimates that “nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement.”
everything in science is open to dissent. There is always an alternative hypothesis that could be true, but this doesn’t undermine warrant.
In the face of overwhelming evidence, it is irrational to disbelieve something just because the alternative might be true.
The rejection of such a huge amount of scientific evidence, and scientific consensus, is not skepticism, it’s denial.
Climate skepticism is thus not actually skepticism at all. In the face of an avalanche of evidence, continuing to shill for a contrarian point of view just because you hope it will be right is outright denialism.
If the great industrialized countries in the world have been exploiting carbon resources for hundreds of years, which led to the accumulation of great wealth, why should we expect the Maldives and other underdeveloped countries to be the ones to carry a special burden and save us from climate change?
coal accounts for about 25 percent of all electricity production in the US,
Asia accounts for three-fourths of global coal consumption today. More important, it accounts for more than three-fourths of coal plants that are either under construction or in the planning stages.…
Indonesia is digging more coal. Vietnam is clearing ground for new coal-fired power plants. Japan, reeling from [the] 2011 nuclear plant disaster, has resurrected coal.
science writer Chris Mooney noted not only that the US was number one for climate denial but that all three of the worst offenders were English-speaking countries.
The United States is both a major polluter and the excuse for much international delay at a time when we don’t have a minute to waste.
“it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
But you couldn’t just eliminate coal in the US. We’d have brownouts. It would be a danger to national defense.
Steve agreed that people don’t just believe in things anymore, they are indoctrinated.
Just because someone is enlightened on the issue of global warming, and believes in the truth of the science, this doesn’t mean that emissions will stop.
If we aren’t willing to make the economic sacrifices and other changes necessary to save our own lives in the immediate present, why would we be willing to do so for others in the uncertain future (even though this is false reasoning) about climate change?
If we can’t summon the political will to engage in global cooperation to fight the pandemic now, where people in every country are already suffering badly, what makes us think we will have the political will to do so for climate change?
If special interests can so quickly politicize something like coronavirus—by using the most ridiculous conspiracy theories and partisan nonsense—what hope do we have to...
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Persuading and voting. Changing beliefs and values. Sharing facts but also trying to enlarge the circle of concern.
“people with more knowledge only accept science when it doesn’t conflict with their preexisting beliefs and values. Otherwise, they use that knowledge to more strongly justify their own positions.”
Just because someone is left-wing doesn’t mean they are immune to the influence of something like confirmation bias or motivated reasoning.
Rice is consumed daily by half the world’s population.
Perhaps Monsanto deserves a certain level of distrust given their corporate history.46 But to say that all of the different ways that GMOs can be created are therefore suspect is to take the argument too far.
consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.
“If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch—a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion. They will almost always succeed.”
One scientific study showed that GMO technology has reduced pesticide use by 37 percent.
science denial thrives under the conditions of (1) low information, (2) propensity toward conspiracy theories, and (3) lack of trust.
Various methodological, normative, and regulative concerns need to be taken into consideration. For instance, technically it is not true to say that there are no harms that can be associated with foods that are the result of molecular breeding. But the question—at least in the US—is whether these foods are just as safe as their traditionally bred counterparts.
What is the evidence of harm from eating GMOs? As Krimsky admits, there is none.
Two decades of anti-GMO activism based only on theoretical worries, with no evidence of any harm, is when skepticism may edge over into denial.
Scientists cannot “prove” that GMOs are safe any more than they can prove that vaccines are. Or aspirin. And in the meantime, children are starving.
is impossible to have proof or certainty in science, and this is a ridiculous standard to uphold for rational belief about empirical topics.
Scientific consensus is based not on whether a result is proven but whether it is well warranted by the evidence.
Could it nonetheless be true that some GMOs are unsafe? Yes. In science that is always possible. It is one of the hallmarks of scientific reasoning that further evidence may always arrive to overthrow even the most well-regarded theory. But that does not mean that every denier is actually a skeptic, or that it is rational to withhold our judgment until “all of the evidence is in.” As we see with climate change or anti-vaxx, there comes a point where skepticism devolves into denial.
Scientific consensus is the gold standard for ...
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“There is no evidence that foods derived from genetically engineered crops pose risks that are qualitatively different than foods produced by conventional breeding methods. Nor is there any evidence that transgenic crops and the foods derived from them are unsafe to eat.”
skeptic might ask, shouldn’t we remain concerned about the possibility of long-term risks, such as any possible link between GMOs and cancer? Yes, we should. But the NASEM study provided data to assuage this worry. The UK (where GMOs are rare) and the US (where they are not) have similar rates of cancer.
“there was no unusual rise in cancer incidence for specific types of cancer in the United States after 1996, when GMOs were first introduced.”
There are some legitimate areas of concern over GMOs, such as the evolution of superweeds in response to herbicides, pollen contamination (which could lead to less biodiversity), the potential for genetically based allergens to be introduced into new foods, pesticides lingering in the soil long after harvest, increased potential for antibiotic resistance, and so on. Scientists are working on all of these. These problems notwithstanding, no scientific study has ever shown that GMO foods are unsafe to eat.
“Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words ‘Monsanto’ and ‘profit’ are not dropped like syllogistic bombs.”
She said it was (1) that they had no way to deal with the waste and (2) she didn’t like the extraction methods, which were not only bad for the Earth but a harm to Indigenous peoples in the countries where the materials came from.
“We are susceptible to conspiracy theories when we have no reason to trust.”
think I did prove something: empathy, respect, and listening are the only ways we’re ever going to have a chance to change one another’s beliefs. The context of trust and mutual respect is the only thing that made this conversation work.
questioning the consensus (on any scientific topic) does not in and of itself make you a denier. But refusing to believe the scientific consensus and being unwilling to say what evidence—short of proof—would be sufficient to get you to change your mind is to be a denier.
Is it possible that someone could make an unsafe GMO food at some point in the future? Yes … but it is also possible that they might make a killer vaccine. Or a self-crashing plane. Unless someone is uncomfortable with all scientific and technical innovation, it seems unreasonable to pick and choose based on suspicion rather than evidence.
skepticism must be earned too. To be a skeptic is not merely to doubt everything simply because one can, nor to be rendered catatonic by fear of the unknown; skepticism requires giving trust when the evidence is unexceptionable, even if (as fallibilism requires) we may end up being wrong. Warrant isn’t proof, but it’s the best that science has to offer.
No matter whether you are a liberal or a conservative, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, you are much more likely to be a science denier. The science on that is clear.
Once a belief threatens someone’s identity, they will reach for whatever they can to oppose it. And the only way to overcome this is to talk to them with as much empathy, warmth, and human understanding as you can muster.
