Rational denial of undeniable climate change:

Science in an era of ‘post-truth’ politics

Gothenburg, May, 2017

Stephan Lewandowsky

School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute University of Western Australia

Twitter: @STWorg

www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org

“Post-Fact” World—“Post-Truth” Politics N

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“post-fact” “post-truth”

“post-truth” Word of the year 2016 (Oxford Dictionaries)

U.S. Presidential Candidates

Politifact score card of election campaign

Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017)

• Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements

– true or false

– attributed to Trump or unattributed

– obtain belief ratings

Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism (MISINFORMATION) Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT)

Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017)

• Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements

– true or false

– attributed to Trump or unattributed

– obtain belief ratings

• Rebut (affirm) false (true) statements

– ask for belief ratings immediately or week later

Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism (MISINFORMATION) Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT)

Belief Ratings (Swire et al., 2017)

Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2017)

Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2016)

Degree of belief change after correction of misinformation did

not correlate with change in voting intentions

Facts Don’t Matter: Now What?

• Climate change was the crucible of the ‘post-truth’ world

The Problem

The Problem

• The climate is changing.

• Humans are causing it.

• It’s a problem.

97.1% agreement in climate literature

97.5% agreement

among climate scientists

Another Problem

Oklahoma State Capitol “With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.”

—U.S. Senator James Inhofe Congressional Record, 2003

Rejection of (Climate) Science

Skepticism Denial

“Supply” “Demand”

Psychological predictors

Tools Effects

Rejection of (Climate) Science

Skepticism Denial

“Supply” “Demand”

Psychological predictors

Tools Effects

Benefits of Skepticism (Lewandowsky et al., 2005, 2009)

• People who were skeptical about official motives for the Iraq War

– disbelieved things they knew to be false

– believed accurate information

• People who were not skeptical

– believed in things they knew to be false

Denial is not Skepticism: AIDS and South Africa

• President Mbeki’s government (1999-2008) rejected Western medicine as “racist”

• Rejected offers of antiretroviral drugs

• Preferred to treat AIDS with garlic and beetroot instead

Denial is not Skepticism: AIDS and South Africa

Rejection of (Climate) Science

Skepticism Denial

“Supply” “Demand”

Psychological predictors

Tools Effects

Denial vs. Skepticism: The Triage

• “… official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong …. [in 2007] none of them predicted a temporary fall in global temperatures of 0.7 degrees, equal to their entire net rise in the 20th century…”

Christopher Booker, 22 October 2016

“fall of 0.7 degrees”

0.7C

January 2007 – January 2008

Implications of Cherry-Picking

• By design, it never ceases

• When pineapples grow in Alaska ….

• …. and Miami is just a distant memory ….

• …. there will still be opportunities for cherry-picking

Adjudication?

• “… manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” (U.S. Senator Inhofe)

• Climate scientists say otherwise

• Public highly polarized

20% of Representative U.S. sample:

Climate change “… is a hoax perpetrated by corrupt scientists who wish to spend more taxpayer money ...”

(Lewandowsky et al., 2013, PLOS ONE)

Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians

• 6 different scenarios involving various climate indicators

– contrarian statements sampled from media and online sources

– Google search reveals high prevalence on contrarian blogs

– mainstream scientific statements checked by climate experts

Sample Trial

Combine items into correctness score

Statisticians

Misleading contrarian interpretations reduce people’s acceptance of

climate science (Ranney & Clark, 2016; McCright et al., 2016)

Denial vs. Skepticism: The Triage

Conspiratorial Denial of Science is Pervasive

• [xxxxxxx research is] “a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence.”

• “billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the xxxxxxxxxx industry in the last 20 years.”

–

Conspiratorial Denial of Science is Pervasive

• [Medical research is] “a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence.”

• “billions of dollars of public and private capital have been expended on the anti-smoking industry in the last 20 years.”

– internal memo of the tobacco industry (1983)

Scientific Facts

• HIV causes AIDS

• Tobacco smoke causes lung cancer

• Greenhouse gases cause climate change

or Conspiracies

• Western medicine is racist

• Medical research is an oligopolistic cartel

• Global warming is a hoax

Conspiratorial Thinking and Rejection of Science

• Vaccinations -.54

• Smoking and lung cancer -.55

• HIV and AIDS -.55

• Genetically modified foods -.13

• Climate -.20 to -.57

Lewandowsky et al. (2013) PLOS ONE; Lewandowsky et al. (2013) Psychological Science

Rejection of (Climate) Science

Skepticism Denial

“Supply” “Demand”

Psychological predictors

Tools Effects

Why do People “Buy” Organized Denial?

Worldview (“Ideology”)

• People’s basic beliefs about how society should be structured and how goods should be distributed.

• Nuanced concept

– cultural cognition (e.g., Kahan, 2012)

– here focus on people’s view of the free market (Heath & Gifford, 2006)

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Free Market

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Worldview (“Ideology”) and Science

• Worldview trumps other variables

• Among Republicans in U.S., acceptance of science decreases with increasing education.

– 31% without tertiary education.

– 19% with college degree.

– reverse (52 vs. 75%) for Democrats.

Worldview (“Ideology”) and Science

Hamilton (2011)

More information can make things worse More education can make things worse

Rejection of (Climate) Science

Skepticism Denial

“Supply” “Demand”

Psychological predictors

Tools Effects

Does it Matter?

Broader Context

• …activists with ties to the Tea Party … brand … preserving open space as … a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights… They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes … and smart meters...

— New York Times 3 February 2012

Broader Fallout of Conspiracism

Now What?

• Denial is not “irrational” but a highly effective political operation

• How to counter?

– suspicion and inoculation

– communicate scientific consensus

– focus on solutions

Suspicion and Inoculation

• Research on misinformation: Correction effective if people are:

– skeptical of a source

– suspicious of motives

– people who doubted that Iraq War was over WMD processed information more accurately (Lewandowsky et al., 2005, 2009)

• Important to analyze denial and publicize their techniques

97.1% agreement in climate literature

97.5% agreement

among climate scientists

Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017)

Inoculation messages

neutralized effects of ‘false balance’

Take-home Message?

Take-home Message?

• 13 months after founding a new party from scratch …

• … a strongly pro-EU and pro-climate candidate,

• … who made ‘fake news’ a campaign issue and tackled them head on,

• … and who ran against a person riling against ‘globalist elites’,

• … was elected President of France by a 2-to-1 margin

Rational and democratic political leadership can be

effective and electable