“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” ~Sun Tzu
The sum characteristic of the ‘Nuclear Issue’ can be categorized by passion, intensity, and vigor. Regrettably—passion despite its merits—often ends in stalemate. Think of a discussion you have had where your arguments, no matter how grounded in reason and sound in their logic simply did not register with the opposition. You were no doubt left frustrated and slighted the moment the seemingly one-sided discussion degraded with some unsupported claim that further pursuit of nuclear energy will forever ensure doom for countless generations. “Think of the waste! It will be here for thousands of years! Think of the children!”
Confirmation Bias
Have you ever stopped to think about the fundamental driver behind this seemingly irrational defense mechanism? If we are to move forward with the nuclear debate we must understand that there is a very real human tendency meddling at the root of this issue. Confirmation bias is an instance of selective thinking where people will naturally and instinctively seek information and data that confirms their thinking while actively undervaluing, dismissing, or flat out ignoring information and data suggesting otherwise. This probably sounds familiar.
“Is man-made global warming happening? Can nuclear waste be stored safely? Do concealed handguns reduce violence? Think about those questions for a minute. Then think about your thinking: Why do you hold those particular views on these controversial issues? And do scientific experts agree with you?” (reason.com)
It is both easy and convenient to seek out and be receptive to information that is agreeable with a personal thought process. It is easy to sound the alarm when you hear about a Tritium leak at Vermont Yankee. All the while it is just as easy to selectively ignore the news whenever tragedy strikes at another coal mine. With confirmation bias certain triggers are all that’s required to further validate and perpetuate a particular line of thinking. This is why a headline of “Leak at a Nuclear Plant” instigates such fervor among those whose minds are only open to just that. For many the story begins and ends there; no further investigation is required into the actual specifics, safety, or relevance of the matter. Under confirmation bias all that’s required has already been heard.
Recognizing and Overcoming Confirmation Bias
So how can we overcome such an obstacle? What can be done to influence change and get others to listen to science and reason? Unfortunately not everyone is going to be as forthcoming in recognizing and correcting their bias toward nuclear power as Matthew who by his own admission:
“…interpreted every fact about nuclear power in the least favorable way possible, and I interpreted every fact about renewable power in the most favorable way possible.”
Matthew’s honesty is refreshing and it can be inferred that it was through self-reflection that his confirmation bias was revealed. Perhaps there is another takeaway we can grab from Matthew’s story: the admission that the worst case of what he was arguing against was always compared to the best case of what he was fighting to support. Exposing this inequity in comparison might prove itself as a viable tactic when trying to influence people to step out of the shadow of their confirmation bias.
Obviously this is just me more or less thinking (typing) out loud. I am no expert and I have no answers. I am however aware of this obstacle and I recognize that this is a barrier that we must overcome. In haste it is easy to fall prey to impatience and get frustrated with people who refuse to open up to facts, but it is at these moments that it is crucial we remain patient and honest. Sun Tzu implores us to know our enemy and ourselves lest we fight a battle we cannot win.
Image Credit
Wise words can be fuzzy courtesy of Flickr user kevindooley published under the CC license.
35 Comments
Greg, thank you for an excellent overview of this topic. Having taken a course in Logic as an undergrad (30 years ago- sheesh!), I had forgotten if this was even covered.
Seems to me, the level of maturity in thinking critically is related to a person’s tendency to reflexively resort to this bias. Since critical thinking has been reduced in most education circles over the past 40 years, that might explain the level of discourse we are currently enduring. Emoting is so much easier than reasoning.
I agree that education is somewhat to blame here. I attend and speak at antinuclear rallies (the quintesential waste of time) and I notice that the “green” science teachers bus in the kids by the dozen and fill their heads with this ‘What about the waste!!! What about Chernobyl!!!” garbage while completely ignoring the facts and the numbers. When I manned a booth at the National Science Teachers Convention in Philly I was appauled to learn that our nation’s science teachers don’t know jack about science. Many of them didn’t know the difference between fission and fussion and these are the ones who are supposed to be building our scientific foundation!
Someone once said, “You cannot reason a person out of a position if that person has arrived at that position without reason.” I try to keep that in mind whenever I’m frustrated with the lack of understanding people may have about nuclear. People who have changed their minds about nuclear energy did so after applying their own reasoning and fact finding. I’ve not heard any of any case where a pro-nuke person convinced an anti-nuke to change their mind.
There is plenty of blame to go around though when it comes to people’s ignorance on nuclear. The nuclear industry, or at least those companies involved in part in the nuclear business, have done very little to speak up for themselves and try to educate the public. The anti-nukes, taking full advantage of an industry that does not publicly defend itself, almost succeeded in making anti-nuclearism a cultural norm. The Fed, state, and local governments of the United States have passed anti-nuclear laws, many of which have gone unchallenged, is to blame as well. But despite all this, nuclear and the facts that support it is slowly being vindicated thanks to great blogs like this and others who see the real truth.
Thank you for posting this. Monday I watched a group of anti-nukes BOO a lovely woman who is the state rep for the district containing Vermont Yankee . She was introduced at a meeting, along with other reps, but only she was booed, because she is in favor of Vermont Yankee. I needed to read this about the thought processes, because my own thought processes were getting more and more negative. Reading this came at the right time for me. It’s been a help.
This is a very good point. All of us carry Biases most of which have been absorbed not concluded. I think that one of the factors we need to keep in mind is that our “debates” are NOT really aimed at persuading the people we are directly talking but the wider audience listening to the conversation. People learn when they hear two authorities in conflict and need to understand why. Simply by being a part of the conversation and providing factual evidence those listening to us are forced to think. A fit reply is very powerful and has a much greater effect that we can gauge by the verbal responses supporting our position.
So, the confirmation Bias, is challenged by a calm, reasoned argument well documented and with passion. Especially when you can point out the ability of people to investigate these issues for themselves. I am very pleased with the work that Nuclear Fissionary is doing to bring the “Dummies” focus for nuclear power. These well written – Short! – articles are very very helpful. Thanks for this contribution.
this is an important point. I read a lot of climate-science blogs, among others, and they’re all asking the same question: how do you get the message through to people that don’t want to hear it?
One good source of ideas is Randy Olson’s book, “Don’t be such a scientist”. He gives some real insight into how to communicate science with non-scientists. I’ve only just finished reading it, and am still absorbing what he says, but I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has to deal with such frustrating scenarios.
Thanks for the resource, Tony. Being able to communicate information that is complex and not aligned with someone’s beliefs is difficult. I think everyone could use a little help in that area.
Tony – I’m wondering to what conclusions your research has brought you?
There are four points that resonate in my mind when it comes to the ‘climate change’ debate: (1) atmospheric CO2 = 0.038% (388 ppmv) and is an essential compound for life on earth, (2) human contribution to atmospheric CO2 = 4-5% (15 – 19 ppmv of that 388 ppmv), (3) the heating effect of atmospheric CO2 is a negative logarithm of its concentration, (4) the sensitivity or relative insensitivity of natural feedbacks -water vapor and clouds.
These are objective measures that, except for #4, are well-known. Until the evidence is more well-established over a longer period of time and free of political leanings, I would hope we’d take a more ‘measured’ approach before enacting sweeping legislation that would have no demonstrable positive environmental effect.
DocForesight, I’m not sure I understand your question?
If you’re disputing that anthropogenic CO2 has any significant effect on climate, I’d simply refer you to http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm. That site is a good one-stop shop for answering most of the arguments put forward against global warming. If you want more detailed climate science, you should look at http://www.realclimate.org/.
If you’re arguing that creating a clean-energy economy isn’t a good thing, well, I’d answer that with http://willowhousechronicles.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/happy-earth-day/.
If, on the other hand, you refer to my research into communicating science to the masses, my conclusion so far is this:
- There are people who can be persuaded by the facts, without having personal experience, because they are open to evidence. They can look at the hockey-stick and see what the numbers tell them.
- There are others who can be persuaded by more intuitive, personalised approaches, because they can accept the evidence they see with their own eyes. They can look at the glacier and see that it has receded in their lifetimes.
- And there are, and always will be, some who cannot accept any evidence, because they do not wish to.
Most people are in the second group, open to persuasion, but requiring evidence in a form they can understand. Scientists tend to present their evidence as simple facts, devoid of the human level of understanding, which is why they don’t get through to them.
Scientists also spend too long bashing their heads against the wall trying to get through to people in the third group, which is an exercise in futility.
Tony –
Your links clarified for me the conclusions to which you, apparently, have come. They are among a number that I have book-marked so that I get a comparison of ideas and substantive information. Other posters- Brian, Pete, David – have addressed several of the points I would’ve followed with so I’ll not repeat them.
Let’s assume the folks at realclimate.org and skepticalscience.com have the edge in knowledge and forecasting of climate: according to Wikipedia (I know, not always the most accurate on some topics) “CO2 is toxic in higher concentrations: 1% (10,000 ppm) will make some people feel drowsy.” We are at 388 ppmv now and increasing at 2 ppmv on average per year. It would seem that we have some time to work with (assuming a linear annual increase) before there is an issue of affect on human functioning.
I have said elsewhere, nuclear power for electricity, heat and desalination plants just make sense due to its inherent density, safety, land-use footprint, reliability, affordability, durability, etc. that it doesn’t need to join the AGW alarm bandwagon to gain its rightful prominence.
Bias is addressed in the medical industry by doing double-blind studies on new pharmaceuticals, for instance. Neither the patients nor the doctors know who is getting the real drug and who might be getting a placebo. This is probably not applicable to nuclear energy since the science is easily reproducible and has been established for several decades. We know how to do it, and the results are obvious.
Climate science, however, where the statistics are not all that clear between man-made warming and natural fluctuations, there is a definite danger in scientists getting fooled by their own good intentions. (Manual “adjustments” of the temperature records are quite common.) I don’t see anything approaching a “double blind” approach to the climate, nor would it be easy to construct such controls. The scientists are well intentioned, but perhaps they tend to get the results they are looking for.
Since nuclear energy is seen by many to be an important tool to combat climate change, the state of climate science is important to keep an eye on. However, I strongly believe that nuclear energy is a good idea, whether or not man-made global warming is real.
@ Tony,
Most of us in this conversation agree that Nuclear power is the best way to produce Electricity. We have arrived at that conclusion from many many different paths. However, AGW has several elements. I doubt the full range of the conclusions and I have not seen evidence – rather than propaganda – supporting all those conclusions. Especially the “disaster” model, that says we are “destroying the earth.” That is that there is a moral issue in using Fossil fuels. I am in some training for Disaster response and the role of poverty in turning a hazard into a disaster was noted. Poverty yields a lack of capacity, and a lack of preparation which in the face of any hazard can lead to disaster.
This was a clear conclusion that I have personally seen during many Typhoons, earthquakes and Volcanoes.
Then there was a presentation on Global Warming. The Greenhouse gasses included, CO2, Methane, Nitros Oxide, and CFC’s. CO2 was linked to industry, Methane to farm animals, Nitros Oxide is fertilizer and CFC’s produce refrigeration. I noted that the “science” of each of these lead to the logical conclusion they should be eliminated. However, this conclusion said that people should remain in poverty. Eliminate industry, eliminate farm animals, eliminate fertilizers, eliminate refrigeration. Can you define poverty in any other way? Can you increase the risk of people in any other way?
The answer to AGW has been to make energy expensive. It has become a vast propaganda campaign aimed at raising the cost of energy which increases the wealth of energy companies and increases the taxes of governments. This propaganda uses every single natural calamity as “evidence” of AGW and then protests when a snow storm hits that weather and climate are separate.
So, when DocForsight points out that CO2 forcing is “(3) the heating effect of atmospheric CO2 is a negative logarithm of its concentration, ” This is a significant issue that shows that increasing CO2 may not cause the panic effect being Al-Gored to the world. Even if the natural CO2 sinks cannot absorb all the human produced CO2 what is the actual effect?
My bias is that when a person makes a claim of an effect – “This flood is caused by Global Warming” They need to show the actual line between the amount of heating and the particular flood – that would NOT have occurred in previous years. I was taught that correlation is not causation. Can this be demonstrated? I rarely seen any real attempt at actual linkage but I see constant attempts to news link EVERY event to increasing CO2. This is what makes me skeptical correlation is substituted for causation.
1. Every event is linked with little actual science backing the linkage.
2. The solution is to increase the cost of energy – which increases the wealth of the powerful and harms the poorest around the world the most.
3. Nuclear power is rarely supported – which is a REAL potential to reduce CO2.
The upshot of all these tendency is to increase fear, uncertainty and doubt with ordinary people and to converge in harming those who are least able to absorb the costs.
Pete, David,
it was not my intention to usurp Greg’s post about nuclear power with a discussion on AGW, so I’ll be brief.
It’s true that scientists, like anyone, can be biased enough to find what they look for. Cold fusion is a good example from recent years. But the idea that thousands of scientists, in disciplines allied to climate science, could all fool themselves in the same way, is unrealistic. Scientists want to discover things that turn conventional wisdom upside-down, it’s their dream. The first who could prove that AGW is false would be assured world fame and a comfortable retirement. For them to cooperate so long in fooling themselves is as unlikely as being able to train cats to play football. Cold fusion serves as an example again, it died a swift death after scrutiny.
I agree that the mainstream media sensationalises events beyond all scientific plausibility. Nonetheless, the science is sound, and the evidence is there. Getting back to Greg’s topic in this post, it is up to the scientists to find ways to communicate this effectively, to cut past the hype from the media and the disinformation from the fossil-fuel lobby.
On making energy more expensive, that’s the answer of some people, yes, and I agree it’s not the way to go. Nuclear power can provide cheap, safe electricity and heat, and should be deployed as widely and rapidly as possible. If we can get past the greenpeace hype about efficiency and windmills, there are serious scientists out there who recognise that we need more energy, not less, to reduce our carbon footprint in a sustainable manner. As Steve Kirsch put it, if we can’t make electricity by means that are cheaper than coal, we lose.
Heh … Tony, you’ve obviously not spent much time in academia.
There are huge pressures to “go with the flow,” and today, the flow is in the direction of the official IPCC narrative. As Judith Curry (a climate scientist who is not a skeptic) recently put it:
Who is going to risk their career by speaking out against the official line? Certainly not a young professor in the environmental sciences who is hoping to make tenure. Certainly not any of the scientists who work for the government agencies; they don’t have the security of tenure, and speaking out on “inappropriate” subjects or publishing studies with “inconvenient” conclusions could cost them their jobs. Thus, it’s not surprising that the main voices of dissent are either scientists with tenured, chaired professorships (e.g., Dick Lindzen at MIT) or those at the end of their careers, who have nothing to lose by honestly speaking their mind.
You also underestimate the willingness of academics to defer to the “experts.” This explains the endorsements from governing bodies of the various scientific professional societies out there. As a member of the American Physical Society, I followed closely the recent challenge to the APS’s statement on climate change, which was very pro-AGW. The committee that was established to investigate the challenge simply deferred to the latest IPCC report, issuing a mere two-page “report” that whitewashed any controversy. There was no independent scientific inquiry; the IPCC narrative was simply accepted as gospel, without any critical thought.
Yep folks, “nullius in verba” is pretty much dead when it comes to professional societies and climate science.
Frankly, I think that climate scientists would have a much easier time getting their message across to much of the public if they would completely divorce themselves from unscientific hype factories. Certainly, they would greatly improve their credibility.
For example, why was a PR guy from Greenpeace involved in drafting the IPCC assessment reports? Greenpeace is not a scientific organization. In fact, Greenpeace is notorious for their outright contempt for science. Why is realclimate.org hosted by a front group for Fenton Communications, a public relations firm that is well known for using bogus health scares to skew markets in favor of its clients? They haven’t been able to find a less sketchy source of web hosting in the past half decade?
I know that there is a lot of focus on the funding of the AGW-skeptical message by the so-called “fossil-fuel lobby,” and many of the accusations are valid. However, to look at the funding of only one side, while ignoring who is funding the other side of the debate and why, is a very serious case of Confirmation Bias.
Brian,
I’ve spent my entire working life in academia. I’ve seen a research student on a 3-year contract stand up to attacks from a nobel laureate. And no, he’s not working in McDonalds now, he’s a respected scientist in his field. I’ve even rocked the boat myself a few times, and I’m still there.
You may not realise just how many people there are trying to climb the academic tree. For every tenured professor hanging on to his chair there is an army of grad students and research assistants with nothing to lose. Science is a highly competitive activity.
The great thing about nuclear is it just makes sense weather you’re a climate skeptic or not. I’ll add that there is a big difference between healthy skepticism and blatant ignorance towards science.
There are those skeptical because a data points or lack thereof, and there are those who’ve never seen a single data point and establish their conclusions based on advice from media outlets. This general statement applies to both sides of both the nuclear debate and the climate debate.
By the way, the quote from Judith Curry can be found here.
Tony,
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was talking more about scientific funding than the back-and-forth that goes on in seminars and technical sessions.
Science is a highly competitive activity, but getting grant money is even more competitive. You don’t make it very far on the academic tree if you get the reputation as the scientist who cannot get funding.
The easiest way to get funding is to go with the popular view or a highly visible area of research. For example, when I was graduate student looking for funding for my thesis research, I submitted multiple proposals to NASA with almost a dozen applications for the research that I working on. NASA decided to fund the climate modeling application, so on climate models I worked. Now, was I about to publish a paper saying the climate models were a bunch of crap? No. I was grateful to NASA for the funding.
This is the way much of the world works. You don’t bite the hand the feeds you.
By the way, there are scientists publishing research that does not go along with the so-called “consensus.” These researchers, however, have had to deal with relentless attacks from those involved in the IPCC, and as Judith Curry mentions, these attacks have often involved messing with the research process itself (e.g., inappropriately influencing peer review). This is not they way that science is supposed to work, and it is far different than the fair (almost ideal) exchange of ideas that you describe.
Anyhow, Jack is right. These discussions of climate change are mostly irrelevant when it comes to the usefulness of nuclear energy. Even if climate change is completely taken out of the equation, there are more than enough reasons why nuclear makes sense.
Which is why I enjoy the discussion. Thanks Jack.
And, Tony, thank you as well. I looked up the links you gave and I continue to look over this. Watching the debate on non-locality in quantum physics challenge General Relativity is a hoot. I just don’t buy “settled science.”
Brian,
I see your point. I don’t deny that it happens that people follow the party line, but I have to say that from where I stand, I see the IPCC getting criticised more often for being conservative than for being wrong. In that regard, I don’t see the IPCC as a negative influence, rather as one that is not as positive as it should be.
I certainly agree that nuclear power makes sense, climate-change or no. I only mentioned it to draw a parallel, not to couple the issues.
Taking climate change out of any equation at this point will be seen one day as if in 1940, the prospect that the US might soon be at war was assumed away as not likely. A lot of people did just that back then, as the prevailing mood in the US was isolationist. History shows that they didn’t understand what was going on.
Just predicting…..
I’d like to see the names of the scientists who are being relentlessly attacked by the members of the IPCC, as well as the names of the IPCC scientists who are doing the attacks.
I guess when the President of the National Academy of Sciences states for publication in Science in reference to the entire controversy as to whether anyone should take climate science seriously at this point that “our understanding is undiminished”, what he meant was he is so afraid this early on in his career that he’ll be stopped from getting anywhere that he has to lie about what he believes, and/or he is so stupid that what he believes is a load of BS.
I visited the RealClimate website to read
“RealClimate is not affiliated with any environmental organisations. Although our domain is hosted by Science Communications Network (and previously Environmental Media Services), and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content. Neither Fenton nor SCN nor EMS has ever paid any contributor to RealClimate.org any money for any purpose at any time. Neither do they pay us expenses, buy our lunch or contract us to do research. This information has always been made clear to anyone who asked”.
I have written to SCN and asked them if they have anything to do with Fenton.
I think people should come out and debate the science if they are going to make statements like there is an “IPCC narrative” that is somehow bogus. So Mays thinks the computer models have flaws. Every climate scientist knows this. How can the future be predicted given that there isn’t another Earth to experiment with? The most disturbing evidence for climate change comes from paleoclimate studies, i.e. the historical record, and present day observations.
If Lindzen is the authority you want to name, where is his paper published in a peer reviewed journal that shows what data he pays attention to and what conclusions he draws from it? What is his explanation for the observed phenomena so many others point to? What does Lintzen say of the paleoclimate record that so many others say means CO2 and the other GHG are the main factor that ultimately determines planetary temperature? Why can’t a tenured professor with nothing to fear and a good case get published, even if its only on his own webpage?
How is it that only climatology has gone completely bad, so that all one has to imply is that all the peer reviewed journals are controlled by a cabal that will not publish the work of people who dispute the religion that is currently being cranked out? What about mathematics or physics? Why did this only happen in climatology?
David -
With all due respect, the “peer-review” demand is a double-edged sword, since the IPCC AR4 has been shown to be bereft of the vaunted “peer-review” requirement.
If you don’t respect Lindzen, what about Spencer or Christy or Idso? What these researchers, and many others, are simply asking is for the evidence to be as robust and free of subjective interpretation as any other “hard” science. The elimination of temperature recordings from remote locations; the elimination of the Medieval Warm Period; the ignoring of the effect of clouds and water vapor and the assumption that the effect must be a positive forcing (when it might be negative); and yes, the steady drum beat by the media for 20+ years on the assured impending climate catastrophe — these are just some of the reasons there are legitimate skeptics of the ability of humans to affect the global climate.
There isn’t one of us who encourage more pollution; more abuse of resources; more waste of human potential — yet that tends to be the smear affixed to anyone who dares question the “settled science”. When the climate models are demonstrably wrong, don’t you question the programs on which the computers are based? Or do you just say “Close enough is good enough”.
If there is middle ground here, perhaps it is in simply being honest and saying: “We don’t know yet. There are variables we don’t yet fully understand nor know how they interact with other known aspects. So we will continue to study, measure, report, debate and propose solutions if there is a problem.”
Geez, David. Are you still going on about Cicerone? If you ever bothered to read the replies to your comments, you would have seen that I had already addressed his comments. Even Cicerone acknowledges that “there is a feeling that scientists are suppressing dissent,” even if you remain a denier of this “inconvenient truth.”
Meanwhile, you bark and bark from a position of ignorance. If you want to know which scientists are being relentlessly attacked, then I suggest you go read the CRU emails. The entire set has been published online, or didn’t you know? Sometimes the attacks are of the schoolyard type — as I recall, Ben Santer expressed his desire to “beat the crap out of” one of these scientists. Perhaps that’s the kind of dialogue that you prefer?
Other attacks are more subtle and more carefully orchestrated. For example, Dr. Santer (again) was at the center of a plot to hold up a paper in review until he and a couple of colleagues were able to submit a rebuttal article in the same issue of a journal. It’s all documented in the emails. You might think that this is a minor issue, but as the emails explain, by publishing an article in the same issue rather than publishing a response to the article later, they could deny the original authors an opportunity to have the “last word” on their own published work as is customary in the journal in which the article was published.
This is the kind of gaming of the system that lead Cicerone to comment that “there is a feeling that scientists are suppressing dissent.”
So, you want to “debate the science”? Frankly, I don’t think that you’re qualified to “debate the science.” My experience with climate modeling earned me a PhD. Today, I do computer modeling for a living. I happen to think that I know quite a bit about computer models. What are your qualifications, if I might ask? What makes you worth my time to “debate the science” given that you haven’t even bothered to read my comments?!
For example, if you had carefully read my comment above, you would have realized that “IPCC narrative” is the term used by Judith Curry, which I borrowed since I was quoting her. If you have a problem with the term, then please take it up with her.
Frankly, I’ve had enough your nonsense. You’ve drunk so deep of the AGW kool-aid that you can’t even bother to pay attention to your critics. You just repeat idiot talking points copied from various environmental websites and then move on. You have yet to display any understanding of anything you comment about.
I await your attempt to enlighten me. Thank you in advance.
Sorry, David. I should thank you for providing a perfect example of “Confirmation Bias.”
I had almost forgotten the entire purpose of this post.
Hopefully on topic,
One of the reasons I was bringing up the disaster response training I was in, was that when I mentioned the contradiction to the presenter and that a real solution was Nuclear power, he said “But what about a country like this one where Nuclear power is politically unacceptable?” This bias against Nuclear power comes from a long term Meme introduced in the 70′s and constantly reinforced that Nuclear power is the most dangerous kind of power. I find when you mention Nuclear power you always get an immediate reaction that it is unsafe. I don’t find that same reaction against any other kind of power generation – despite a long term campaign against fossil fuels.
However, I also find that when you take some time to make safety comparisons and show the long term safety record people are willing to listen.
@David, what you say is sadly true (about the initial reaction of the technology being unsafe), although as the polls suggest it is a tide that is slowly turning in Nuclear’s favor. That said, I feel a concerted approach to rebrand the industry and reprogram its “feelings” in peoples’ minds is critical to ensure the safe and productive spread of Nuclear Energy. Now is the perfect time to further sway that initial reaction by taking advantage of the general public warming to the virtues of Nuclear.
I quote Cicerone because he is the leading figure in the most distinguished scientific organization in the United States. He has assessed the “climategate” controversy and published his views in Science. As he has written, “our understanding is undiminished”. You sneer at me for quoting him. You do not say he is wrong. You write about “appearance”. What does “appearance” have to do with whether the scientific case presented by climate scientists is valid?
I can’t understand how if someone steals personal correspondence not intended for public view that anything contained in it can be called a “relentless attack”. If I tell people privately that you seem to be what you so quickly and easily call me, i.e. someone who “barks and barks from a position of ignorance”, I am not relentlessly attacking you. If you steal an email where I am writing this about you, you could say you’ve discovered I don’t like you and don’t think much of your opinion. If you trumpeted to the world that I am relentless attacking you, you would just be lying. I asked for names of the IPCC members who were doing what you called “relentlessly attacking”, knowing you would not be able to find one.
I read your “frankly I’ve had enough of your nonsense”, and “you just repeat idiot talking points”, and that I have “yet to display any understanding of anything I comment about”, that you write about me.
Continue on, anytime you see me comment on any topic, at Rod’s blog, or anywhere, display your assumed superiority, as you’ve done here, by avoiding the points I made, about Lindzen not publishing, or about the fact that climate scientists do not hang their case on computer models so much as on paleo and observational data, or that it is quite a stretch to ask people to believe that climate science, worldwide, is somehow repressing the poor downtrodden relentlessly attacked bearers of the truth in every country in the world, because almost all climate scientists, and all the leading figures in the national academies have, as you say, “drunk so deep of the AGW kool-aid”.
Show your disrespect, and obviously, because the points I make will not make any sense to anyone else, and your points, i.e. your scorn for the President of the NAS, Cicerone, your “bark bark”, or “you just repeat idiot talking points”, or “you have yet to display any understanding of anything you comment about”, will, obviously, inspire and inform everyone, and I’m sure your reputation will end up where it deserves to be.
Sigh … I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.
Nevertheless, I have better things to do than to talk to a wall.
You are welcome, however, to “debate the science” anytime you want. So far, you have relied on nothing but appeals to authority. Sadly, you then get snippy when someone knows something more about the topic than you do.
@Greg –
Perhaps one example of the way to “re-brand” nuclear power in a positive and tangible way would be to show a brief video of the USS Vinson (I believe) being used to provide desalinated water to the earthquake victims in Haiti. No other viable source could provide that in such a short period of time. Use that example in conjunction with the everyday things we take for granted: on-demand power for our laptops, lights, power drills and saws, stoves, etc. Just a thought.
Excellent point about the important (and under publicized) roll the Carl Vinson played in bringing relief to Haiti.
You really hit the nail on the head with the services that most everyone takes for granted. It seems to me that people think power (and ostensibly its supply) will just always be there. To extend that further I suspect that little if any thought actually goes into how power is made, transferred, and delivered. It’s crazy to think about how tethered to power society is without any knowledge whatsoever to the actual infrastructure itself.
Hello, Mr. Lewis. The information you read on the RealClimate website is accurate. We have no connection at all with Fenton Communications. Bianca
Bianca DeLille
Director, Climate Science Communication Network
Uhm … that’s why SCN (formerly EMS) is called as a front group. Duh. Of course they’re going to claim that they’re not associated with the company that they’re fronting for! Otherwise, they would be a pretty piss-poor front group, wouldn’t they?
Do you really think that two completely unrelated groups would come out of the woodwork to support the fledgling RealClimate blog at the same time?! The non-profit did the hosting and the PR firm did the press release. Is this some sort of cosmic coincidence?
You have to be the most gullible person I have encountered in a long time.
I was a bit speechless for a time after reading Mays.
I am presently studying The Nuclear Energy Option, by Bernard L Cohen. In his Chapter 5 “How Dangerous is Radiation” Cohen makes a case that the public should pay attention to scientific authorities in complex matters where the public is asked to decide through their elected representatives, what to do about a complex matter such as how serious the nuclear power industry should take radiation protection.
After describing how anti nuclear types such as Nader, Mancuso, and Sternglas received media and public attention completely out of proportion compared to how seriously what they were saying was taken by the relevant scientific community, Cohen wrote: “They didn’t seem to recognize that a unanimous conclusion of a National Academy of Sciences Commmittee should be given more weight than the opinion of one individual scientist who is far outside the mainstream.”
Cohen writes of a study by Mancuso that received a lot of attention: “in spite of the fact that it was universally rejected by the scientific community, and completely ignored by BEIR, UNSCEAR, ICRP, and other such groups it was frequently referred to …”
At one point Cohen tried to describe, in more detail, why the public should respect”such groups” of scientists:
“The National Academy of Sciences is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1863 to further knowledge and advise the government. It is composed of about a thousand of our nation’s most distinguished researchers from all branches of science. It appointed the BEIR Committee and reviewed its work. The BEIR Committee itself was composed of about 21 American scientist well recognized in the scientific community as experts in radiation biology…. The United Nations Scientific Committee on Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) was made up of scientists from 20 nations from both sides of the iron curtain and the Third World. The countries with representation on the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) were similarly distributed….
To believe that such highly reputable scientists conspired to practice deceit seems absurd…. But above all, they are human beings who have chosen careers in a field dedicated to protection of the health of their fellow human beings; in fact, many of them are M.D.’s who have foregone financially lucrative careers in medical practice to become research scientists. To believe that nearly all of these scientists were somehow involved in a sinister plot to deceive the public indeed challenges the imagination.”
The climate debate is identical except the highest scientific authorities are more concerned and more unified in their concern, there are more top flight scientists from more countries on the biggest committees, the conclusions are explicitly supported by the Presidents or leading figure in every national science academy in the world, and an urgent call has repeatedly gone out from the highest level in the science academies as a group, to the governments of the world that they should act on the scientific advice.
It is astonishing to see pro nukes who have witnessed years of anti nuke activity as they dispute what is known about radiation use the same type of argument in the same ways anti nukes do to support their climate denial.
I wonder how many pro nukes are like Mays.
@ David Lewis,
Are you saying that AGW’s conclusions that the world will literally burn up in as few years as 20 or 30 is sound? That the sea will inundate New York City? Or that the conclusion that all rises in overall Global temperatures by 1 or maybe 2 degrees Celsius will be harmful? What about the climate during the age of the dinosaurs? It seems like they thrived. Are we less capable of thriving in a warm earth? How about the conclusion of the EPA that human emitted CO2 is a harmful substance?
The problem is not that I disagree with the science, I just disagree with the conclusions and the political applications derived from the science. I am fatigued with “Green.” I am fatigued with the anti-human arguments that logically lead to us all committing suicide to “save the earth.” Finally, I am fatigued with those who close off debate with the phrase “settle science.” I find this in many areas not just climate science.
Your use of the dangers of radiation is interesting. The difference being that these radiation dangers are in an area where duplication of results is possible. I can run experiments about the effects of radiation and find that people who live with high background radiation suffer little harm and might have a benefit. I cannot run these same experiments with climate. Thus, scientists who hear a person waxing elephants about the dangers of radiation can simply run their own experiment. While scientists who question the climate models cannot even get access the the raw data – “they can’t be trusted with it” was the phrase thrown at me on one blog.
I am still trying to find a quote I heard attributed to Albert Einstein who as I remember responded to an attack on his concepts “600 scientists say Einstein wrong.” by saying “It only takes one to be right.” Into the trash went a single reference for time, and now Einstein’s concepts are threaten by increased understandings in Quantum physics. If these core concepts in Physics can be overturned so can climate science. We need doubters.
It’s sad, really. David here first tells me that he thinks “people should come out and debate the science if they are going to make statements,” and yet he hasn’t put forward a single scientific argument. Instead, it’s just an endless stream of appeals to authority.
Oh well … I’ve already covered that and given my perspective of what happens in large organizations with all sorts of internal politics and external pressures. The whitewash by the APS is merely a small example of a rather large problem. Fortunately, however, the draft of the clarification statement by the APS (which I have commented on to the society) is much more rational, so perhaps there is still hope that rigorous science will triumph over politicized pseudo-scientific nonsense.
What is more troubling, however, is the strange need that David has to consistently attack me on this subject. Why? This is curious, because I am already a firm supporter of real, concrete solutions to the putative catastrophe. If more nuclear power is required to save the world, them I’m all for it! In fact, I’m all for it even if the world does not need to be saved. (I wish I could say the same thing about many pro-nuclear global warming advocates.) Thus, I’m quite baffled as to why I must be forced to believe that the world needs saving, or at least why I am forced to believe in a particular end of the world scenario.
I have noticed that it is rare to see such zeal in science. Certainly, the support for nuclear power has never seen anything like this until recent times. Those, like me, who have supported nuclear power for a long time have simply considered it to be a “good idea” — the logical next step in electricity production. We didn’t need some sort of crisis to make us “believers”; the advantages of getting a vast amount of energy from a very small amount of material should be obvious.
No, the only sector of human activity where I have seen such an insatiable desire to convert the unbelievers is organized religion. Thus, I can only conclude that David is possessed by some sort of evangelical quasi-religious fervor. This is why he wonders “how many pro nukes are like” me. Apparently, good deeds are not enough; salvation may only come through faith, and the required faith is belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).
Like most religions, AGW is a set of beliefs that is subject to interpretation. For example, I happen to think that human influences do cause changes in climate — certainly on a local scale and most likely on a global scale. However, the devil is in the details: which is causing what and how much? Thus, the simple-minded approach to climate change does not appeal to me, so I’m branded a heretic.
Frankly, I suspect that there are many pro-nuclear people who are like me (they probably just have better things to do with their time than blog late into the night). If they have been around for a while, they have had ample time to observe the anti-nuclear cult. Thus, why is it surprising when they become skeptical after seeing the same key signals in the AGW cult, which for the most part contains the same organizations, the same rhetoric, and even the same people?
One Trackback
[...] I am applying my own confirmation bias to this topic but I would venture to guess that this inconvenient truth stands as a large obstacle [...]