Exactly. The more you know ABOUT science, while not knowing any real science, the less likely you are to believe global warming.

57 to 56%? Isnt that statistically irrelevant?

FTFS: Given how much the ordinary individual depends on peers for support-material and emotional-and how little impact his beliefs have on the physical environment, he would probably be best off if he formed risk perceptions that minimized any danger of estrangement from his community.

The actual submitted study

"Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?"

"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"

"Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?"

Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

SnarfVader:
Secondly, it's Fox news.


Well, if MaudlinMutantMollusk didnt post the direct link to the survey, you would have a point

MaudlinMutantMollusk: The actual submitted study

Sigh. Mods are so bad about letting giving greenlights to technical articles.

HawgWild: Those aren't science questions.

Science as "body of knowledge". Not quite the same thing as the philosophical discipline and anthropological practices that underlie it.

But still, I wouldn't go that far.

HawgWild: "Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?"

"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"

"Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?"

Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

THIS

This "study" is pointless and offers nothing of any value.

HawgWild: "Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?"

"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"

"Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?"

Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

That people could only score an average 56-57% is the truly scary part. I'd love to see if all 22 questions were that level. :-/

Does any science make me an expert? My degree (soon to be 2) is in economics, a definite social science, and I demand proof that this "warming" is in effect. My air conditioning bills are actually lower this year, proof that the earth isn't warming up.

HawgWild: "Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?"

"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"

"Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?"

Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

So how many did you get wrong?

mamoru: HawgWild: "Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?"

"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"

"Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?"

Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

That people could only score an average 56-57% is the truly scary part. I'd love to see if all 22 questions were that level. :-/

It makes me sad. I know I'm not the smartest person in the world, but this is stuff you're supposed to know by the time you get to 6th grade, or have just a tiny bit of intellectual farking curiosity.

Lionel Mandrake: This "study" is pointless and offers nothing of any value.

So it's normal Fox News fare?

cman: 57 to 56%? Isnt that statistically irrelevant?

You sound like you know a lot about science.

Did any of those questions have anything to do atmospheric dynamics when the chemistry of its constituent gasses is changed in a way that increase IR absorption?

No? Then shut up.

By the way, it is offensive to those who are actual skeptics when you lump anti science tools in with us. Real skepticism isn't just disagreeing with something. Creationists aren't evolution skeptics. They're idiots.

/Get in the sack

From the redlit thread:

Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, was one skeptical scientist who signed the letter. He said that the finding that skeptics know as much or more about science surprised him "not at all."

It is important to note WHO that skeptical scientist was though...

Not just a naysayer on Global Warming, but a nay sayer on links to tobacco and lung cancer.

Oddly enough, a professional who makes very real money lending his name as a consultant, and whose own peer reviews are less accepted, and who makes his profession selling his name.

Mind you, there is good money to be made to sell your credentials as a scholar, and lend a degree and position to cherry picked findings to defend an industry or political position paper. The Justification Machine has gotten fat over the last twenty or so years of supporting papers of questionable worth to lend an air of credibility. Be that in economics, foreign policy, or in medical or science findings that keep "debate" going. Politicians can take their captive academics, willing and able to parrot forth findings that they just have to work up a justification for.

The problem is, that science doesn't really come with the findings first, and then the experimentation and data to justify those findings. You hypothesize , and then you see if the data fits, and then see if your initial thought is actually borne out. Which is the opposite of what many in the these Justification mills do. They have their findings first, then try to work out a way to fit data, often incomplete, and often with steps removed from other works taken out of context, and then shoved into a paper or study. Then it can be quoted, ignoring the response of the scientific community's review of said study or paper.

The paper does exist. The findings are there in black and white. The actual peer review though, that's just ignored, because peer reviews tend to shred these folks, but they are useful, which is why they get consulting fees. Because they are in the business not in doing actual research, but in generating quote mines and obfuscating issues with cherry picked quotes and figures.

That this has become a source of income for some scholars who have had some difficulty in getting their normal work accepted in journals, it at least gets them reviewed and some publicity, even for disingenuous studies, and thus, it keeps them afloat.

hubiestubert: From the redlit thread:

Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, was one skeptical scientist who signed the letter. He said that the finding that skeptics know as much or more about science surprised him "not at all."

It is important to note WHO that skeptical scientist was though...

Not just a naysayer on Global Warming, but a nay sayer on links to tobacco and lung cancer.

Oddly enough, a professional who makes very real money lending his name as a consultant, and whose own peer reviews are less accepted, and who makes his profession selling his name.

Mind you, there is good money to be made to sell your credentials as a scholar, and lend a degree and position to cherry picked findings to defend an industry or political position paper. The Justification Machine has gotten fat over the last twenty or so years of supporting papers of questionable worth to lend an air of credibility. Be that in economics, foreign policy, or in medical or science findings that keep "debate" going. Politicians can take their captive academics, willing and able to parrot forth findings that they just have to work up a justification for.

The problem is, that science doesn't really come with the findings first, and then the experimentation and data to justify those findings. You hypothesize , and then you see if the data fits, and then see if your initial thought is actually borne out. Which is the opposite of what many in the these Justification mills do. They have their findings first, then try to work out a way to fit data, often incomplete, and often with steps removed from other works taken out of context, and then shoved into a paper or study. Then it can be quoted, ignoring the response of the scientific community's review of said study or paper.

The paper does exist. The findings are there in black and white. The actual peer review though, that's just ignored, because peer reviews tend to shred these folks, but they are useful, which is why they get con ...

That is about as idiotic as claiming that the US Government was behind the 9/11 attacks to enrich their friends.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: Does any science make me an expert? My degree (soon to be 2) is in economics, a definite social science, and I demand proof that this "warming" is in effect. My air conditioning bills are actually lower this year, proof that the earth isn't warming up.

Science literacy IS an important factor. And it's true, that with a slight background in science, in physics, I dislike the term "global warming" because it is a popularized term for a slightly the slightly more complicated issue of climate change.

We are not quite to the point of Peter F. Hamilton's Armada Storms and no polar ice caps--though, in his defense he was also projecting a population of 40 billion on Earth with a heavily industrialized world projected some 500 years into our future--so I have less of an alarmist worry about the immediate effects of global climate change breaking loose and wrecking things RIGHT NOW! But I also have concern over long term effects, and an understanding of how even small climatic shifts can produce far reaching and unintended effects.

There lies the rub. The latching onto "global warming" as a term, and attempting to define it in legalistic terms, and trying to hang all discussions on climate change in those terms. That was not helpful to the discussion. Climate change is something we need to look at. Not just in terms of catastrophe, but in trying to understand and predict how these changes will unfold. Not just in terms of just warming, but shifts in migration patterns, rain fall distribution, storm patterns, water salinity--which affects current patterns. For those who aren't nautical in their thinking, you might want to remember how much fish and seafood is harvested, and oddly enough, those current patterns affect a LOT of life, not just on the coasts, but in the open ocean as well. It's not a matter of simple one to one, boy it's always going to be warmer, but a shift in energy transfer systems across the globe, and how those energy transfers blend and combine, and affect one another. Our weather isn't just a simple ON for rain, OFF for sun, and trying to push a model on the public that it's easy science does no one any good.

Part of the issue, are scientists like Lindzen, who try to disprove a general warming trend, as opposed to looking at the larger picture of shifts in patterns, and looking for not just precedents in the past for such shifts, but trying to figure out if what we experiencing NOW is a simple blip, or if it is the start of a shift in our patterns, and if it is, how will that affect areas that are populated now, and will it affect them in the future. The data is not conclusive to form a solid predictive model yet, but that doesn't mean that we can ignore data and have some concerns.

Geologically speaking, we are not too far out of the last Ice Age. It would be nice to be able to understand the reasons for THAT shift as well as watching for future shifts. The effort that goes into trying to torpedo results that you just don't like is not useful, when it is motivated by simple valuta, and short term valuta at that. And that is really what is fueling the backlash against talking about climate change, is that folks are more worried about their stock prices, than they are in being able to understand if the Midwest is going to dry the heck up, if the seas are going to get choppy for another twenty or thirty years. It is hoping that if we just stick our heads in the sand, then we won't have to deal with the news.

Not all bad. Not all good. But we do need to know what is possible, and to be able to plan for it. Not just worry that we might want to think about what not just our carbon footprint is doing, but what simple waste heat from industrial process and increased habitation, coupled with deforestation might factor into shifts in climate, globally. Not just in simple +/- models, but how it will affect patterns, and where patterns may shift drastically enough to cause very real economic issues.

This study shows that the global warming debate is more political than it is scientific. Liberals believe in global warming, not because of science, but because it fits their anti-commerce, anti-industry worldview. That's what I get from the study.

SkinnyHead: This study shows that the global warming debate is more political than it is scientific. Liberals believe in global warming, not because of science, but because it fits their anti-commerce, anti-industry worldview. That's what I get from the study.

Why would liberals believe in anti-commerce? That doesn't make any sense.

Oh it's you. Nevermind.

This make my brain hurt.

So, can it be reasonably inferred based on this test that someone who knows how to fuel up a car is qualified to, say, perform heart surgery? Or someone who can bang out "chopsticks" on a piano is the people's choice to pilot an F-22? Or someone who can take off her bikini top is ready to debate the Chair of Immunology at Johns Hopkins?

cman: 57 to 56%? Isnt that statistically irrelevant?

I'm guessing statistics and margins of error weren't one of the 20 questions answered?

My father who used to be a professor of engineering sent me this article this morning. I'm probably going to be branded as "disrespectful" for pointing this out to him on the family email list...

HawgWild:
Those aren't science questions. Those are trivia questions you answer on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

and you'd have a point if they were trying to determine the level of scientific literacy of an individual instead of comparing two groups.

/statistics, how do they work?

cman: 57 to 56%? Isnt that statistically irrelevant?

yes, but you should read the actual study results before you go saying that to people

Wow,, they found 16 scientists that disagree about global warming. I guess all the other scienticians are wrong.

The Real Science and Politics on Global Warming.

Link
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4309
tl;dr version? Just click the listen link in the article.


Quote from the article:
Public understanding of AGW is all messed up, way more so than any other science, even more messed up than creation vs. evolution. The reason is obvious to everyone: It's never really been a science issue in the public's mind; it's a political issue. It's a political hot potato that has everyone on both sides of the aisle fired up and raging with conspiracy theories, fraud charges, end of the world scenarios, scandals and corruption. The result is that almost nobody in the public has a detailed understanding of the real science, yet almost everyone who follows the issue takes a side with great passion, either embracing AGW or dismissing it. What went wrong? How and why did this important science fly off the tracks and fall into the pit of politics?

SkunkWerks:
Oh yes. Comparing two groups on the basis of whether or not they made it out of grade school sounds exceedingly relevant to the matter of overall scientific literacy one might have picked up in the 7-12 years beyond... and that's not even mentioning extracurricular activity.

uh, yeah. Yeah it is. You're giving a questionnaire about general scientific knowledge to the average adult(who's been out of school for decades) and you can't make it too hard or almost everyone gets all the questions wrong(or refuses to take your survey) and you learn nothing; or you make it too easy and everybody gets all the questions right and you learn nothing. If you're trying to compare two groups of laymen the questions are necessarily going to be pretty simple. This is the way science is done(because it works).

/statistics HOW DO THEY WORK!!?

Raharu: The Real Science and Politics on Global Warming.

Link
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4309
tl;dr version? Just click the listen link in the article.


Quote from the article:
Public understanding of AGW is all messed up, way more so than any other science, even more messed up than creation vs. evolution. The reason is obvious to everyone: It's never really been a science issue in the public's mind; it's a political issue. It's a political hot potato that has everyone on both sides of the aisle fired up and raging with conspiracy theories, fraud charges, end of the world scenarios, scandals and corruption. The result is that almost nobody in the public has a detailed understanding of the real science, yet almost everyone who follows the issue takes a side with great passion, either embracing AGW or dismissing it. What went wrong? How and why did this important science fly off the tracks and fall into the pit of politics?

This

It's abut left v right, not right v wrong.