Facts won't change your mind about anything

Great Debates
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I see another inevitable thread here on “the greatest threat to mankind”. In general, it’s not interesting, since of course it will (or already has) turned into a debate about the reality of “the biggest threat ever”, which is a different debate than “why nobody gives a shit about it”, which is actually a good topic. But will facts matter at all?

Of course not.

While it’s possible to carefully explain why that statement is wrong, and in ways difficult to explain, it’s so wrong, it won’t matter. We can see this in the next two, much easier, examples.

There is no “theory that the earth is not flat”, so it’s an absurd statement. (there is also no theory that the Earth is not supported by elephants standing on turtles either). It’s impossible to counter that sort of rhetoric, since it’s nonsense. The irony follows close behind.

Obviously that is insulting, all the more so since we just saw how unfactual the argument before it was. But you could spend weeks, hell, the rest of your life trying to lead that horse to water, and it will never drink. Most likely the horse will kick you. Take a few bites.

The psychology of why this is so is fascinating, and yes, I am aware I suffer the same flaw. The very spirit of science is about overcoming this all too human nature, where we get an idea in our head, and no amount of fact based scientific evidence will change it.

Obviously those seriously concerned over the disaster coming feel the exact same way about their enemies.

And hell yes, it’s frustrating. We think more facts will matter, but science is telling us it won’t. That in fact, something happens in our brains, and instead of going “Wow! I did not know that. This is important, it changes things”, we get mad instead. Mad at the person showing us something.

That Freeman Dyson is a Global Warming Skeptic, that should make anyone educated enough to understand what that means take notice, do some thinking. But it doesn’t. In fact, rather than even slow down for a moment, it actually seems to make the person preaching doom even more sure. Sure that they actually know more than somebody who is possibly the smartest person on the planet. They think they know more than top Nobel Prize winning actual scientist who actually worked on climate models, and knows a lot about the science.

And it happens, just as the MRI scans show, with out conscious thought. A switch gets thrown, and the rational part of the brain shuts off, and anger rises up.

This actual tendency, this actual thing that happens in our brains, it seems important. If you got angry while reading this, then you know in your brain it is true.

But it won’t matter.

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So were I to tell someone he is a fool, and has his head lodged in his rectum, and is widely known to have enjoyed carnal relations with his mother, his anger would constitute proof?

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Of course it matters, we already do know that it made you angry that Dyson accepted that the poles were going to warm, the only issue is that Dyson was wrong about other regions, it is clear here though that what Dyson reported about the warming of the poles was ignored.

People like Cohen and his contributors accept that the warming is coming from the human release of fossil fuels to the atmosphere. They do take that into account and it is [del]part of a complete breakfast[/del] part of his theory about what is happening with the weather in the poles and the mid latitudes.

As pointed before, the facts is that Cohen and the scientists that do work with him do accept the evidence that includes the hockey stick (increased global warming) and the effects of the increase of human emitted CO2.

The facts are that FXMastermind continues to claim that Cohen has a new theory at odds with what other climate scientists report. As science does many times, the previous theories were not dismissed, they are slightly modified. As pointed before Cohen is only concentrating on one piece of the big puzzle, that Cohen could be right will not (by his own words and the words of his assistants) mean that global warming has stopped or gone away or that the research of Michael Mann and many others, that continue to be called “nobodies” by FXMastermind, is ignored by Cohen and many others.

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It’s rare that I get actually angry over anything science or climate or even political in nature. I’m fat too old and wise to suffer anger over something that does not effect me in the least.

I get a little angry at people who not only refuse to lift a finger to make the world better, but actually do stupid shit that makes it worse. Since I firmly believe carbon pollution is a threat to both the oceans, as well as the climate system, I plant trees, propagate trees, I love trees. (and shrubs, vines, bushes, all kinds of plants really)

But goddamn, try getting somebody who has an absolutely barren yard, to let me plant a single oak tree in it. They actually refuse, even when I would do everything, including watering if needed, to get it established. They will not allow one goddamn tree in their yard, even far away from the house.

It’s fucking madness. Now that annoys me.

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relevant article perhaps

Your Brain Is Primed To Reach False Conclusions

and this

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Of course as tomndeb said, one should make efforts to not become the best example of what one is trying to show.

It is true that even scientists that have ideology to drive their skepticism do fall for erroneous conclusions, but it does not mean that it will remain so forever.

**(Dr. Barry Bickmore - How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change) **
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That’s an amusing statement, appearing as it does in your own thread about why facts should be the only thing that matters, rather than the isolated contrarian opinion of a 91-year old who is not and never was a climate scientist, who by his own admission doesn’t understand the subject, and who has become a self-appointed champion of contrarianism just on general principle:
“I don’t claim to be an expert. I never did. I simply find that a lot of these claims that experts are making are absurd. Not that I know better, but I know a few things. My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.”

… large numbers of climate modelers and others who actually work on climate change – as Dyson does not – rolled their collective eyes at assertions they consider appallingly ill-informed. In his interview with Yale Environment 360, Dyson also makes numerous assertions of fact – from his claim that warming today is largely confined to the Arctic to his contention that human activities are not primarily responsible for rising global temperatures – that climate scientists say are flat-out wrong.

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151

There are some interesting analyses of why Dyson is the way he is, in this excellent critique and by his biographer in this interesting piece in the Atlantic.

Dyson is also wrong in his claim that climate models are just fluid dynamic models. There are many different kinds of models intended to study different aspects of climate over different timeframes and different degrees of granularity. AOGCMs are the most generic category and can be extended to include precisely the atmospheric chemistry, vegetation and carbon cycle dynamics he claims aren’t handled. Models that combine the physical, chemical, and biological aspects in an integrated earth-system simulation are sometimes called Earth System Models.

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You won’t believe this and it might make you angry but the reason is simple. We use a confused language and think in it. Much of the confusion disappears when used as thought but it still exists. Rather than seeking knowledge and acting on it we instead build paradigms based on what we want to believe. As we age we become these beliefs. We act on our beliefs and not our knowledge or our instincts.

This is why people take new ideas and ideas that conflict with their own beliefs personally. Rather than argue the points the yell at the pointer.

As was said the only way to combatr this is by arguing individual points one at a time. You must find the premises for people’s beliefs and change their opinion about that.

Rots of Ruck. It’s virtually impossible to change peoples’ beliefs and now I’ll be attacked for the opinions but no one will argue the premises nor the facts.

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Before anyone thinks that cladking is not also a good example of what the OP has problem too, everyone needs to check what cladking is doing in the Egyptian Pyramids thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=742823&page=11

290

In what sense is the last sentence I’ve quoted there linked to the first two? It seems a bit of a jump from “the language used in our understanding is confused” to “we don’t look out on the world without bias”. The contrary could so easily be so, after all; an inability to fully put the world around us into words could well lead instead into a greater attempt at understanding than perfect description would.

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This is pretty tortured. Dyson is not a “Global Warming Skeptic” or even a global warming skeptic. He has criticized some approaches to the issue and has encouraged more acceptance of the proposals of skeptics, but he has, himself, not denied that continued increase in CO2 production by humans has been involved with increasing overall temperatures across the globe.’
’
Calling him a Global Warming Skeptic is rather like Hovind calling Wilson an opponent of the Theory of Evolution because Wilson challenged Gould over Punctuated Equilibrium.

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Science rteflects reality by its effects on experiment. If the science is correct then I’m proposing reality asserts itself through language.

293

Yes, I agree. And it’s likely many individuals percieve their experience of reality this way. However, I doubt this is accurate since very few people ever change their beliefs about anything. I always tell young people to be very very careful about what they choose to believe because they will believe it will act on those beliefs and then all their experience will confirm it until eventually they’ll become their beliefs.

Of course you’ve got to get them very very young because by about the age of four their beliefs will already conflict with the advice.

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By experience on many subjects I have arrived to the conclusion that the best thing to do is to check your sources of information constantly, having to depend on cranks like Graham Hancock and Robert Temple is only to rely on information coming from wellsprings of misinformation.

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I haven’t read all six pages, so sorry if this is already been stated, but there are two basic human traits that make logic and facts less persuasive than they should be.

The first is confirmation bias. People accept and belief fact that confirm what they already believe, and reject facts that conflict with it.

The second is that people will almost always believe what is comforting, reassuring, or makes them feel good about themselves, or is otherwise in in their self-interest, no matter how illogical or ridiculous it is.

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LinusK: What you say is perfectly true…but, fortunately for truth, knowledge, and human progress, enough people can overcome these natural traits in themselves to learn from the evidence and change their minds when shown to be wrong.

It’s hard, certainly, even for the smartest and the wisest. Einstein never fully came to an accommodation with Quantum Physics. (Or is this an UL?) There is a “potential well” effect that has to be overcome.

Fortunately, the best scientific explanations are strongly evident, and provide us with the extra weight of evidence to allow all but the most stuck-in-the-mud to make the leap forward.

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Yes. The quoted post was excellent also.

However while truth is self evident, revolutionary truths are usually accepted only demographically. Older people go to their graves embracing the old beliefs but younger people who do believe the new truth replace them.

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That’s why some stick to facts, not truth.

If you are interested in truth and the nature of belief, there’s a philosophy class down the hall.

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Fortunately, there is a “bridge to the future” in the form of the education system. Older people teach younger people, and often they teach the new truths.

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2007 blog post, Predictions of Climate.