I am somewhat bemused by the alignment of political affiliation with opinion about global warming, an ostensibly scientific question. Obviously Republicans are much more likely to question the scientific consensus about global warming and its causes than are Democrats. Why is that? (I should think that drumming up the occasional dissenter on global warming is hardly more convincing than drumming up the occasional Duesberg on AIDS). Of course Republicans are much more likely to question the scientific consensus on evolution than are Democrats, and that is clearly because Republicans are (much) more likely to be fundamental Christians. Unlike the typical blogger (the Detailed Balancer excluded, of course) or talk radio host, respectable folks do not indulge in ad hominem arguments, so just because Republicans are more likely to believe in evolution (which, let us grant, is a benighted position) does not mean Republicans are wrong, nor Democrats right, about everything, or even about global warming. Still, why the remarkable alignment?
My guess is that Republicans have a sense that academics, including scientists, are generally Democratic and have liberal leanings. This is actually correct. There is an interesting positive correlation between education and affiliation with the Democratic party, a correlation that holds even in the sciences, so it is not because of brain-washing by the post-modern lit-crit crowd. Still, this can hardly lead one to assume that all scientific (educated, Left/East Coast pointy-heady professor elite) consensus is driven by a liberal agenda. For example, there is a scientific consensus about dietary trans fat that has led California and New York City to ban trans fats in restaurants (in both cases, the ban was spearheaded by [moderate] Republicans). This is an area I know something about, and I am highly skeptical about the consensus, don’t even get me started about the laws (I’m against them). Why aren’t the Republicans pro-trans and the Democrats anti-? On the other hand, the scientific consensus on aging research has been challenged by many crackpots, including Aubrey de Grey, and (having some expertise in this area as well) I have had no compunction in deflating these anti-establishment positions. Why don’t the Republicans rail against the liberal gerontologists?
Finally, I should say that though I am willing to provisionally accept the scientific consensus about global warming, and therefore I reject the implicit position of the Detailed Balancer (and, I gather, the Republican consensus), my personal position is: bring it on. Global warming is indeed hardly more than an inconvenient truth. Of far greater threat to civilization is the long-overdue ice age. A somewhat secondary threat, but far greater than global warming, is the depletion of fossil fuels. Both threats will be delayed by global warming (the latter because global warming will increase energy available for, .e.g., wind and hydroelectric).
Sunday, 27 July 2008 at 05:32
Well, the correlation of political party and views on anthropogenic global warming seems to be explained in terms of statist tendencies, that is, AGW “solutions” are often framed in terms of governmental mandates, whence, in the boldest of simplifications: GOP=against, DP=for. I think this is a different phenomenon from the party-creationist correlation, which seems instead to be related to the fact that evangelicals are a significant fraction of the Republican base. However, surveys indicate an annoyingly broad opposition to Darwinism in the American population, greater than can be explained by Republicans alone. Neil Boortz would probably take a slam at “government schools” at this point, but I’m not sure private schools would show an alternate tendency (in fact, given the predominance of parochial schools among private schools…).
The dynamic of education and party affiliation is a curious one. I recall one statistic from the 2000 election, that Al Gore’s percentage of the vote was high among those without a high school diploma, and dropped steadily as education level increased — until you reached Ph.D.’s, who again favored Gore over Bush. I’m not sure what that means. But it suggests that one should be careful in talking about a “positive correlation between education” and Democrat-ness. The term suggests that someone has crunched numbers and come up with a covariance between education (x) and %Dem (y). (Is education actually a continuous variable? Is intelligence actually proportional to the number of days spent in school?) The other main point is that the trend is not linear. Not to be Marxist about it, but it seems more like a dynamic akin to social class rather than intelligence, that is, Ph.D.’s tend to have a different take on things that do BS’s, ditto BA’s, ditto high-school dropouts, etc.
I would also be careful about equating AGW skepticism with creationism or even Aubrey-de-Greyism. My observation is that, first, the only creationists I have known have been non-scientists. Creationism really is non-science. However, there is a discernable, indeed, significant and healthy skepticism among scientists about AGW. The small and biased sample among regulars of the Compuserve SCIMATH forum, of which I have been a member on and off for almost 17 years, indicates that many scientists reject the hype and are skeptical of the methods of the AGW proponents.
To take a couple of examples off the top of my head, consider first the acceleration of sea level rise. There is a popular impression that sea level rise has been accelerating due to global warming, and several research papers have been published promoting this viewpoint. As one of the SCIMATH regulars pointed out to me, it is nearly impossible to point to a specific location where acceleration has been observed. Sea levels have been rising everywhere at a nearly steady rate since modern record-keeping began, e.g. since the mid-1800’s at Battery Park in New York. The acceleration appears to be an artifact of a controversial data reduction.
Another random example is a widely-promoted study of temperatures and jet contrails during the September 11th interregnum of air travel. The study, published in Nature, claimed that the day-night temperature difference was different over that period in 2001 than over similar periods in nearby years, apparently in support of a hypothesis that contrails affect climate. But the report provided no error estimates at all! That is, a one degree change was observed, but no attempt was made to determine if that change was statistically significant. It is fatuous to give creedence to this kind of sloppy work.
My one firm belief in all this is that science — and not politics — will eventually sort out the dynamics of climate. The interference of politics — including politics by scientists — will only retard that process.
BBB
UPDATE: Here’s link to a 2000 election exit poll analysis: ;Election 2000: Exit Poll Analysis;. The relevant statistic:
I’ll try to dig up the actual numbers.
Sunday, 27 July 2008 at 18:55
While political philosophy certainly should influence beliefs about policy (e.g., regardless of global warming, it is not the job of government to intervene), it is less clear why political philosophy should influence beliefs about fact (e.g., global warming is occuring, but not due to human activity). Actually, as BBB says, it should not, but yet clearly it does, since as far as I can tell Republicans are much less likely likely to accept the role of humans than are Democrats, just as they are much less likely to accept the theory of evolution (not to imply that the reasons are the same).
Obviously in any evolving area of scientific investigation it is possible to find individual studies that disagree with the consensus. This kind of anecdotal evidence is fodder for the anti-establishment crowd which rails against the “gate-keepers”. A telling example is that of rising sea levels since mid-1800. Clearly they have been rising, an indication of global warming, but of course it is much trickier to be sure of acceleration. Both examples that BBB raises address the question of the role of humans, and I would agree that whereas there is no credible dispute about the reality of global warming, there is a credible dispute about the quantitative contribution of human activity in causing this (hence the “A” in AGW). The situation is similar to the obesity epidemic: there is no question that the incidence of obesity is increasing, but there are major questions about why. In both cases the question of causality is being addressed using statistical methods, and frankly I am increasingly skeptical of such methods. Nevertheless, I certainly agree that allowing political affiliation to influence scientific judgment will only harm scientific progress.
Regarding the relationship between education and political affiliation, I stand corrected in my use of the term “correlation”. From my pointy-headed east coast urban bubble, I tend to view education in terms of those with advanced degrees vs. those without, and there is little doubt that PhDs are much more likely to vote Democrat than Republican (and of course to accept the theory of natural selection as well). Why people who have not graduated from high school might have a similar affinity for Democratic candidates (while, at the same time, less likely to accept the theory of natural selection) is certainly a mystery to me.
Sunday, 27 July 2008 at 22:18
I recall there is a recent book — I think it was called “The Republican War on Science” — that asserted just this partisan anti-science connection, that is, that Republicans are as a species anti-scientific. To be honest, I have not read this book, because it seemed of a piece with the jejune calumny that Republicans are stupid. The connection between partisanship and anti-science views is less clear to me than it is to the author of that book, or apparently to CVM. I can certainly point to a number of issues where Democrats are steadfastly anti-science.
One example is the consideration of gender differences. The scientific “consensus” (if such a thing can ever relevantly be said to exist) is, I think, that the existence of the Y chromosome in an individual’s genetic makeup can have significant effects on that individual’s propensities and capabilities. But for ideological reasons, this assertion is anathema to Democrats yet welcomed by Republicans.
Another example is space exploration. Space buffs for the most part have welcomed the Bush administration’s Vision for Space Exploration, and its commitment to a new generation of manned space exploration. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has announced that he plans to cancel the Constellation program in toto to fund national early childhood education. Which of them is “anti-science”? How long have we heard one party complaining that space exploration drains funds from domestic programs? Which party do you suppose that is?
Another example is nuclear and particle physics. For longer than I have been alive, the GOP has supported a vigorous program of research into fundamental physics. The late Senator Jesse Helms was an avid proponent of the Supercollider. Yet, the SSC was cancelled in 1993 by a Democrat Congress and Administration. Who was “anti-science”, Jesse Helms or Tom Foley?
A glaring example is the “dismal science”, economics, for which Democrats in general maintain utter disdain and steadfast ignorance. More on this in a future post, perhaps.
So what does all this mean? I think in every one of these cases, including AGW and creationism, one can explain the partisan clustering on one side or the other of each scientific issue by examining the ideological interests of each side. Jesse Helms perhaps supported the SSC for jingoistic and national defense reasons, while Foley and George Mitchell, being socialist internationalists, were opposed (I exaggerate for humorous effect).
But this brings to mind the adage, “Does the waving of the grass make the wind blow?” To me it means that judging scientific theories by their partisan support is not likely to lead to reliable insights. That is to say, believing in AGW because it’s the official position of the Democrat Party is silly.
Among the pearls of wisdom dispensed by Alice Cooper is the maxim, “Anyone who gets their political views from a rock star is a moron.” I would say the Cooper principle applies to science and politicians.
BBB
Monday, 28 July 2008 at 23:09
The fact that Republicans are more likely to reject scientific consensus regarding fact (on some issues) than are Democrats is distinct from the question of whether Republicans do or do not support policy that would facilitate scientific investigation. Republicans are generally more supportive of “Daddy” science that might enhance defense capability (e.g., rocket science, and, yes, fundamental physics) and less supportive of “Mommy” science that might enhance health and welfare (e.g., stem cell research). The ideological reasons for these alignments with policy are obvious, but should not be confused with the epistemological phenomenon in which Republicans simply do not accept scientific consensus about facts. The case about the dismal science is the best counter-example: it is true that Republicans are more likely to accept the consensus among economists than are Democrats (especially concerning free trade), and certainly in this case Republicans are on the right side of the argument. However, although I personally accept the economic consensus, it is also true that economic investigation relies heavily on highly suspect statstical analysis (as indeed does investigation of AGW) and that, possibly due to the inevitable policy implications of economics, even among professionals there appears to be an unseemly alignment between political affiliation and scientific judgment (e.g., Paul Krugman).
Thus “believing in AGW because it is the official position of the Democratic Party” is not only silly, to state that it is silly is silly, a straw man of the first magnitude. Who would ever promote such a position? On the contrary, since scientific consensus favors AGW (I’m not saying I personally accept it), the fact that Republicans are much more likely to reject this consensus (and also the theory of evolution, and also stem cell research) than are Democracts suggests that Republicans are making decisions about fact for ideological, rather than for scientific, reasons. If you want to know who is more “anti-science”, find out who accepts Darwin’s theory of evolution (as I recall, 9 out of 10 Republicans running for president did not). For Detailed Balance, I would also argue that Democratic rejection of free trade is similarly misguided.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008 at 22:50
>>Thus “believing in AGW because it is the official position of the Democratic Party” is not only silly, to state that it is silly is silly, a straw man of the first magnitude.< <
I couldn't have put it better. Likewise, I would point out that it is silly to take the position "it is silly to disbelieve in AGW just because disbelief is the official position of the Republican Party." Yet this seems to be exactly your offering on AGW.
I would say the political aspect of this science (climate modeling), though amusing qua political science, has very little light to shed on the validity of the actual science. Politicians will do what politicians will do. Ignore them.
Leaving you in a logical cleft-stick from which there is but one way out....
>>The fact that Republicans are more likely to reject scientific consensus regarding fact (on some issues) than are Democrats….<<
I notice you didn’t comment on the Democrat obscurantism on gender differences. But no matter. My point is made.
I dispute that the hypothesis that humans are responsible for warming of global climate has reached the epistemic status of “fact”. That the science is not settled should make this frontier of interest to all scientists, as should the implications of the hypothesis itself.
I’ve been following the evolution of this hypothesis for some time now. It is remarkable how little has migrated into the realm of fact. I have to say I have been disappointed time and time again, when each new headline announced some buttress for AGW, how shoddy the science has been.
I would say it is a fact that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen in the decades we have been measuring it. I would say it is a fact that that increase is due to fossil fuel consumption — although this requires some faith in the application of isotopic analysis (a faith I share). I would say it’s pretty well established what those concentrations imply for radiative transport, at least on a lab scale.
But at the other end of the chain of inference, I would point out that there are apparently still no global circulation models which retrodict the last 100 years of climate measurements and which meet a statistically valid goodness-of-fit test. Given that the finest-grid models have a resolution of only about a degree of latitude/longitude, and perhaps 20 levels of atmosphere, this is not surprising. But it raises the question of the timetable for model validation.
And in fact this is the rub. I know a great deal about physics. And I know a great deal about numerical modeling. And I am a naturally skeptical cuss. These character flaws (both skepticism and “numericism”) are correlated with a tendency to affiliate with conservatives, and also to reject “consensus” (which is, after all, different from “tradition”). So I think you are barking up a blind alley, so to speak, to take correlation for causation in this case.
BBB
Wednesday, 30 July 2008 at 00:08
Sigh. Evidently I have not expressed myself clearly. Let me try again.
“Yet this seems to be exactly your offering on AGW.”
Quite the contrary. We are actually in violent agreement that political affiliation should play no role in judgment of fact, a position that works both ways. One should no more reject a judgment of fact because it is effectively a Replican plank than one should accept because it is a Democratic one. My point is that scientific consensus (though certainly short of “fact”), which as far as I can tell BBB accepts, is that global warming is due at least in part to fossil fuel consumption. Actually I myself am rather skeptical about the role of fossil fuels, because I have become increasingly skeptical of mulivariate statistical models. Yet Republicans are much more likely to reject the scientific consensus than are Democrats. My question is not about whether the scientific consensus is correct, it is why Republicans tend to reject this consensus (and that of natural selection) whereas Democrats accept it. It would be just as telling to ask why Democrats reject the “scientific” consensus on free trade (I use scare quotes because while we can all agree that economics is dismal, it’s hard to say if it is a science). Regarding gender differences, as with global warming there is no question that gender differences exist (this indeed is the basis of a number of misguided Democratic affirmative action programs) but the question is why they exist; it is the question of causality on which there is no scientific consensus, so this is not the best example of idelogically driven epistemology.
Indeed BBB comes close to answering the key question I posed: he claims to be skeptical of AGW (I think) because he is knowledgable and naturally skeptical, qualities that he claims are correlated with a tendency to affiliate with conservatives. It’s an interesting position in view of the fact that religious fundamentalists form a (perhaps the) key component of the Republican base. Knowledgable? Skeptical? About what?
Wednesday, 30 July 2008 at 02:41
For this post I will refer to “climate change” as “global warming”. Although I prefer the precision of the former term, let’s talk politics, where the talk is all about the heat.
Well, I think the political phenomenon is relatively transparent in the case of AGW (and hence not that interesting), and like all political judgments about scientific issues, hooks into ideology.
On the liberal side is a justification for massive government control, indeed global control, of all facets of the economy. Global warming was a godsend (pardon the religious imagery) to Marxists and like-minded advocates of central planning. The hypothesis became prominent shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and has been growing in popularity among the left just as the failures of communism became part of the conventional wisdom.
I can hardly think of a better exemplar of this phenomenon than the 1989 fictional documentary “After the Warming” by “Connections” mastermind James Burke. Amazingly, the video is available for download on Google video. Try
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6514270139930450081
or search Google video for “After the Warming”. You can see info on the “documentary” at IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0334827/
where it has earned a 9.4/10 rating from devoted fans.
Burke is, first of all, an advocate of the hypothesis of man-made climate change. But more to the point, he is an advocate of universal socialism. The documentary makes the case that the threat and urgency of global warming forces us to adopt a (benevolent) universal government, which he dubs the Planetary Management Authority, or PMA. The PMA is by all appearances a totalitarian oligarchy, but in the manner of utopians from time immemorial, Burke thinks this is a good thing.
And this is the template for politicians — from Al Gore to John McCain — who believe that central planning is a good thing.
The converse of this is that ideologues opposed to central planning, which is to say, the Friedman-Hayek school of thought, find it advantageous to undermine the hypothesis of global warming.
Curiously, you mention evangelicals in this connection. As you are no doubt aware, for the last generation the GOP has survived through a triumvirate of evangelicals, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives. The latter two groups are the conservatives with whom I most closely identify, obviously (though as a conservative Buddhist, I sometimes refer to myself as a member of the “religious right”.)
Now, the curious thing about evangelicals in this regard is that, not being uniformly opposed to government mandates, they find that the ideological motivation for opposition to global warming is correspondingly dilute. Try Googling “global warming evangelicals” to see a number of examples of evangelicals coming down on the “stewardship” side of the global warming debate.
Just to pick a random link from the first Google page:
http://www.creationcare.org/resources/climate/
There are many such sites and news stories about evangelicals splitting from the GOP line on AGW.
I guess a lot of them must be Ph.D.’s, to be so invested in the “scientific consensus.”
BBB
Friday, 1 August 2008 at 00:37
“Now, the curious thing about evangelicals in this regard is that, not being uniformly opposed to government mandates, they find that the ideological motivation for opposition to global warming is correspondingly dilute”.
As usual BBB is trenchant in his analysis, and is so often the case we find ourselves in violent agreement. Republicans indeed (I speak here in the generalities that decide elections) are more likely than Democrats to be skeptical of the scientific consensus about AGW because of “the ideological motivation for opposition to global warming”. Evangelicals, not being as committed to the ideology in question (that of limited government) are correspondingly less likely to question that particular consensus. This argument essentially accepts that the majority of Republicans reject scientific consensus on AGW for ideological, not scientific, reasons. However, the evangelicals are committed to an ideology of fundamentalist acceptance of the literal truth of Biblical narratives, so are far more likely (to use a wry understatemtent) to reject the scientific consensus concerning natural selection. This raises the contentious question of whether Republicans or Democrats are more likely to decide questions of policy on the basis of ideology or science, and I would claim the Republicans are clearly the worse in this comparison. The point I have been trying to make in this entire series of exchanges is that when one rejects scientific consensus in a such a way that the rejection happens to align with one’s idelogy, the burden of proof is on that individual to demonstrate that the reason is scientific, not ideological. Republicans who reject AGW and natural selection fail that test, as do Democrats to reject free trade.
I myself, of course, pass the test with flying colors, but then, I’m not really ideological, merely a philosopher.
Friday, 1 August 2008 at 03:39
CVM writes: This raises the contentious question of whether Republicans or Democrats are more likely to decide questions of policy on the basis of ideology or science, and I would claim the Republicans are clearly the worse in this comparison. The point I have been trying to make in this entire series of exchanges is that when one rejects scientific consensus in a such a way that the rejection happens to align with one’s idelogy, the burden of proof is on that individual to demonstrate that the reason is scientific, not ideological. Republicans who reject AGW and natural selection fail that test, as do Democrats to reject free trade.
This line of argument is illogical, not to mention tendentious, and so transparently so that I conclude you must be toying with me again!
For one thing, it would seem that an equally valid premise would be “Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in AGW for ideological reasons.”
And of course, you assume here as part of your premises the conclusions you want to reach, that AGW is the scientific consensus, that the scientific consensus is necessarily correct, and even your opinion that Democrats are better than Republicans at setting ideology aside when science is at stake. These are examples of what logicians call “Begging the Question,” or “Circulus in Probando.”
But I think the more significant material fallacy here is called “the Fallacy of False Cause”. You ignore the phenomenon I alluded to above, which is that skepticism about central planning and skepticism about unproven science arguably have a common basis that is not ideological and partisan, but rather dispositional and personal.
It is also a fallacy to assert that the correlation of Republicanism|Democratism with ideological blindness implies completeness (”the only reason a Republican|Democrat opposes|supports AGW is ideology”). I confess I’m not sure if this is “the Fallacy of Division” or “the Fallacy of Equivocation” or something else, because your actual argument here is cloudy.
In any case, the argument, “Ah, I see you are ideologically skeptical about big government. Therefore your opinions about global warming are unscientific,” is unsound.
Now, it may be that non-scientist Republicans follow the party line on AGW, just as non-scientist Democrats follow their party line. But I am, ahem, a scientist, certainly more scientist than partisan these days, and am therefore owed the presumption that my skepticism on scientific matters is rational. If you need proof, burdensome or not, I invite you to visit CompuServe’s SCIMATH forum and read some of the many discussions I have joined regarding AGW over the years.
http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?redirCnt=2&webtag=ws-sciencemath
You will find that, despite what you may have read in the New York Times, AGW (at least in the extreme Al Gore / James Burke sense) does not have the epistemological status of “theory”. Nor does it enjoy universal support, which is why it is a perennial topic among the regulars at SCIMATH, unlike, say, creationism.
To me, the most important thing to remember regarding these politically charged scientific issues is: the method. [Aside: check out my post on the End of Science.] Are we allowing the scientific method to proceed?
My complaint about the creationists has always been that they are trying to circumvent the scientific method by legislating their “Truth” into science textbooks. It is not the facts or observations set forth on one side or the other that interest me in this case. Darwinism could go on the ash-heap tomorrow and I would be happy, provided the progress was provided by scientists pursuing the science, and not legislators pursuing votes.
Similarly, the contrarian in me gets annoyed by scientific gatekeepers who presume to label dissenting views on controversial topics with big red warning labels.
I certainly know of dissenters against the conventional wisdom in my corner of quantum field theory. Consider some of the papers of Adrian Patrascioiu,
http://eprintweb.org/S/authors/hep-lat/pa/Patrascioiu
Adrian does not believe chiral perturbation theory is mathematically well-founded. This is a minority view, because the certain “consensus” among theoretical physics is that chiral perturbation theory is really shiny and works great. But it would be tacky and insane to put big red warning stickers on his papers.
On the other hand, I do find the science of climate change quite fascinating, because of its ties to two of my specialties, computational physics and statistical analysis. And the political science is at least mildly entertaining. Does Nancy Pelosi gain votes by claiming she is saving the planet?
Finally, to return the volley, I have to observe that the natural stance of the scientist is to be skeptical. So I consider that skepticism of AGW by a scientist requires no justification, ideology or no. However, the God that didn’t bark is the non-skeptical scientist. What could possibly explain a non-skeptical scientist, indeed one who desires to shut down dissenting views? Could it be… IDEOLOGY?
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”….
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 at 03:22
As a thespian in the Short Attention Span Theatre, I haven’t read all off the entries in the blog just quite yet, and of couse what I have to offer is more important to write than what’s there already.
I watch way too much TV, and I randomly saw a new sitcom called The Big Bang a few weeks ago. Bunch of geeky guys with way too many intellectual references for this to last very long, but I would think all of the Keystone Cops might want to check it out.
But the real point was that I searched on Big Bang on my Tivo and have seen a lot of great shows on History, SciFi, etc. I’m ok with the Big Bang, but what was before the Big Bang?
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 at 05:48
HM wrote: I’m ok with the Big Bang, but what was before the Big Bang?
I think the honest answer is that we don’t know. In fact most of the reconstruction of the early universe prior to the transition from plasma to atoms at T=300,000 years is not based on direct observation, but on inference from terrestrial accelerator experiments. And those only take us back to about the time quarks and leptons condensed.
There are some sound reasons to believe in inflationary cosmology, which addresses the time before the appearance of quarks & leptons — specifically that it seems to provide a unified solution to the horizon and flatness problems, and also predicts the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation correctly.
There is a version of inflationary cosmology called the self-reproducing inflationary universe. In this model, the universe is a hugely complex fractalish structure of which our observable universe is but one branch. Inflationary events pinch off baby universes all the time, which are mostly hidden from view because of the highly curved space that connects them to their parent universes. What this would mean is that the universe is eternal, that “our” big bang was just another bubble in an infinite sea of baby universes, each growing and accelerating. Philosophically I like this model, but it is not clear what one can do to verify it scientifically. So, we don’t know.
Friday, 3 October 2008 at 04:28
In the debate tonight, Sarah Palin said global warming is attributable to a combination of natural and man-made causes. Joe Biden said it is man-made. So which party is bending science to a political agenda?