I haven’t been able to post on this until now, but we did a special Point of Inquiry last week from my cabin on board the MSC Musica as it was docked in Venice–and to judge by downloads (18,000 so far), the episode is exceedingly popular. In it, I sit in the hot seat and Ron Lindsay, the head of CFI, grills me about my views on what is labeled “accommodationism” and also my acceptance of a Templeton Cambridge journalism fellowship. Later, we also go into detail about my Mother Jones piece on the science of why we deny science.

The response to the show is, typically, polarized. The more I study how we reason on contested issues, the less it surprises me that on this topic, the things I say become a Rorschach. (That includes this comment, by the way.)

Richard Dawkins himself (or whoever operates his feed) tweeted the show, and then Dawkins reposted a passage from Sam Harris, which Dawkins called “brilliant” and which takes Sheril Kirshenbaum and myself to task on “accommodationism.” We responded to Harris a long time ago; that response is here.

PZ Myers criticized the show; Josh Rosenau argued back; there and elsewhere, hundreds of comments have been generated. I agree with Rosenau, not surprisingly, but what I find more interesting is that PZ seems to accept the premise from which I’m now arguing: (more…)

This is a guest post by Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D., an HIV research scientist and aspiring policy wonk, who recently moved to D.C. to get a taste of the action

Climate change skeptics, 9/11 truthers and “birthers,” those who deny President Obama’s American citizenship, have provided us with an extensive record of denialism within American culture that is worth studying. Indeed, entire disciplines have been established to understand and explain these behaviors. Chris Mooney and others have begun to put the pieces together in a way that allows us to formulate communications protocols that effectively counteract the drivers of “motivated reasoning.” However, because the above mentioned examples of motivated cognition arose simultaneously with this field of study, we have lacked the benefit of observing the transmogrification of the denialist mentality as it happens.

We are currently witnessing the de novo formulation of a new denialism in regards to the death of Osama bin Laden.  As I was listening to C-SPAN radio, just yesterday, two callers a Democrat and a Republican agreed that bin Laden was not dead and the entire hullabaloo was orchestrated for political gain.  Because we are now armed with at least a superficial understanding of the mechanisms behind this type of thinking, we can ask questions and test hypotheses while observing the development of this particular case of motivated thought.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll call them “deathers.” Of particular interest when studying the deathers is what exactly are the competing interests between which they must make a satisfactory choice and what are the ends or goals to which they strive. One would expect that there are at least two competing interests in the minds of the deathers. The first could be a desire to believe that an existing threat, that of a terrorist mastermind, has been eliminated. The second interest appears to be a desire to find fault with President Obama, regardless of the benefits that might come from his service. According to Dan Kahan, one of the thought leaders in this field, this all happens subconsciously. Therefore, the deather must undergo a series of mental operations that lead him to choose the latter in order to satisfy a desired endpoint.

We can only speculate what that desired outcome might be. One example could be the need to be a loyal Republican to the extent that this requires questioning any good outcome produced by a Democratic President.  A more sinister scenario might be that the individual harbors conscious or subconscious racist sentiments that motivate him to reject any semblance of excellence from a black President. (more…)

I spoke with Emily Badger last week for her piece on Matthew Nisbet’s controversial “Climate Shift” report, and I think her story came out quite well. The piece explains that the reason this report was so strongly attacked and criticized is not so much because of its actual contents, but because of what it omits or appears to downplay–perhaps most centrally, right wing attacks on climate science. Thus, the issue is the report’s framing–ironically, given that this is what Nisbet studies.

And indeed, my biggest problem with the report didn’t have anything to do with the most contested topic–alleged money differences between enviros and industry. While I’m very skeptical of Nisbet’s analysis on this point, I agree that the cap-and-trade coalition, once it had industry partners like GE and BP, had significant political clout.

Instead, my biggest issue is Nisbet’s un-nuanced depiction of scientists as partisan and ideological. As Badger puts it:

Nisbet cites data from a 2009 Pew survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggesting that membership is “strongly ideological, partisan and like-minded in outlook.” Fifty-two percent of AAAS members surveyed identified themselves as liberal or very liberal, with only 9 percent describing their political views as conservative. But Mooney says that data hardly suggests that scientists — generally timid about political engagement — behave like raging ideologues in the climate debate.

“Within that community, introspection is already happening,” Mooney said. “I know it’s happening, I know there’s huge receptivity to asking things like ‘Do scientists understand the public?’ Is this report that Nisbet did going to prompt more of that or is it going to promote defensiveness? I would guess, it depends on whom, but that it would prompt defensiveness in a lot of people. Again, it says ‘you’re partisan and you’re ideological’ — which, technically, everybody is, and his data shows that they are, but it’s going to be taken in the wrong way.”

Yes. Scientists are liberal just as academics are liberal. Big surprise there. That doesn’t mean they’re not experts, can’t be dispassionate, shouldn’t be heeded, etc.

Matthew Nisbet has a big contrarian report out that criticizes environmentalists–and scientists, and Al Gore–for their role in the failure to pass a climate bill or to achieve progress on the issue. Meanwhile, the report seeems to downplay the influence of climate change denial, ClimateGate, and Fox News.

I collaborated with Nisbet on framing several years ago, and thought his work on that topic was insightful–but I’m troubled by this report, as I know are many, many others.

Joe Romm has gone on the offensive, and one of Nisbet’s peer reviewers, Robert J. Brulle, has dropped off. Romm debunks Nisbet’s (apparent) claim that environmental groups outspent their industry opponents during the cap-and-trade battle. Media Matters, meanwhile, challenges Nisbet when it comes to the significance of ClimateGate (which, obviously, has had a transformative effect on the political debate around climate, as anyone paying attention to Capitol Hill knows) and of Fox News.

No one has yet taken on the part of the report that I find in some ways the most stunning: Nisbet’s attempt to claim that members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “in comparison to other social groups for which data is available [rank] among the most partisan and ideological.”

Nisbet also acts as if the notion that there were copious attacks on science during the last administration is just some biased opinion subscribed to by politicized AAAS scientists–rather than a reality extensively documented by myself and many, many others, like the Union of Concerned Scientists.

For the moment, I just want to flag this–I’ve collaborated with Nisbet in the past, but this is not something I can stay silent about.

This is a guest post by Beth Campbell, composed as part of the NSF “Science: Becoming the Messenger” workshop in Orono, ME, on April 14-15.

Why should you give a passing thought to the worm? After all, isn’t it just about the most plain, boring animal around? Generally… a small, slimy, pink cylinder without flashy appendages or coloration. Not really a ‘sexy’ representative of the animal kingdom. But what a resume – worms are the critical mass of workers keeping soil and marine sediments in a healthy state.

Earthworms and marine worms are engineers. Even with the most basic of nervous systems and stream-like torpedo forms, worms effectively change their habitats. ‘Bioturbation,’ people in the field call it. Mixing of soil and sediment by living things. Sounds basic, but without it, life for other living things on Earth would be very different.

Our lab studies a common marine worm – Clymenella torquata – or the bamboo worm. These worms ‘bioturbate’ the sediments of the oceans as they eat, defecate, move and build their homes. So what? Well, this sediment movement affects how fast material decomposes in the ocean and this affects whole food chains. (You know you love sharks and whales.)

I’m also trying to tease apart how these sorts of behaviors are altered by injury and changes in diet. If someone bites your head off, what if you could regrow it? Again, it may be surprising, but these inconspicuous animals pull it off automatically. But… it takes energy to do this, and in the meantime they rest and heal. And there are drastically compounded effects with repeated injury – which is likely the rule in nature, rather than the exception. And diet? Yes, early data suggests a noticeable effect on healing. Another reason to eat your veggies.

So don’t be so quick to judge. Sometimes in our haste we forget to appreciate that which is not obvious and showy. Even the lowly worm deserves respect.

In fact, this Earth Day, be green in a new way. In your busy day, think for a moment about the unsung heroes in the animal kingdom and … go out on a limb – bring up the topic in conversation with friends. Take the initial laughter, laugh along, and then keep the topic going a bit longer. Although worms may not yet be in vogue, you will be on the cutting edge of a new wave of appreciation for the ‘little guys’ that structure our world.

Over at Mother Jones, I have a major feature story that just went up about the psychology of science denial–and, indeed, denial in general. In it, I unpack a theory called “motivated reasoning,” which political psychologists have used to explain all manner of divides over factual, resolvable issues. Motivated reasoning is, in many ways, the updated, neuroscience infused version of “cognitive dissonance”:

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call “affect”). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we’re aware of it. That shouldn’t be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It’s a “basic human survival skill,” explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

We’re not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn’t take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges her belief in divine creation—a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information—and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. “They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs,” says Taber, “and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they’re hearing.”

In other words, when we think we’re reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we’re being scientists, but we’re actually being lawyers (PDF). Our “reasoning” is a means to a predetermined end—winning our “case”—and is shot through with biases. They include “confirmation bias,” in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and “disconfirmation bias,” in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial.

I then apply the theory to climate denial, vaccine denial, creationism, and much else–including the persistence of political misinformation, such as the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Again, you can read the Mother JOnes piece here. I’ll have much more to say about it soon. I also unpack the implications a bit further over at DeSmogBlog.

Today, I’m in Orono, Maine, for the National Science Foundation’s “Science: Becoming the Messenger” workshop. I’m demonstrating blogging before the group in plenary session, and as at the last workshop, we’re live blogging a crowd-sourced limerick about the subject of science communication. I gave them the first line–”There once was a workshop in Maine”–and this is what they came up with:

There once was a workshop in Maine:
The message delivered was plain.
If you want to inform ‘em
And you don’t want to bore ‘em
Use the triangle and get the right frame.

My latest DeSmogBlog post is inspired by Bush administration climate whistleblower Rick Piltz‘s recent comments before the committee devoted to preparing the next National Assessment:

This report will be attacked. There is no way to bullet-proof it against that war on science – that’s a myth. They’ll look for procedural missteps, they’ll look for anything, they’ll invent something if they need to.

Piltz is absolutely right about this, and in my post, I explain in much more detail why–and the implications for how to deal with controversial science in the public arena.

I’m off to moose and puffin country this morning, for the next installment of Science: Becoming the Messenger to be held at the University of Maine-Orono. I’m not sure we’ll be handling blogging the same way at this workshop as we did at previous ones, so there may not be a chaotic flurry of posts here, as in past months. But there will be something.

Meanwhile, the video from our first workshop, at George Washington in November, is now available:

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be attending an amazing event in late June: the World Conference of Science Journalists’ annual conference, this time to be held in in Doha, Qatar. On June 28 I’m organizing the following plenary session:

Am I a Science Journalist?

In the evolving world of science communication, how do we define a science journalist? This panel will discuss whether the venerable word “journalist” can or should be applied to some, all, or none of the new generation of science bloggers and educators who are remaking the field.

Producer/moderator

• Chris Mooney, Discover; Point of Inquiry (USA)

Panelists

• Bora Zivkovic, A Blog Around the Clock; Scientific American (USA)
• Ed Yong, Not Exactly Rocket Science (UK)
• Moheb Costandi, Neurophilosophy (UK)
• Homayoun Kheyri, freelance; BBC World Service (Australia/Iran)
• Cristine Russell, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing; Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (USA)

But of course this is just a tiny part of this historic conference–I believe it is the first time WCSJ has been held in the Arab world. The event will feature over 180 speakers from all over the world and 100 developing country journalists will be brought to Doha.

For many more details, and to see how you might attend, see here.