Is climate change denial a pseudoscience?

[SLD]

I realize that understanding the science behind climate change is not easy to grasp. There’s a lot of need to understand physics and chemistry and geology too. But I did just finish a really good book on the history of climate change on earth. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. Fascinating book btw.

But it dawned on me after reading it that the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. Anthropogenic climate change is real. To deny it is to deny basic observations and facts and even physics. How is it defensible? It seems to me that it is a pseudoscience.

Yet many serious scientists do deny that anthropogenic climate change is real. How do they possibly justify this?

While reading this book, a Facebook friend posted this picture:




Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax. I kinda lost and drafted a long response Pointing out the data from the book I had just read. Now he claims that there’s basically a vast conspiracy to silence scientists who don’t believe in climate change. And this is where I come to the pseudoscience conclusion. I had just watched a flat earth video, and that was the only argument that they made. It was all vast conspiracy by our governments to make us believe that the earth is round. The government is lying to us because they want our money, etc.

Where does this argument even come from? Is this just what Fox News spews out? Where are all these climate scientists who deny it is real?

It’s the same argument. That’s why I say it’s a pseudoscience.

 

[Politesse]

I would not say that climate change denialism is a pseudoscience, because as a whole it does not pretend to be a science. But, it is asociated with many pseudoscientic theories. Akin to the way Creationism iin and of itself s not pseudoscience, but Intelligent Design certainly is. Pseudoscience is that which coopts the aesthetics, language, and social legitimacy of science without engaging in the scientific process.

 

[rjh01]

The photos are not evidence of anything. They might have been taken at high tide in 1943 and low tide in 2023.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

You can always find good info at the Skeptical Science website. A site dedicated to debunking climate change denialism.

Global Warming and Climate Change skepticism examined

Examines the science and arguments of global warming skepticism. Common objections like 'global warming is caused by the sun', 'temperature has changed naturally in the past' or 'other planets are warming too' are examined to see what the science really says.

skepticalscience.com

 

[Shadowy Man]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

 

[bilby]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

The Thames estuary has been undergoing isostatic depression since the last ice age. During the ice age, the land in the north of the British Isles was pressed into the asthenosphere by the weight of ice, and the south rose as a consequence, in a see-saw action.

That land is now falling at about 0.2mm per annum due to this rebound, so sea levels were rising in that area even before climate change accelerated the process.

Sea level in the Thames estuary are currently rising at about 3.6mm per year; 3.4mm/yr of that is due to global effects (climate change), and 0.2mm to local effects.

The Maunsell Forts were constructed in haste, on a soft sedimentary surface; They are likely sinking faster than the local sea level is rising.

Regardless, the magnitude of the change is still far less than the variation due to tides, and far less than could be seen in that pair of photos even if they were taken at the same point in the tidal cycle.

 

[SLD]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

The Thames estuary has been undergoing isostatic depression since the last ice age. During the ice age, the land in the north of the British Isles was pressed into the asthenosphere by the weight of ice, and the south rose as a consequence, in a see-saw action.

That land is now falling at about 0.2mm per annum due to this rebound, so sea levels were rising in that area even before climate change accelerated the process.

Sea level in the Thames estuary are currently rising at about 3.6mm per year; 3.4mm/yr of that is due to global effects (climate change), and 0.2mm to local effects.

The Maunsell Forts were constructed in haste, on a soft sedimentary surface; They are likely sinking faster than the local sea level is rising.

Regardless, the magnitude of the change is still far less than the variation due to tides, and far less than could be seen in that pair of photos even if they were taken at the same point in the tidal cycle.

Yeah that’s what’s so stunningly stupid about the claim. There are things called TIDES. Even if you know nothing else about this picture, you should know something basic about tides. Yet people were posting on this Facebook page about how climate change is such a hoax and this is proof, blah, blah, blah. it’s like they might as well say it proves the earth flat. How fucking stupid can these people be?

The guy who posted it is no dummy. A prominent lawyer who used to be a judge. Actually a distant cousin of mine. But also a big believer in Jesus. Loves Jesus. Lets everyone know it. I really think all of these pseudosciences go together. There’s no global warming because Jesus will save us (any day now!) and there were never any ice ages because the earth is 10,000 years old. Or even flat.

 

[bilby]

there were never any ice ages because the earth is 10,000 years old

Well this is the entire problem in a nutshell.

These idiots have zero idea about time.

They think it's a long time since WWII, and it's also a long time since the last Ice Age; And that therefore these things happened a comparable amount of time ago.

It's an extension of the trope that everything that happened in the past happened at the same time; Which is itself a consequence of humans struggling to grasp any number bigger than twelve.

These same people consider a million, a billion, and a trillion, to be similar amounts - ie LOTS.

So if you tell them the government is proposing spending hundreds of millions to get tens of billions in savings, they think it's a bad policy. Because 100 is bigger than 10.

 

[Bomb#20]

Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

You're totally missing the point of the pictures and the point of the debate. It's not about sea level rise and it's not about climate change being a hoax -- everyone knows the climate is getting warmer. The debate is over whether it's anthropogenic or natural. Look at the darn pictures again! Clearly the reason the earth has gotten warmer is because sometime between 1943 and 2023 the sun came out!

 

[Elixir]

 

[Shadowy Man]

You're totally missing the point of the pictures and the point of the debate. It's not about sea level rise and it's not about climate change being a hoax -- everyone knows the climate is getting warmer. The debate is over whether it's anthropogenic or natural. Look at the darn pictures again! Clearly the reason the earth has gotten warmer is because sometime between 1943 and 2023 the sun came out!

then we know the photos aren’t real. Trying to convince me that the sun came out in Britain?? Please…

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yeah that’s what’s so stunningly stupid about the claim. There are things called TIDES. Even if you know nothing else about this picture, you should know something basic about tides. Yet people were posting on this Facebook page about how climate change is such a hoax and this is proof, blah, blah, blah. it’s like they might as well say it proves the earth flat. How fucking stupid can these people be?

The guy who posted it is no dummy. A prominent lawyer who used to be a judge. Actually a distant cousin of mine. But also a big believer in Jesus. Loves Jesus. Lets everyone know it. I really think all of these pseudosciences go together. There’s no global warming because Jesus will save us (any day now!) and there were never any ice ages because the earth is 10,000 years old. Or even flat.

These folks are certainly not dummies, or idiots as bibly calls them. They are simply people who's personalities are dominated by their limbic systems and not their intellects. In other words they run primarily on emotion and secondarily on knowledge and information. That may sound incredibly simplistic but that is what is happening in their prefontal cortices right above and behind those eyeballs. Do some research on how the Prefontal cortex operates and its evolutionary history. That is the answer to why 25% of us don't think there were Apollo moon landings and why there are climate deniers, why the Earth is somehow magically "self correcting."

I have two siblings who would not get the Covid vaccine. One is a teacher and the other is a nurse, both retired. Both contracted covid and both were very sick. Both went to hospital to get care and both were prescribed medications and administered care to deal with the illness. How in living hell would they be so "stupid" as to think that covid vaccine was a hoax but that the rest of medical intervention was legit? This is certifiably irrational behavior but they do not recognize it as such because their emotions are literally so dominant. Did I mention that they are also both highly religious?

Neither one would even understand what you meant by pseudoscience. They don't get science. They get miracles. Science is just a word to them and they don't know or care what it means. They are not scientifically curious but they are curious about their afterlives in heaven with other ghosts. How can both be able to graduate university and master all the "scientific" and intellectual information? To put it simply they are good at puzzles and word associations. They don't know science but can match up words and categories of words without having a working understanding of what's behind the words. I don't need to know about particle theory to be a good electrician. They are about as far from the way a Richard Feynman thinks in terms of scientific thought as another human can get.

We don't recognize the condition in such people but that is the fundamental difference, brain architecture, nothing else. They know the words but as Feynman said they are not curious about the mechanisms behind the words. They may be clever but lack scientific curiosity. It's easier and more satisfying for them to believe in magic than to understand what goes on scientifically.

But like all human behaviors, their behavior exists on a spectrum with emotion at one end and intellect at the other. Get too crazy and they get dead so full crazy is constantly being selected against. But little crazy isn't and doesn't threaten their lives. And in terms of our species survival it is far from decided whether our emotional or intellectual architecture is more important. Curiously, given sufficient stress the intellectual architecture will shut down and the organism will default to a more primitive emotional state. It will survive first because that's the behavior that has been selected for.

So we should recognize these people not as kooks or stupid or idiots but as intellectually different. There isn't an answer for their lack of scientific curiosity. Their tendency to believe in magic and against something that is not emotionally satisfying is here to stay. We have to deal with it.


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[bilby]

These folks are certainly not dummies, or idiots as bibly calls them. They are simply people who's personalities are dominated by their limbic systems and not their intellects. In other words they run primarily on emotion and secondarily on knowledge and information. That may sound incredibly simplistic but that is what is happening in their prefontal cortices right above and behind those eyeballs.

Sure. And a neat one-word summary to describe people who operate in this way (albeit one which may lack nuance) is "idiot".

I'm not sure who this bibly character is, but it sounds like he knows what he's talking about here.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Sure. And a neat one-word summary to describe people who operate in this way (albeit one which may lack nuance) is "idiot".

It's better to think of them as children with emotional/learning challenges, but children whom society has categorized as adults. Now the teacher can't tell them the correct answer, they get to tell the teacher.

 

[bilby]

Sure. And a neat one-word summary to describe people who operate in this way (albeit one which may lack nuance) is "idiot".

It's better to think of them as children with emotional/learning challenges, but children whom society has categorized as adults. Now the teacher can't tell them the correct answer, they get to tell the teacher.

It's quicker to just say "idiots", rather than say "Idiotic children who have now grown up, but not matured intellectually, so that they remain idiots".

 

[pood]

“Idiot” is as parsimonious as it gets.