Science in the Service of Power

If you're not aware of him, John Tierney is a science reporter for the New York Times who also writes a blog there. His right-wing political agenda is pretty unambiguous. He never touches the appalling rejection of the theory of evolution by the public and Republican politicians. He works hard to show that sexism is a myth (and that women are to blame for their body-image issues), female genital mutiliation causes no harm, pesticides are nothing to worry about, the health risks of trans fats are overblown, and - of course - global warming is no big deal. Today's post is a case in point:

After asking a national sample of more than 1,000 Americans how much they knew about global warming and how they felt about it, the researchers report that respondents who are better-informed about global warming “both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.”

Tierney describes this as an apparent paradox, and offers the explanation that the more people know, the less they are concerned because, well shucks, there is just not that much to be worried about.

Except his summary of the research is seriously misleading. From the study:

It should be noted that the information effects reported in this article are limited to self-reported information.

In other words, people who believe themselves to be more well-informed on global warming tend to minimize it, no matter where they get their information from. Are these people scientists? Or are they Fox News Channel watchers? Tierney flatly says they are more well-informed, which is not proved, at best. Again, the study says:

Objective measures of informedness about global warming and climate change might produce different effects.

And with complicated, technical topics, the more you know, the more you know you don't know. Would any layperson who had read widely on the topic really say they were "well informed"?  The more likely explanation is that people who don't want to believe climate change is a real problem rate themselves well-informed, when in fact they are deliberately ignorant. Tierney is just one of the army of corporate shills who are paid to keep them that way.

Comments

[PennyDreadful]

Another possibility: some of those considering themselves "well-informed" in fact, are. And they feel "less personally responsible" for global warming than ignorant asses who don't "believe" in it because they actually personally TAKE STEPS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Just a thought...

[Mithras]

Could be, but for the "less concerned" part.