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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: climate
Human-Caused Climate Change More Powerful Than the Fall of the Roman Empire
María Luisa Paúl repoting for The Washington Post: Every year, farmers in France’s central region of Auvergne repeat the same process. During summer and fall, their cows graze in pastures, eating to their hearts’ content. It’s only during this time that farmers can produce salers, a highly regulated semihard cheese with the same buttery depth […]
Also tagged environment/environmental, food
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A Skeptical Response to Science Denial
So, study after study confirms an overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. But what does the average person think about the consensus? A Yale survey of Americans found that on average, people think that 67 percent of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. That already sounds disturbingly low, but it’s even worse […]
Also tagged reason, science, skepticism
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The Unchained Goddess (1958)
We’ve known about anthropogenic global warming for decades and decades… “The Unchained Goddess” (1958), produced by Frank Capra and the fourth film in the Bell Laboratories Science Series (1956-1964): Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the world’s climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every […]
“…or you can believe the Senator with the snowball.”
Scientific American’s ’60-Second Science’ podcast for March 2, 2015: Climate Skeptic Senator Burned after Snowball Stunt Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe carried a snowball onto the Senate floor to insinuate that climate change was not real, after which Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse torched Inhofe’s argument. Steve Mirsky reports “You can believe NASA and you can […]
Also tagged denialism, government, politics, science
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AAAS: What We Know
Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now. Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses […]
Also tagged science
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It’s Time to Ban “Right Turn on Red”
The dangerous maneuver is allowed thanks to a flawed idea about emissions from the 1970s. We don’t need it. Abigail Weinberg reporting at Mother Jones: It’s an obsolete relic of the 1970s oil crisis. It’s dangerous to pedestrians. And, if you drive a car in the United States, you likely do it every day. It’s […]
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