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Wildavsky & Dake, 1990The high degree of rationality individuals display in forming risk perceptions that express their cultural values can itself inhibit collective welfare rationality by blocking citizens from converging on the best available scientific evidence on how to secure their common interests in health, safety, and prosperity. (Kahan et al 2011)
Over on Chris Mooney’s “The Intersection” blog on Discover, a discussion thread that Chris started entitled “Do Scientific Literacy and Numeracy Worsen Climate Denial?” to discuss a new paper by Dan Kahan and colleagues at Yale has been essentially hijacked by an articulate, impassioned skeptic named “Johnny Says” who belittles those who take AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming- code for an unproven theory, science scam and/or liberal conspiracy) seriously and is dueling anyone willing to challenge his wit and insight. So far, he has no shortage of takers.
The “debate” is somewhat less nasty and more “rational” than on some blogs, but Mooney’s blog, much like the comments section of Al Gore’s essay on Climate of Denial in Rolling Stone, demonstrates a very polarized cultural clash, which is the focus of Kahan and colleagues’ study.
In Dueling Denial (Part 1) I summarized their findings: that greater scientific literacy is associated with greater cultural polarization. This, in turn, leads to “citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare.” I also suggested that both sides, at least in terms of the irrational cultural clash they engage in, are to some degree in denial. As we wrestle, the world remains for the most part unprepared for global changes– whether natural or human-induced– that are already well underway.
The Kahan study, The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change, is a working paper for the Cultural Cognition Project and is based on a national survey they conducted, which builds on the work of Wildavsky & Dake, 1990 and others.
Beginning with the observation that “scientific examination does not bear out the premise that deficiencies in science education or defects in individual reasoning explain conflict over climate change,” the authors, based on their research findings, suggest that “public opinion can be understood to be irrational at the collective level” even if it may appear to be rational at the individual level.
What makes collective decision-making irrational, moreover, has nothing to do with limited scientific literacy or wide-spread cognitive biases; on the contrary, the source of the problem is just how exceedingly rational society’s members are at the individual level: The reliable capacity of individuals to conform their personal beliefs to those that predominate within their respective cultural groups prevents those groups from con-verging on beliefs that make all of their members materially better off.
The study itself measured “science literacy” and “numeracy” based on fairly generic indicators that had little or nothing to do with climate science. The authors also do not comment on whether in fact there is value to “civic science literacy” in general or climate/energy literacy in particular. Instead they highlight their finding that those who are relatively more science and numeracy literate are slightly less concerned than others about the potential impacts of climate change. (Could it be that, at least for some, understanding the problem is empowering because it helps inform them of ways of responding to the problem?)
Since Kahan and colleagues are focused on the science of science communications at a societal level, they ignore the question of how can we as a society make informed decisions, (as many cities and some states are starting to do as they prepare for sea level rise, droughts, wildfires, more extreme events, and ways to reduce their fossil fuel footprints,) without understanding the basics of climate and energy?
The study overtly dismisses the idea that generic science literacy isn’t helpful in terms of resolving the polarized, politicized “debate”. That may be true, but doesn’t necessarily mean that more specific, targeted climate and energy literacy are not important, even crucial, to addressing the challenges we face.
The fact that most Americas would get a D or an F on their understanding of basic climate science and energy facts is irrelevant in their analysis, which focuses primarily on respondents’ values using Hierarchy-Egalitarianism and Individualism-Communitarianism scales developed as part of the cultural theory of risk by Douglas & Wildavsky.
The “cut to the chase” finding of the study is that “cultural values had a bigger effect on percpetion of climate-change risks than did differences in their degrees of either science literacy or numeracy.” The Hierarchical Individualist, which might best correlate with the “Dismissive” in the Six Americas framework, and the Egalitarian Communitarian, perhaps most similar to the “Alarmed” (though additional research is needed to verify whether there is strong correlation) are poles apart when it comes to answering the question “How much risk do you believe climate change poses to human health, safety, or prosperity?”
Previous Six Americas studies found that in some cases the “Dismissive” had a better handle on certain aspects of climate science than even the “Alarmed,” but both groups are outliers on the bell curve of Americans’ attitudes about human-induced climate change, with the majority of Americans being both ill-informed about but concerned or cautious about the potential impact of climate change on people and the planet.
The fundamental finding– that collectively we are locked in a dysfunctional, irrational stalemate of values among fairly well educated elites– should come as no surprise.
Thus, while it is, for all intents and purposes, costless for any individual to form a perception of risk that is wrong but culturally congenial, it is not costless for society—indeed, it is very harmful to its collective welfare—for individuals in aggregate to form beliefs this way….Every individual benefits (in a welfare sense) when democratic policymaking reflects the best available science relating to risk and risk abatement. But what any particular individual happens to believe about such matters doesn’t make it any more—or less—likely that democratically responsive policymakers will adopt such policies; for that reason, it is much more sensible for him or her to form beliefs solely on the basis of whether those beliefs are culturally congenial. Yet when all individuals respond, rationally, to this set of incentives, they predictably compromise their collective interest in living in a society whose democratically responsive policy-makers avail themselves of the best available scientific information to promote their citizens’ welfare.
Kahan and colleagues’ solution is to develop forecasting and management tools for the science of science communications that can be used to predict controversies, such as the one the being waged between the Alarmed (Communitarian-Egalitarianists?) and the Dismissive (Hierarchy-Individualists?), with the later gathering for the Heartland Institute’s 6th annual International Conference on Climate Change.
Meanwhile, I still agree with Hunter Lovins that climate/energy literacy is imperative for survival and a societal goal worth investing in, especially in higher education, which Jon Miller has identified as a crucial leverage point for fostering civic science literacy. Fortunately, a strong majority of Americans have a high regard for scientists, think climate change education should be a priority and would like to know more themselves. But then there is a small but vocal minority that is concerned that climate and energy literacy runs counter to their values and beliefs and therefore is propaganda.
