Psychology of Global Warming Attitudes

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/weekinreview/01zeller.html?_r=1


Is It Hot in Here? Must Be Global Warming.P
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

In any debate over climate change, conventional wisdom holds that there is no reflex more absurd than invoking the local weather.

And yet this year’s wild weather fluctuations seem to have motivated people on both sides of the issue to stick a finger in the air and declare the matter resolved — in their favor.

“Within psychology, it’s called motivated reasoning, or the confirmation bias,” explained Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Project on Climate Change Communication at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. “People are looking for evidence of any kind that validates or reinforces or justifies what they already believe....

See also:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/pdf/6americas.pdf

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan