Abstract
Science strives for coherence. For example, the findings from climate science form a highly coherent body of knowledge that is supported by many independent lines of evidence: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human economic activities are causing the global climate to warm and unless GHG emissions are drastically reduced in the near future, the risks from climate change will continue to grow and major adverse consequences will become unavoidable. People who oppose this scientific body of knowledge because the implications of cutting GHG emissions—such as regulation or increased taxation—threaten their worldview or livelihood cannot provide an alternative view that is coherent by the standards of conventional scientific thinking. Instead, we suggest that people who reject the fact that the Earth’s climate is changing due to greenhouse gas emissions (or any other body of well-established scientific knowledge) oppose whatever inconvenient finding they are confronting in piece-meal fashion, rather than systematically, and without considering the implications of this rejection to the rest of the relevant scientific theory and findings. Hence, claims that the globe “is cooling” can coexist with claims that the “observed warming is natural” and that “the human influence does not matter because warming is good for us.” Coherence between these mutually contradictory opinions can only be achieved at a highly abstract level, namely that “something must be wrong” with the scientific evidence in order to justify a political position against climate change mitigation. This high-level coherence accompanied by contradictory subordinate propositions is a known attribute of conspiracist ideation, and conspiracism may be implicated when people reject well-established scientific propositions.
Highlights
B Stephan LewandowskyThis high-level coherence accompanied by contradictory subordinate propositions is a known attribute of conspiracist ideation, and conspiracism may be implicated when people reject well-established scientific propositions
Over the last 150 years, climate scientists have built an increasingly clear picture of how the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that arise from human economic activity are changing the Earth’s climate e.g., IPCC (2013)
A small but vocal group of contrarian voices exists—mainly outside the scientific community—that deny that greenhouse gases cause climate change or that dismiss the risk of adverse consequences (e.g., Dunlap and McCright 2011; Lewandowsky et al 2013a, c)
Summary
This high-level coherence accompanied by contradictory subordinate propositions is a known attribute of conspiracist ideation, and conspiracism may be implicated when people reject well-established scientific propositions. Keywords Climate science denial · Consistency · Coherence · Rationality · Conspiratorial thinking · Conspiracy · Global warming · Coherence in science “CO2 keeps our planet warm ....” — Ian Plimer, Australian climate “skeptic”, Heaven & Earth, p. “Temperature and CO2 are not connected.” — Ian Plimer, Australian climate “skeptic”, Heaven & Earth, p. “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
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