A prominent neurologist, Steven Novella, seems to think so:
To Novella’s chagrin, the rubes don’t fall in line with science experts nearly as often as scientific experts think they ought to. Why so?
Consider Joe Blow. Joe has no scientific education. He’s a truck driver. He works a couple of jobs to support his family, he pays his taxes, coaches his son’s little league team, and goes to church on Sundays. He is anything but a scientific expert, but he does know a few things.
Joe has been told since the 1980s that the world is going to end due to global warming. It sounds like those crazy guys with the placards who say the world is gonna end tomorrow. The earth’s sell-by-date keeps getting pushed forward — polar ice caps were supposed to melt, but didn’t, polar bears were supposed to go extinct, but didn’t, sea levels were supposed to inundate coastal cities, but didn’t, and tens of millions of climate refugees were supposed to perish fleeing the catastrophic heat. Joe’s still waiting. He is also still waiting for the apocalyptic global cooling he was told about in the 1970s (Joe ain’t no scientist, but he has a good memory). He remembers watching Paul Ehrlich on TV in the late 1960s warning that overpopulation was going to cause billions of people to die of starvation and cause nations to disintegrate over the next couple of decades. Joe wonders how a scientist could be so wrong and still keep his job and even get elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
Joe knows that if he screwed up his own job like that, he’d be fired before the day was out. But those rules don’t apply to scientists.
Michael Egnor, “Is Joe Blow “Anti-Intellectual”?” at Evolution News and Science Today
One reason for many recent political upheavals in a variety of jurisdictions is that Joe has begun to wonder if he’s really the one with the problem.
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions
Vivid
“As science-communicators and skeptics we are trying to understand the phenomenon of rejection of evidence, logic, and the consensus of expert scientific opinion. “
This comment right here is the problem, it shows how out of touch these human beings really are with anybody else, they declared a narrative that they can’t be wrong so why doesn’t everyone just fall inline
Problem number one the belief that science is not wrong and consensus is always right
Problem number two the elite attitude of I know better
Problem number three acting like science can solve this problem
Problem number four the scientists I forgot that they are human too no different then the Joe blow that they can’t convinced that they are right
Problem number five the view everybody else other than themselves as objects for study with science
They don’t know how to communicate with normal people because they believe them selves to be above normal people
Communication is the key and if you wish to communicate with people you have to learn their language and stop pretending it’s beneath you to speak it
Scientist have become yesteryears Nobles and Joe blow are nothing more than a bunch of country mean
Mix that up with all the counterintuitive consensus reports and there really is no question for why Joe blow rejects it out of hand
Remember we were told for 50 years that we had no free will in science said so
novella is so out of touch that he cannot see that he and his ilk are the cause of the problem
Mrs Joe also recognizes that the same scientists have been giving her URGENT nutritional advice which changes diametrically every year. You must eat butter! You can’t eat butter! You must eat more carbs! You must avoid carbs! Drink more wine! Never drink wine!
Haha. These evo-atheists are indeed strange creatures.
They say we are stupid brains and, at the same time, they expect those stupid brains to magically become omniscient.
Yes, they rely on the tool they deprecate: the human brain, a kluge that was never meant to know reality.
What a bunch of loons.
News:
I went to the source, by way of a search. Money shot clip:
Lessee, step by step:
>>As science-communicators>>
1: Aka publicists for evolutionary materialistic scientism, a self-referentially incoherent ideology that is multiply, necessarily, demonstrably, false.
>> and skeptics>>
2: Selective hyperskeptics, more precisely, and that is a fallacy. Double standards in warrant that imply ideologically motivated question-begging.
>> we are trying to understand the phenomenon of rejection of evidence, logic,>>
3: First, ground a credible, morally governed, rational mind with inescapable duties to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness and justice on evo mat scientism and we will have a first basis to discuss. Here’s a handy blank: _______
4: Prediction, you or those who come here to follow up on such ideologies, cannot do so.
>> and the consensus of expert scientific opinion.>>
5: Appeal to modesty in the face of collective authorities, constituting the new ideological magisterium. See above for why this is already a non-starter on logical and epistemological grounds. Let me clip just one case, from Reppert:
6: Further, no authority is better than his or her facts, reasoning and underlying assumptions. Kindly explain these, and the track record noted on some common topics in the OP.
>> There is, of course, no one explanation>>
7: Our selective hyperskepticism and ideology good, your questions on facts, logic, assumptions and track record are so bad that we are not looking at the merits, just your psychology of error. See the basic problem here?
>> – complex psychological phenomena are likely to be multifactorial.>>
8: Any human behaviour is a highly complex phenomenon of a self-moved responsible ratrional agent or groups of such. Come with something new.
>> Decades ago the blame was placed mostly on scientific illiteracy, a knowledge deficit problem,>>
9: See above on the root issues. Where, if you dare disagree with us you are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked does not pass the smell test.
>> and the prescription was science education.>>
10: For cause, indoctrination in evo mat scientism failed. Why should we cling to something that is manifestly self falsifying through multiple incoherence?
>>Many studies over the last 20 years or so have found a host of factors – including moral purity, religious identity, ideology, political identity, intuitive (as opposed to analytical) thinking style, and a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking. >>
11: All boiling down to Dawkins’ failed quadrilemma.
>>And yes, knowledge deficit also plays a role. >>
12: Ignorant . . .
>>These many factors contribute to varying degrees on different issues and with different groups. >>
13: It’s us vs hoi polloi.
>>They are also not independent variables, as they interact with each other. Religious and political identity, for example, may be partially linked, and may contribute to a desire for moral purity.>>
14: Oh, its those ignoramus fundies again. I think a look in the mirror might just surface issues a lot closer to home.
Time to think again.
KF