Theoretical Gobbledegook

A story in Science Alert entitled, “Study Finds a Key Way to Build Trust in Science – And It's Not Education” must assuredly have a connection to in some manner to climate change. After all, the now-known deceit and propaganda surrounding COVID-19, where pharmaceutical propagandists and medical missionaries constantly flooded the public with “trust the science” was actually pseudo-science and fictitious drivel dedicated towards political control and “Big Pharma” profiteering. During the height of COVID, eco-politicians and activists were advocating for the same COVID controls to extend to anthropogenic climate change.

The title of the Science Alert story seems to veer somewhat from the actual title of the subject research which is, “Assessing the incremental value of intellectual humility and cognitive reflection in predicting trust in science.”  Contrary to the Science Alert title, the research does not find a “key way” to develop trust in science.” The entirety of the research is based on varying behavioral sciences as imagined by two psychologists in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maribor in Slovenia.

My interest in the article and the research was the author’s disinclination and opposition to education as the tool to build a greater trust in science. Instead, they suggest political conservatism, religiousness, or conspiracy ideations as stronger predictors of trust. This was curious in that progressivism, atheism, and other ideations were not considered oracles of trust. The nomenclature, “predictor: is often used as a synonym for a fortuneteller or prophet, it seems, is used to cheapen conservatives and religious people, and perhaps categorize them in the same class as conspirators. In “cultural cognition”, psychology seems to often denigrate those that make decisions based on personal values or stricter principles.

The article continues, “In one study, for instance, researchers found those who show less intellectual humility are more likely to have anti-vaccine attitudes. Meanwhile, those who show more intellectual humility generally plan to get vaccinated”, which means that those who more readily accept that their beliefs and opinions could be wrong, will succumb to getting vaccinated or will surrender to publicly or politically urged science.

In this matter, these psychologists seem to be endorsing intellectual humility, which in the case of COVID may not have been a distinct advantage – certainly as it relates to honesty and truth. Many people were cured with ivermectin, yet public health officials continue to downplay and disparage its effectiveness – if you remember they simply called it a ‘horse pill’. Another was hydroxychloroquine, which Democrat Karen Whitsett of the Michigan House of Representatives says saved her life, but she was then subsequently censured by fellow Democratic lawmakers.

The study talks about logical fallacies and cognitive biases in human thought, but in a matter such as climate change not believing in scientific consensus can be assumed a logical fallacy, even though a consensus, whether fabricated or true, is neither a science nor an evidentiary scientific process.

Of course, contrary to the gobbledegook of psychologists education is the best way to build trust in science, but the education must be impartial, or at times, self-enlightening. If education was not the preeminent method, why would political progressives endeavor to flood school curriculums with advocate climate change instructional materials and propagandist resources? Theirs is merely miss-education and instruction of political dishonesty.