I don't think you should be a skeptic. Not on the severity of human-caused warming, the safety of GMOs, or a few other things.
Consider: 1. I'm a skeptic. -- or -- 2. I'm skeptical of the predictive power of climate science at this point. When you choose the noun, you've chosen membership in a group. You've elected to classify yourself as an entity, saying "I am an X." You've adopted an identity, and in so doing you've set yourself up to be more biased and less flexible in the future. Why? Because it's harder to abandon an identity and one's tribal good standing than it is to modify a mere position. Plenty of social psychology research tells us this, or dovetails into this. Right now, science is a flag of convenience for almost everyone, depending on the issue. Vast numbers of people on the left who know nothing about climate science and have no credible procedure for deciding what's true or not true tout their belief in significant future human-caused warming as a certification of their membership in a superior pro-science order. People on the right, as well as many libertarians, have retreated to the skeptics' castle, fending off the classic Holocaust-revisionist tag of "denier"*, and casting the other side as "alarmists", or even "warmists", as though there is an extant ideology of temperature. This is bad news for pretty much all of us. If you're a climate skeptic, maybe you're right. Maybe you'll turn out to be right, say if the current slowdown in warming continues for many decades and we thus never come close to the amount of warming that the old models projected. In that case, human-caused warming will have mostly been a false alarm. (This would be a long-term disaster for the public's confidence in science, across fields, screwing us all, so I almost want some warming to happen. Almost.) However, reality is famously fickle. You don't always get it your way. Sometimes we don't get to say "I told you so" when it's all over. Let's note some common skeptic positions: there is considerable uncertainty in our knowledge of the climate's sensitivity to CO2 in the context of myriad other forcings, most of the models didn't predict the current slowdown, estimates of climate sensitivity are constantly revised, we don't know enough yet, etc. Those are all time-sensitive positions. That is, they can be resolved or dampened in time, as climate scientists advance their knowledge, lock down some forcings (assuming ECS is a real thing, or not too dynamic a thing), etc. If you're a skeptic, you should be prepared to no longer be a skeptic if, in five or fifteen years, some of these issues are resolved, if Judith Curry and other smart experts modify their positions, etc. This will likely be easier if you're not a skeptic, but just skeptical. * You might take comfort in knowing that there is no scientific basis for a construct of "denier" or "denial" that distinguishes or differentiates how AGW skeptics or political conservatives process scientific evidence. Kahan reports that AGW skeptics know more climate science than believers do, so "denial" isn't going to be about knowing less. You should push back against any journalist, science writer, or scientist who uses the term denier, and ask them what scientific basis there is for it. Relatedly, Lewandowsky performed none of the normal scientific procedures to validate his construct of "conspiracist ideation". In research psychology, we don't generally invent new personality constructs without validating them by various methods. Just because someone says there is something called "denial of science" or "conspiracist ideation" doesn't mean these are real personality traits.
3 Comments
Barry Woods
4/29/2015 05:01:37 am
the only label that works for me is - Member of the Public !
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Gordon
4/29/2015 11:50:32 pm
I bet most "skeptics" are ready to accept AGW *IF* it is real, but we are not certain yet. Nevertheless, the government preaches AGW as gospel, making skeptics more skeptical.
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Sheri
5/4/2015 01:46:39 am
I am sure with most your assertion that "I am a skeptic" is harder to change than "I'm skeptical of the predictive power of climate science at this point." is true. However, one reason I can see it's tougher is because the first statement has more depth to it. I can believe climate science and still be a skeptic about other things. I can be a skeptic and blindly follow authority (which seems to occur in those who write "skeptical websites"). The term "skeptic" may actually apply to groups that do not overlap. I am thinking of mainstream skeptic sites that often appeal to scientific authority and do not question it—that hate religion and the paranormal. Then there are the skeptic sites that do actually question the science. Skeptic has many definitions, making giving up the label less likely than your more specific second statement.
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