Climate Change and Sherlock Holmes - How do we form opinions?

The best way to get familiar with the scientific method may be reading the Sherlock Holmes novels. That is what Maria Konnikova, the psychologist/writer, insinuates in her popular book, “How to think like Sherlock Holmes----Mastermind.” Knowing a little about the scientific method, and a little science history, it seemed to me that her analysis of how we can better think is very similar with how the scientific community solves the puzzles of nature. 

As a brief review, the scientist must clearly define the problem. Then he/she will dispassionately gather all the facts using a keen and disciplined sense of observation.  Without jumping to conclusions, the scientist makes inferences from these facts eventually developing a hypothesis. Then in a genuine attempt to discredit his assumptions, and even the methods he has used to arrive at them, he forms tests to challenge his/her work. 

The reason the scientist does this is that once he publishes his work in a reputable science publication his peers will look at his work with every intention of finding ways to reject it. That is why peer reviewed work in an open science forum is reliable. (By the way, the original climate calculations, painstakingly done by hand by the Swedish Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius, did weather this review in the early 1900s and continue to stand up to scientific review today.) 

As citizens, do we use the Sherlock Holmes method? We can all, according to Maria, improve our mental powers but, unless we go by the name Da Vinci, Newton, or Einstein we probably fall short.

More and more psychologists, sociologists, and evolutionary biologists tell us that most of us use our big brains to navigate socially in our tribes. We are not a successful social animal, but a successful hyper-social animal. And this hyper- socialization has almost always centered on group acceptance, and then second, on gaining status. This “wiring” makes sense. Throughout most of our existence there were a lot of dangerous animals, and even more dangerous tribes out there. Outside the tribe it would take a tremendous amount to luck to stay in good health, evade predator animals and dodge hostile enemies. Obviously, being abandoned by your tribe ran the gamut from unpleasant, to sick and injured, to even dead and eaten. It may sound kind of counter intuitive given personal observation, but we are wired to be agreeable by accepting group norms.  “Don’t rock the boat”, is a saying that probably has similar sayings in every language world-wide. Rock too much and you’ll be tossed overboard to swim with the sharks!

To meet this social requirement to be agreeable, we create a world-view, (also known as ideology, schema, or mental map) which almost always closely matches the tribe most important to us. This is not a scientific process, but one based on the social cues around us. This process is an automatic defense mechanism to ensure tribal acceptance, protection, and security. If done well, it might also land a young tribal member “status”. Birds of a feather flock together!  And the one who struts his tribal feathers best gains status.

What about our opinion of climate change? Does education make any difference in whether we agree with 97% of the scientists? The correlation is very weak. Here are the primary correlations identified, so far, in the United States. *

Primary correlation is our political party.  If you are a Republican, you are much more inclined to disagree with the climate science consensus.

Secondary correlation is Ideology. If you are a conservative, you are much more likely to disbelieve the climate science consensus.

I can hear the Democrats saying to themselves, “Yeah, I always knew we were more scientific!” Take a second to reflect Mr. Democrat. Did you form your opinion by the Sherlock Holmes method? I bet, if you are honest with yourself, you formed your opinion based on your tribe’s norms.  

Deep down, we all come from the same tribal background. Our ancestors scanned the horizon from their caves with their mates and thought about how they would survive. It must have been a bit daunting. We had some understanding of the world around us that we passed down to our young through stories. It was limited, but by working together we survived.

Today, thanks to a social organization called government, we fund schools, libraries, digital communication systems, and science. We know a lot more. Government is, in a way, the tribal unit we depend on to survive. We still look out from our caves via books, televisions and computers to scan the horizon. Science, and the scientist, are just our eyes able now to look way past the horizon in an attempt to anticipate, plan, and work together to survive. 

Today, the current regime in Washington, is proposing severe cuts to science. This, in my opinion, will only blind us. 

If we are smart, we will continue to work together with one big change, we will increase funding and respect independent science to help us form valid opinions. But, that is not so easy as I will explain next week….. 

*At an industrial energy fair in St Paul I visited with some Swedish engineers selling industrial heat exchangers. They told me that, at one-time, conservative Swedes did not accept that climate change was happening.  Or, if they did, they did not believe that it was caused by humans adding CO2 to the atmosphere.  Today, they said, almost no Swede disagrees with the climate science. Now Swedes are finding ways to combat climate change….and making money doing it. World-wide, the only political party that I know of, that continues to deny anthropogenic global warming, is our Republican Party.

As a member of the non-partisan Citizens Climate Lobby, my mission is simply to educate. We want to take “climate change” out of the political fight so we can work together to solve the threat our scientists have clearly identified.  

Tip.  Summer may be a little too far over the horizon to see, but I guarantee it is there. Now is the time to think about tightening up your house to keep it warm next winter. The beauty of these improvements is that they save you money and quickly pay for themselves by lowering your heating costs, keeping your home toasty warm year after year. 

Greyson Morrow