andrewl
Jan 14th 2010, 01:56 AM
This could probably go in the society/media/culture section as well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QNv9CPAjNvE/S06gZ_U0ZDI/AAAAAAAAA0U/Lye6M_XEUPs/s1600/ClimateChangeReporting.jpg
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/ok-getting-serious-again.html
From the authors:
"Now the image is purely a schematic. It isn't social science, and though I imagine it could be put to the test in a formal study it might be difficult to refine the design enough to really identify the two populations. In short this isn't a formal claim, it is a schematic. Still I think it captures something of how the situation is structured and at least part of why the public's position is so extremely out of tune with that of the expert community.
So what does this twoi hump structure mean? If there were no malice involved, a two-humped opinion spectrum would mean there is an alternative theory, either ascendant or in decline, to the mainstream. There would be, in such a case, no consensus. But in the present case, we discover to our astonishment that the much broader mainstream hump has a much more coherent set of beliefs about how the system works. It is the narrower, smaller hump thaty contains a vast plethora of competing hypotheses. That is to say, the smaller hump doesn;t represent a position, but simply the union of a very large array of positions agreed on only one thing."
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QNv9CPAjNvE/S06gZ_U0ZDI/AAAAAAAAA0U/Lye6M_XEUPs/s1600/ClimateChangeReporting.jpg
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/ok-getting-serious-again.html
From the authors:
"Now the image is purely a schematic. It isn't social science, and though I imagine it could be put to the test in a formal study it might be difficult to refine the design enough to really identify the two populations. In short this isn't a formal claim, it is a schematic. Still I think it captures something of how the situation is structured and at least part of why the public's position is so extremely out of tune with that of the expert community.
So what does this twoi hump structure mean? If there were no malice involved, a two-humped opinion spectrum would mean there is an alternative theory, either ascendant or in decline, to the mainstream. There would be, in such a case, no consensus. But in the present case, we discover to our astonishment that the much broader mainstream hump has a much more coherent set of beliefs about how the system works. It is the narrower, smaller hump thaty contains a vast plethora of competing hypotheses. That is to say, the smaller hump doesn;t represent a position, but simply the union of a very large array of positions agreed on only one thing."