This is not a blog post. It is an instruction to anyone self-identifying as a skeptic to read this.
Not a blog post
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://eddedmondson.me.uk/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/28
Also, that made me think of the politics of climate change in the US. Acceptance of the reality of climate change splits clearly along party lines, with democrats overwhelmingly accepting it and republicans overwhelmingly denying it (and independents roughly even). That means that although roughly half of Americans hold the correct view, it's unlikely that they do because of the evidence - they're probably just going along with the group. Climate change conscious republicans are more likely to have seriously thought about the issue.
Do you hold that the converse is true though? Are democrats that deny climate change more likely to be those that have thought more seriously about it?
(I think not and you can probably make well-founded Bayesian arguments based on the prior that Republicans are usually wrong about most things ;-) )
I suspect there's generally a correlation between seriously thinking about something and getting the right answer (when there is a right answer). So democrat denialists should get some thoughtfulness credit for bucking the party line but not as much as the climate friendly republicans.