{"id":16442,"date":"2016-04-28T08:44:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T12:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=16442"},"modified":"2016-04-28T08:44:14","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T12:44:14","slug":"not-quite-seven-signs-of-the-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/not-quite-seven-signs-of-the-apocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"Not quite seven signs of the apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Wacky<\/a>A 2014 story on Salon<\/a>, titled 7 things Americans think are more plausible than man-made global warming<\/em>\u00a0made its way around Facebook again, recently.<\/strong> It\u00a0<\/strong>lists seven statistics about things Americans believe\u00a0in more than they believe that human activity has caused climate change. It got a lot of shares and likes.<\/p>\n

Climate change is, of course, fact, and as Peter Schickele<\/a> once said, “Fact is fact. You can’t argue with fact…”<\/p>\n

If you accept those facts, it\u00a0seems\u00a0a scary read: seven signs of the apocalypse… But before you start calling for a wall across our border to keep the crazies from migrating north, read on.<\/p>\n

First,\u00a0these figures were selectively pulled together to weigh against the American belief in human-caused climate change, not to present a coherent overview of American thought or education. They may be true, but they are not unbiased. And there is little to no correlation between these issues. As Darrell Huff wrote in his 1954 book, How to Lie With Statistics<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Even if you can’t find a source of demonstrable bias, allow yourself some degree of skepticism about the results as long as there is a possibility of bias somewhere. There always is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Climate change is\u00a0a hot topic during the presidential primary nomination campaign because Americans are split along party lines:\u00a0Republicans are non-believers and Democrats are believers (see here<\/a>). It is not so much a matter of belief in or understanding of the science than it is an issue of ideology. But we never get to know the\u00a0what party the respondents support.<\/p>\n

We will never know if people don’t believe in climate change because that’s what\u00a0their party tells them to believe.<\/p>\n

There are other similar partisan lines: immigration, taxes, medicare, gun control, for example, that are ideologically-based beliefs, rather than based on any research, data, or sometimes even common sense. However, the Slate piece draws in several disparate items – none of them election issues – in its article. Do they relate to belief in climate change? Not really.<\/p>\n

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The first statistic: 77 percent of Americans believe in angels<\/strong>.\u00a0That’s actually down from another poll taken five years earlier that found 81% of Americans believe in angels. But it\u00a0means more than three our of four Americans believe their <\/span>imaginary playmates<\/a> are <\/span>real<\/em> beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scary, maybe. Silly, yes. Embarrassingly gullible, I agree. And probably due to the widespread acceptance of New Age woo hoo online. But what does it have to do with climate change? (read my digression, below…)<\/p>\n

Other items\u00a0noted in the Salon article include:<\/p>\n