Wood Romances

Frequently I'm told that climate-related papers are fraudulent, usually because the person revaluating the paper is 1) predisposed to deny any data they don't like and/or 2) completely illiterate about what they're reading. In discussing these papers, I often find that wading through the details of the analysis can go so far over contrarians' heads that they don't even bother reading either the paper or my corrections to their claims about the paper. Brandolini's Law gets the win most of the time for two reasons: it takes an order of magnitude more time to refute nonsense than it does to create it, and those those who create the nonsense frequently lack the literacy to read the rebuttal (a point I make here ). Occasionally there's a congruence of two conditions that can allow rational discussion to proceed. In my experience, these are: 1) the paper can be replicated/evaluated with a spreadsheet (reducing the time commitment to evaluate the paper) and 2) the ...

It's become clear to me over the last 5-10 years that one of the greatest challenges hindering productive climate discussions has to do with the lack of scientific literacy. Frequently I when I write posts that articulate my position I cite the scientific literature that supports my position, and it's extremely rare that contrarians actually read what I wrote and respond to its contents. I'll instead get responses that 1) attack me, 2) accuse the scientific literature of being biased/fraudulent, or 3) attempt to change the subject. I get exactly the same kinds of responses if I cite the scientific literature directly. It's easy to conclude from this that climate contrarians are simply obstinate, refusing to read the literature that proves them wrong. And while that may be the case, there may be an even simpler explanation - scientific literacy. The PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) has six proficiency levels for literacy. These ar...