I have a new column at Columbia Journalism Review on the way the media has overhyped the risk that Mitt Romney will be "defined" in early campaign skirmishes. Here's how it begins:
The message war in the presidential election got underway in earnest last week, with the Obama campaign releasing a new attack ad and super PACs on both sides announcing their own big buys. If you believe some prominent voices in the political press, the stakes in these exchanges are already extremely high—especially for Mitt Romney, the likely GOP standard-bearer.
Many reporters and commentators have suggested that Obama could “define Romney” in the minds of the public—or at least, that he’s trying to do so—and thus establish an image now that would prevent Romney from winning in November. Evidence for the idea that we’re now in a crucial part of the campaign, however, is generally lacking.
Read the whole thing for more.
The article by Kahan et. al. admits that
As respondents’ science-literacy scores increased, concern with climate change decreased (r=−0.05, P=0.05). There was also a negative correlation between numeracy and climate change risk (r=−0.09, P<0.01). The differences were small, but nevertheless inconsistent with SCT, which predicts effects with the opposite signs.
This result is consistent with another paper we discussed here some time ago. There too, the results showed that greater scientific expertise led to (or correlated with) greater climate skepticism.
The authors find this result mysterious and try to explain it in terms of cultural world view. However, they can't bring themselves to acknowledge the possibility of the simplest explanation. Maybe greater expertise leads to greater skepticism simply because the models are indeed uncertain. That is, maybe, the skeptics are right to be skeptical.
Posted by: David in Cal | May 28, 2012 at 01:06 AM