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COGNITIVE_CULT

                                             April 25, 2014

                                           WE_SMART
                                           WE_DETAIL
  Around and around and--                  WE_BIFURCATE

  Dan Kahan blogs a lot,
  but is perhaps not very
  good at it.

          BURNING_LOGS

  Ezra Klein write-up
  "Politics Makes Us Stupid"

  Krugman's claim of a big
  picture asymmetry.  The
  question: "what's the left           My answer: nuclear power.
  wing equivalent of global            Which is a big deal because
  warming denial".                     global warming is a big deal.

                                       If you graph emissions of power
                                       sources by how much they're used
                                       in the US, you'll see the ones we
                                       use most are the dirtiest:
                                       they're the CO2 emitters.

                                       Going down the list, historically
                                       number 1 of the non-C02 emitters
                                       has been nuclear power.

                                                      2025: wind/solar has
                                                      been doing better of late,
                                                      and might be in the same
                                                      class by now.

                                       At some point I'll have to post a
                                       grand defense of nuclear power over
                                       at the dailykos, but it's a little
                                       peculiar that I need to:

                                           Is global warming public
                                           enemy number 1 or isn't it?



  Then central question is how to build structures out
  of weak reeds like human beings?

  Key example: the scientific enterprise.

  If the left does better than right, why is that so,
  given the apparent weakness on an individual level.       We've all got the
                                                            same tendency
                                                            toward tribalism,
                                                            to team sports.
Multiple different difficulties

estimating right/wrong

   defining the groups

estimating divergence from expert opinion-- denialism

estimating magnitude of issues importances.

                              Mon  April 28, 2014  09:31    ~o~

   what's his whizz, claims Kahan has data on
   sides disagreeing on who the experts are--
   not sure that that's fatal, depends on what you're
   trying to show.

   Doesn't show any knowledge of the "false equivalency" issue.
   There are reasons the left (and Krugman) react badly to
   the "both sides do it".

   There's a burden-of-proof issue here I haven't wanted
   to raise, but maybe should've-- "maybe the left does a little
   better, but is there any evidence?"  Why assume that they don't?
   If the contention is equivalency, why doesn't that need to
   be proved?




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