4.2. Cognitive Dissonances “The global warming mantra changes the whole nature of the Scientific Method, which hitherto, has been driven by evidence, evidence backed by data. The whole global warming thing does not even rate as an hypothesis because there is no data, and certainly no evidence that 420 ppm CO 2 (or whatever, pick any number below 6000) drives climate change. It may cause mild warming, which is good, also because it greens the planet. Climate change as presented by the alarmists is a thought bubble, a dogma, which the Scientific Method cannot deal with because there is no data, no evidence. Science will only progress when the veracity of data and evidence can be argued. Instead the alarmists base their whole case on flawed and incomplete computer models around so-called ‘climate sensitivity’.” Aert Driessen, Australia, Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics. “I suspect most of the 97% of scientists privately have grave doubts about how this has panned out, but all of us suffer more from being rejected by our peers than we suffer from being wrong. Strong advocates of the CO 2 dominance of climate change, at an emotional level, fear being proven wrong by the skeptics far more than they fear the impending apocalypse. This is not climate science, it’s the irrationality of humans”321. Boxer (remaining anonymous). The Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) was established by Leon Festinger (1957) and acknowledges the fact that when observations do not match the theory, some people will inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe. Perfect examples of such situations will be provided later, such as what is illustrated by Figure 117, and AGW believers stating that blizzards killing and freezing populations is exactly what could be expected of Global Warming! As they intimately perceive the non-sense of having explained for years that CO 2 was an IR GHG that would lead to an uncontrolled elevation of the temperatures and of having to stick desperately to their position as confronted to nonconforming observations, they thwart the words in a futile attempt to restore their internal comfort and to reassure themselves that all is fine in the world of ideology and belief by calling their failed AGW theory a climate crisis. Not only the climate does not experience any crisis, but the only crisis visible in plain sight is their distress and the internal stress they feel whenever confronted to observations that do not match their failed theory. Normally, and it is the beauty of science as reminded by Carl Sagan (1987) “ In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion”. In fact, if climate theories had remained a discussion among scientists, much progresses would have been made towards a more sophisticated, a much more subtle analysis of the various factors having an impact on the climate that an ideological and frozen incrimination of CO 2 as a major disruptor that no objective analysis can support. In fact, it has become a politically motivated plea based on non-scientific recursive arguments as the consensus tries desperately to be enforced in the scientific methods, which it has never been and will never be. For many scientists trapped in between what they have to do and say to keep their standings and positions and what they intimately sense of the robustness of their discourse, they experience internal inconsistencies that tend to make them feel psychologically uncomfortable and motivate actions to reduce the cognitive dissonance ( HarmonJones and Mills, 2019). Without delving into the details of that sophisticated psychological theory, it is accepted that individuals in such situation of dissonance react either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias). This is exactly what the AGW believer do, rationalizing by distorting fact so that they would somehow fit in their mental scheme (whatever the intellectual cost, such as claiming that freezing is the result of Global Warming) or by simply discarding whenever possible the facts that would go against their credence and searching for confirmation bias. In fact, this kind of behavior has been known since a very long time and Bacon (1620) who his one of the founders of the modern scientific method, stated “Once a human intellect has adopted an opinion (either as something it likes or as something generally accepted), it draws everything else in to confirm and support it. Even if there are more and stronger instances against it ·than there are in its favor·, the intellect either •overlooks these or •treats them as negligible or •does some line-drawing that lets it shift them out of the way and reject them. This involves a great and pernicious prejudgment by means of which the intellect’s former conclusions remain inviolate. A man was shown a 321A comment from “Boxer” on http://donaitkin.com/my-last-climate-change-essay-for-a-while-at-least/
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