Weekend update: *This* is what scientific *dis*sensus looks like...


The two scientists depicted in this photograph are researchers in the culturally divisive "cats or birds?" field, & they are performing a so-called adversarial collaboration.
Science Curiosity and Political Information Processing
What Is the "Science of Science Communication"?
Climate-Science Communication and the Measurement Problem
Ideology, Motivated Cognition, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study
A Risky Science Communication Environment for Vaccines
Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government
Making Climate Science Communication Evidence-based—All the Way Down
Neutral Principles, Motivated Cognition, and Some Problems for Constitutional Law
Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus
The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Science Literacy and Climate Change
"They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction
Geoengineering and the Science Communication Environment: a Cross-Cultural Experiment
Fixing the Communications Failure
Why We Are Poles Apart on Climate Change
The Cognitively Illiberal State
Who Fears the HPV Vaccine, Who Doesn't, and Why? An Experimental Study
Cultural Cognition of the Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology
Whose Eyes Are You Going to Believe? An Empirical Examination of Scott v. Harris
Cultural Cognition and Public Policy
Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in "Acquaintance Rape" Cases
Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White Male Effect
Fear of Democracy: A Cultural Evaluation of Sunstein on Risk
Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk
Democracy and the Science Communication Environment
The Cultural Cognition of Risk: Theory, Evidence, Implications
Cultural Cognition and the Challenge of Science Communication
NSF Press Event: Cultural Cognition of HPV Vaccine Risk
Laws of Cultural Cognition and the Cultural Cognition of Law
Protecting the Science Communication Environment
Climate Science Communication & the Disentanglement Principle
The two scientists depicted in this photograph are researchers in the culturally divisive "cats or birds?" field, & they are performing a so-called adversarial collaboration.
Reader Comments (3)
Robotics can displace cats too! http://joyforall.hasbro.com/en-us/companion-cats.
More significantly, money can lubricate media news selection, and displace the need for further research work into motivated reasoning. If you are motivated enough to put time and money into making something appear to be true, then, by Golly-Google, it is! https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/17/holocaust-deniers-google-search-top-spot.
My money is on birds.
@Gaythia-- yes, the birds have formed a very effective lobby to pressure Congress & state legislatures on all manner of issue (wind farms being an obvious example). Cats are horrible at organizing themselves to pursue collective goods, & so are at a real disadvantage in this sort of thing
Birds are notoriously susceptible to flocking. Sometimes this taps into the reputed safety and wisdom of crowds, other times not so much: http://mtstandard.com/natural-resources/superfund/butte-mine-officials-snow-geese-deaths-number-into-the-thousands/article_3373e2fd-dc5a-58c0-ad55-93b6d0249351.html. Dogs are known to be intelligent, but also prone to falling under the control of a strong leader and running in packs. Cats may be on to something.
[This could be why Ann Richards, TC, was so keen on helping to found and inspire a cultural cognition project for humans. My condolences.]