Oligopsony comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong

94 Post author: Yvain 05 December 2011 10:49AM

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Comment author: kilobug 05 December 2011 02:24:59PM 15 points [-]

I'm also a bit surprised (I would have excepted high figures), but be careful to not misinterpret the data : it doesn't say that 70.7% of LWers believe in "anthropogenic global warming", but it does an average on probabilities. If you look at the quarters, even the 25% quarter is at p = 55% meaning that less than 25% of LWers give a lower than half probability.

It seems to indicate that almost all LWers believe in it being true (p>0.5 that it is true), but many of them do so with a low confidence. Either because they didn't study the field enough (and therefore, refuse to put too much strength in their belief) or because they consider the field too complicated/not well enough understood to be a too strong probability in it.

Comment author: Desrtopa 05 December 2011 02:36:23PM 2 points [-]

That's how I interpreted it in the first place; "believe in anthropogenic global warming" is a much more nebulous proposition anyway. But while anthropogenic global warming doesn't yet have the same sort of degree of evidence as, say, evolution, I think that an assignment of about 70% probability represents either critical underconfidence or astonishingly low levels of familiarity with the data.

Comment author: Oligopsony 05 December 2011 03:33:15PM 3 points [-]

What should astonish about zero familiarity with the data, beyond that there's a scientific consensus?

Comment author: Desrtopa 05 December 2011 05:42:19PM 4 points [-]

I would be unsurprised by zero familiarity in a random sampling of the population, but I would have expected a greater degree of familiarity here as a matter of general scientific literacy.