but think they know the most: study
The study involved genetically modified organisms, where there is little political bias to confuse the issue.
The more extreme the opposition, Fernbach and his co-authors found, the less people knew about the science and genetics, but the more their “self-assessed” knowledge — how much they thought they knew — increased.
“If somebody is well calibrated, those two things should be pretty highly correlated: If I know how much I know, then if I know a little I should say I know a little, and if I know a lot I should say I know a lot,” Fernbach explained. “Therefore there should be a high correlation between self-assessed and objective knowledge.
“And indeed, that’s actually true for the people who are moderate, or people who have the attitude that is consistent with the scientific consensus,” he said.
However, as people become more extreme, that relationship degrades and flips so that people who think they know more actually know less.
I disagree with the author. Some geniuses have made important scientific discoveries that went completely against "scientific" consensus, yet are scientifically proven to be true. Many scientists produce science that the Bible warns us is false, as in "science falsely so-called."
Take the politically biased and unscrupulous claims by many in "science" that claim the earth's atmosphere has warmed due to increasing man-made (AGW) CO2. To start with, Dr. James Hansen, former chief scientist at NASA claimed this to be the case based totally on pushing a global crisis agenda, creating a crisis that does not really exist. His report gives the formula for calculating global temperature changes. In that calculation is a calculation of the earth's albedo. The albedo changes as the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere changes, due to natural cycles. Hansen made the variable albedo a fixed constant of some number that allows for gradual increases in atmospheric warming, then blames this on CO2.
First of all, the albedo, like the water vapor, is variable. Second, water vapor is by far the most impressive greenhouse gas. Third, CO2 only makes up 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere, and if it were to increase by 100% would still not affect global temperature because it is such a tiny fraction of the atmosphere to begin with. Further, because of such infinitesimal quantities and such a short time of satellite studies, which are the only accurate way to measure the earth's changing environment, it is virtually impossible for "scientists" to evaluate whether changes are caused by man or not.
Hansen's report was never peer-reviewed and was shown to world leaders who received it with the idea that this would justify creating an invented AGW crisis. All scientific papers and reports are supposed to be peer-reviewed, Hansen's wasn't. It was garbage. The earth's atmosphere is warm now because it is natural for it to be, but it is cooling, again due to natural cycles of ocean temperature changes. The ocean temperatures drive the atmosphere. So why the AGW hoax?
Politics - the UN in its Agenda 21 are trying to remove current national borders and constitutions, to be replaced with their own. Everyone is supposed to think globally, not what is best for their country. The result is a New World Order, which George H.W. Bush kept talking about and touting. Create global crises and globally respond to them, nationalism be damned. That is their approach. Work off the emotions of the population, not with real science.
Science in its true form is man's way of trying to understand God's creation. It is false science to leave God out of the equation. The Bible (something you as an atheist don't believe in) says to beware of carefully contrived fables and science falsely so-called. This does not condemn all science, just that which is false. That which is false is that which tries to explain away God. But you see, no matter how hard you try, you can't.
