In all my banging on about good science yesterday, I realise on one thing I was being unscientific. A couple of links, to Next Left and Crooked Timber, wondered why there seemed to be such an anti-AGW consensus on the right. I speculated it may have something to do with a different assessment of the risks - but this is missing a basic question that could be asked. I'll ask it now, and then suggest that it doesn't matter anyway.

Here's the proposition that the above links suggest: right-of-centre people tend to be anti-AGW. The implicit statement is that right-of-centre people are being anti-science. But then, state that explicitly and it should read: right-of-centre people don't understand the science. Oh - actually, might that not be true for people in different places on the political spectrum? It may, and you'd have to actually check that. Maybe that could involve a survey asking some basic climate science or science method questions, or a more detailed sit-down test.

The implication: it's quite possible there's an even spread of scientific knowledge across the political spectrum, but if your political leaning tends to make you sympathetic to climate change theory, you won't show up on anyone's radar as 'anti-science'. (p.s. in the unlikely event this ever gets read: if anyone ever quotes this out of context, I will find out where you live and burn your house down. Just so's you know.) That might manifest itself in a willingness to believe the basic science of co2 radiative forcing, and more of a willingness to trust those particular scientists.

So why doesn't that matter? Well, it does slightly: if you have no good reason to decide between James Hansen and David Bellamy, you'll choose the one that fits with your worldview. But, to alter the asteroid example slightly from yesterday: it's hurtling towards the Earth and 99% of scientists think its going to slam into us. We can send Bruce Willis up there to do something about it, but it's not going to be cheap. However, 1% of scientists think it will miss. There is also a much, much larger number of people saying its going to miss, but they're not even doing good science - they're just engaging in FUD or just doing really bad science - most commonly, looking at only one of the factors involved and claiming that characterises the whole problem.

The consequences if some people believe the science without having thought it through a huge amount are OK: we won't all be wiped out. Also, none of them are spreading weird theories about why the science is right. They're OK with trusting the scientists. The consequences if some people don't believe the science could be catastrophic.

So, yes, there may in fact be an even spread of scientific knowledge across the political spectrum. Pending research, I don't know. (Certainly, asking people if they believe in AGW won't do that - it would need to be a bunch of scientific questions of increasing technicality.) But the science is still the science. If one only had a finite amount of time - oh, we do - then there would be little point in trying to convince people already congenial to the idea that we should do something. Though I don't think that means letting them off the hook - a scientific approach should still be encouraged and easily available.

But then we have the other side. There's isn't just igrorance of science. There's FUD, there's cuckoo science and there's a multi-headed Frank Luntz-style campaign to call into question the science and scientists themselves. In the middle, there's a whole bunch of confused people who - because of this campaign - believe there's so much uncertainty that it's probably not a problem they need to worry about.

That still leaves another question: what makes someone decide to side with the 99% of pro-AGW scientists, and another side with a tiny minority, some of who you can find out with a minimal of googling are doing Really Bad Science or just talking nonsense? That might suggest our worldviews have an incredibly powerful effect on how we select. I'd kind of been doing the same: whilst I do question the particularly unreflective anti-capitalist take on global warming, the whole "why so many right wing anti-AGW" thing has puzzled me. It's still a complex problem, but I think realising that I'd been implicitly excluding proponents from my thinking gives me a much better feel for what's going on.

Note, though: a characteristic of the scientific method is making mistakes and acknowledging it. It also includes trying to think through what sort of selection biases you might be making, or what factors you haven't considered. If you don't, others will soon point it out, and no-one wants that to happen after results have been published. One of the largest faults of bad scientific thinking I'm finding is a lack of desire to ask what other factors might be involved, to weigh them appropriately. (See this great takedown of Superfreakonomics - if you can't weigh factors when they're orders of magnitude away from having a serious effect, what on earth are you doing writing about it?) This is odd, since many attacks on AGW science do exactly the opposite - accuse scientists of not considering some factor or other. My favourite is in Senator Inhofe's 'Minority Report', a series of quotes from various people (see that first link for an analysis). One of his 'highlight' quotes is:

The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

No, of course: the IPCC forgot to include solar activity. Silly IPCC - *slaps forehead*. At least go and glance at the reports before making such a muppet claim, please. The 'minority report' is a great collection of common denier tactics - we've just seen an outright falsehood, whether through stupidity or malice; lots of out-of-context quotes; plenty of pseudoscience - no actual argument. As one blogger says:

The ethics of lying are easy; you're off the hook. You just make up whatever suits you and see what sticks.

That's why I'm going to carry on worrying more about rightwing attacks on climate science, rather than left wing scientific knowledge.