Sander Paper: How Best to Rub People Up
Exposing the junk risk theory behind climate activist propaganda
POSTED ON 11 MAY 24
BY JOHN RIDGWAYIN UNCATEGORIZED
Those of you who flatter yourself as being something of a connoisseur of the climate sceptic bashing academic will be very familiar with the name Sander van der Linden. He is described in his LinkedIn entry as a Professor of Social Psychology at University of Cambridge, and as the author of the book, “FOOLPROOF: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity“. If that title conjures up thoughts of John Cook and his promotion of the idea of ‘vaccination’ against misinformation, then you would be right; the two have worked together and should be thought of as intellectual stablemates. You are welcome to consult Sander’s laudation on LinkedIn, but all you really need to know is that, like Cook, his academic stature is well-established; and, like Cook, his stature poorly reflects the standard of his work. I say this, not because it is the sort of jibe you might expect from one of the climate sceptic ne’er-do-wells, towards which van der Linden’s research into cognitively challenged conspiracy theorists was aimed; it is because I have actually taken a close look at some of his work. In particular, I have read his paper, “On the relationship between personal experience, affect and risk perception: The case of climate change”. Allow me to share some thoughts with you.
It is often the case that alarm bells start to ring even after only having read a paper’s introduction, since it is here that authors lay down the basic ideas upon which their papers are founded. Get these wrong, and there is little chance that the remainder of the paper will come to your rescue. In van der Linden’s case, it is his opening statement that sounds the alarm:
A “risk” is not something that exists “out there”, independent of our minds and culture (Slovic, 1992, p. 119). Indeed, unlike a physical threat or danger, the human notion of risk is a mental construct (Sjöberg, 1979), it cannot be sensed—it is only perceived (Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1983).
It’s an opening statement that appears to be well backed up by citations, but I am prepared to bet that Slovic, Sjöberg, Fischoff and Lichtenstein are all fellow psychologists. The fact that they are making so much of risk being a ‘mental construct’, that can only be perceived, is because such a framing reduces risk management to lttle more than a matter of psychology, and the psychologist’s contributions are therefore not just helpful but quite sufficient. In fact, what we are seeing here is a classic case of déformation professionnelle: when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
https://cliscep.com/2024/05/11/sander-paper-how-best-to-rub-people-up/
