Advances in the science and observation of climate change are providing a clearer understanding of the inherent variability of Earth's climate system and its likely response to human and natural influences. The implications of climate change for the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the Earth system to changes in radiative forcings, but also on how humankind responds through changes in technology, economies, lifestyle and policy. Extensive uncertainties exist in future forcings of and responses to climate change, necessitating the use of scenarios of the future to explore the potential consequences of different response options. To date, such scenarios have not adequately examined crucial possibilities, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, and have relied on research processes that slowed the exchange of information among physical, biological and social scientists. Here we describe a new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community.

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The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment

Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many have expressed concern about the effects of false stories (“fake news”), circulated largely through social media. We discuss the economics of fake news and present new data on its consumption prior to the election. Drawing on web browsing data, archives of fact-checking websites, and results from a new online survey, we find: (i) social media was an important but not dominant source of election news, with 14 percent of Americans calling social media their “most important” source; (ii) of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times; (iii) the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them; and (iv) people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks.

/pdf/social-media-and-fake-news-in-the-2016-election-1m4ttkb5mo.pdf

Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election

A review is presented of the book “Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment,” edited by Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman.

Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment

https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/976864/1/OkoliPawlowski2004DelphiPostprint.pdf

The Delphi method as a research tool: an example, design considerations and applications

Perhaps the simplest and the most basic qualitative law of probability is the conjunction rule: The probability of a conjunction, P (A&B) cannot exceed the probabilities of its constituents, P (A) and P (B), because the extension (or the possibility set) of the conjunction is included in the extension of its constituents. Judgments under uncertainty, however, are often mediated by intuitive heuristics that are not bound by the conjunction rule. A conjunction can be more representative than one of its constituents, and instances of a specific category can be easier to imagine or to retrieve than instances of a more inclusive category. The representativeness and availability heuristics therefore can make a conjunction appear more probable than one of its constituents. This phenomenon is demonstrated in a variety of contexts including estimation of word frequency, personality judgment, medical prognosis, decision under risk, suspicion of criminal acts, and political forecasting. Systematic violations of the conjunction rule are observed in judgments of lay people and of experts in both between-subjects and within-subjects comparisons. Alternative interpretations of the conjunction fallacy are discussed and attempts to combat it are explored.

/pdf/extensional-versus-intuitive-reasoning-the-conjunction-2cmoy4v6op.pdf

Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment.

Cultural differences in three aspects of "probabilistic thinking" were studied. The study re-presents part of earlier work in Hong Kong and Britain and combines it with the results from a further study in Indonesia and Malaysia. The largest cultural difference was found between Asian and British student groups. The British adopted a more finely differentiated view of uncertainty, both verbally and numerically, than the Asians in response to uncertain situations. These differences are predictable neither on the basis of the relative abundance of probability expressions in the Indonesian language nor by the Malay samples' ability to discriminate English probability words on a meaningful probability discrimination dimension. For numerical probabilities assigned to almanac questions, the British were less extreme and better calibrated than the Asian students. Potential cultural influences which could account for the cultural differences were examined, and the possibility that Asian ways of dealing with uncert...

Cultural Differences in Probabilistic Thinking

Improving the practical application of the Delphi method in group-based judgment: A six-step prescription for a well-founded and defensible process

Improving the Delphi process: Lessons from social psychological research

Does the intuitive logics method – and its recent enhancements – produce “effective” scenarios?

In this paper, we synthesize the extant literature to establish the common objectives of scenario interventions within organizations and contextualize the well-established, but basic, "intuitive logics" scenario development methodology. We next consider if the basic intuitive logics method achieves these objectives. Then, we consider recent augmentations of the intuitive logics method and evaluate whether these augmentations enhance the basic method's capabilities. We find that there is a strong case for arguing that these scenario methods are designed to address two of the three objectives that we identified from the literature, namely: - (i) enhancing understanding: of the causal processes, connections and logical sequences underlying events - thus uncovering how a future state of the world may unfold, and - (ii) challenging conventional thinking in order to reframe perceptions and change the mindsets of those within organizations. However, other than in the augmentation in which multi-attribute value analysis is applied, none of the recent developments that we detail address directly the third objective that we distil from the literature: - (iii) improving decision making: to inform strategy development. On this basis, we conclude that the ubiquitous term "scenario planning" is a misnomer and propose that other "scenario" terminologies might usefully be adopted that more precisely indicate the process and objectives of scenario interventions.

George Wright

Papers

Cultural Differences in Probabilistic Thinking

Improving the practical application of the Delphi method in group-based judgment: A six-step prescription for a well-founded and defensible process

Improving the Delphi process: Lessons from social psychological research

Does the intuitive logics method – and its recent enhancements – produce “effective” scenarios?

Does the intuitive logics method - and its recent enhancements - produce "effective" scenarios?