It may have become apparent to many that there are certain segments of the population that are both hostile to and distrustful of science. This might strike scientists as bizarre because one purpose of science is to provide a factual, truthful, accurate, and valid representation of the world and physical reality -- and has been able to do so more successfully that any other approach to knowledge development. The question is why?
There is a research article in American Sociological Review that attempts to answer this question by examining attitudes towards science using data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS) for the years 1975 to 2010. There are a few popular media reports on this article and here is one from "Inside Higher Education"; see: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/03/29/study-tracks-erosion-conservative-confidence-science One key result is that there has been a steady decline in "trust of science" since 1975 to 2010 primarily in one group: political conservatives. On another website, there is additional discussion plus the first figure from the paper that shows the trend line for liberals, moderates, and conservative; the figure says a lot: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10911111-study-tracks-how-conservatives-lost-their-faith-in-science?source=science20.com There appears to a variety of reactions to the paper and perhaps a conservative view is presented by a blogger on the website Science 2.0; see: http://www.science20.com/science_20/trust_science_has_declined_among_conservatives_why-88361 The author of this article, Hank Campbell makes a curious statement: |Conservatives are not anti-science, they are anti-scientist. |And only toward some scientists who seem to put politics |ahead of reason. Which makes me wonder whether Campbell ever tried to discuss evolution with a person who believe in creationism. What is the creationist answer to Stephen Colbert's question to Werner Herzog, whose documentary film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" is about 30,000+ year old cave paintings in southern France (see: http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/movies/werner-herzogs-cave-of-forgotten-dreams-review.html ) |"How can you have 30,000 year old paintings in a 6,000 year |old earth?" Here is the reference for the ASR article: Gordon Gauchat, 'Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A Study of Public Trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010', American Sociological Review 77(2) 167–187 DOI: 10.1177/000312241243822 You might be able to find a copy here: http://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr12ASRFeature.pdf I think that this has many implications for teaching of psychology, at least for those that teach psychology as being a science. There is the challenge of dealing with students with a conservative outlook that do not trust/believe in science as well as how people out of academia will attempt to regulate the teaching of science since they might only see that as only a form of political indoctrination, especially in the social sciences. One last point, if I am not mistaken, people in engineering and technology development areas have tended to be more conservative than in those in the basic sciences (at least this appeared to be the view to me when I was a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers [IEEE] in the late 1970s and early 1980s). I wonder if conservatives are as distrustful of engineering and technology? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=17024 or send a blank email to leave-17024-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
