How about people with no party affiliation? Would they be distrustful of
science? michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Clark" <[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] Why Do Conservatives Distrust Science?
HI
One of the interesting findings was that, unlike for other groups, it
is the MORE educated conservatives who have become increasingly
distrustful of science. Of course, conservatives are likely to sort
themselves more into certain programs, as mentioned by Mike P. Perhaps
the findings have implications for the quality of higher education being
delivered by programs that attract conservatives. Wasn't there a report
on growth in critical thinking skills sometime this past year that
showed Business students having lower levels of growth than students in
other programs. I've also seen some references to conservatives
attending lesser quality schools on average. And there may be some
contribution from faith based post-secondary institution. Although the
conservatism got the major media play, one finding was that decrease in
confidence in science was greater for religious people (which would
overlap with conservatism).
Take care
Jim
James M. Clark
Professor of Psychology
204-786-9757
204-774-4134 Fax
[email protected]
Michael Palij <[email protected]> 31-Mar-12 9:37 AM >>>
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]
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