Distrustful as in "scientists are human, and sometimes do give in to greed, pride and egotism - so show me the evidence" - absolutely.
Distrustful as in "all pharmaceuticals are the devil and after all autism must be caused by vaccines because my friend's kid got it after getting his infant vaccinations" and "(Insert name of alternative medicine claptrap/new age nonsense book) makes me feel good so who cares about the studies." ????? This is not skeptically distrustful, this is the lefty version of anti-evolution and "prayer heals" And you know, Prof Green, old Facebook friend - I am no friend of big pharma. Nancy Melucci LBCC and the lot... -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Green <[email protected]> To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2012 3:18 pm Subject: Re: [tips] Why Do Conservatives - no, Americans - Distrust Science? Seems to me that there is lots of reason to be distrustful of science. Not so much climate change and evolution as (psycho-)pharmaceuticals, food science, "clean coal," and anything else directly sponsored by a profit-seeking industry (or its agents - see esp. DSM-5 committee). Chris --- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== On 2012-03-31, at 11:18 AM, drnanjo wrote: We also have to remember though that those who are allied with the anti-vaccine movement and embrace many hokey (and untested) alternative remedies, prevention strategies and new agey "health" philosophies are overwhelmingly left-leaning. I don't think that conservatives have a monopoly on irrationality. They just have a particular idiom. So do libs. The problem on both sides is that being rigorous requires work and accepting that at least sometimes the results will not "please" you or make you feel better. Nancy Melucci Long Beach City College Long Beach CA -----Original Message----- From: Michael Palij <[email protected]> To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) <[email protected]> Cc: Michael Palij <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2012 7:37 am Subject: [tips] Why Do Conservatives Distrust Science? It may have become apparent to many that there are certain segments f the population that are both hostile to and distrustful of science. This ight strike scientists as bizarre because one purpose of science is o provide a factual, truthful, accurate, and valid representation of the orld and physical reality -- and has been able to do so more successfully hat any other approach to knowledge development. The question is hy? There is a research article in American Sociological Review that ttempts to answer this question by examining attitudes towards cience using data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS) for the ears 1975 to 2010. There are a few popular media reports on this rticle and here is one from "Inside Higher Education"; see: ttp://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: olitical conservatives. On another website, there is additional discussion plus the irst figure from the paper that shows the trend line for liberals, oderates, and conservative; the figure says a lot: ttp://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 erhaps a conservative view is presented by a blogger on he website Science 2.0; see: ttp://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 volution with a person who believe in creationism. What is the reationist answer to Stephen Colbert's question to Werner Herzog, hose documentary film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" is about 0,000+ year old cave paintings in southern France (see: ttp://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: ordon Gauchat, 'Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A tudy of Public Trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010', American ociological Review 77(2) 167–187 OI: 10.1177/000312241243822 You might be able to find a copy here: ttp://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr12ASRFeature.pdf I think that this has many implications for teaching of psychology, at least or those that teach psychology as being a science. There is the challenge f dealing with students with a conservative outlook that do not trust/believe n science as well as how people out of academia will attempt to regulate he teaching of science since they might only see that as only a form of olitical indoctrination, especially in the social sciences. One last point, if I am not mistaken, people in engineering and technology evelopment areas have tended to be more conservative than in those in he basic sciences (at least this appeared to be the view to me when I as a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers [IEEE] n the late 1970s and early 1980s). I wonder if conservatives are as istrustful of engineering and technology? -Mike Palij ew York University [email protected] --- ou are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. o unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=12993.aba36cc3760e0b1c6a655f019a68b878&n=T&l=tips&o=17024 r send a blank email to leave-17024-12993.aba36cc3760e0b1c6a655f019a68b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62bd92&n=T&l=tips&o=17025 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-17025-430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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