Now, to be honest and fair, I know a handful of conservatives who trust the scientific method to lead us to the correct answers, so nothing is absolute - but based on my experience, this sure feels right. Whether people believe in climate change, like whether they believe in evolution, expresses who they are, writes Kahan. To understand Kahans analysis, it helps to start where much of his prior research—extensively covered by Klein, myself, and others—left off. Kahan has defined a measure that he calls ordinary science intelligence, which assesses how good people are at mathematical and scientific reasoning and at questioning their own beliefs. Using this survey tool, he is able to present evidence showing that 1) as people get better at science, they are more likely in general to affirm that global warming is mostly due to human activities; but 2) as soon as you split people up in to liberals and conservatives, that conclusion goes out the window. Actually, liberals get way better in their answers as their science ability increases, and conservatives get considerably worse...
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:26:56 +0000
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