FMC 2016/2

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Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?

    The "science communication problem," as it‘s called by the scientists who study it, has yielded abundant new research into how people decide what to believe — and why they so often don‘t accept the scientific consensus. It‘s not that they can‘t grasp it, according to Dan Kahan of Yale University. In one study he asked 1,540 Americans, a representative sample, to rate the threat of climate change on a scale of zero to ten. Then he correlated that with the subjects‘ science literacy. He found that higher literacy was associated with stronger views — at both ends of the spectrum. Science literacy promoted polarization on climate, not consensus. According to Kahan, that‘s because people tend to use scientific knowledge to reinforce beliefs that have already been shaped by their worldview.

    Americans fall into two basic camps, Kahan says. Those with a more "egalitarian" and "communitarian" mind-set are generally suspicious of industry and apt to think it‘s up to something dangerous that calls for government regulation; they‘re likely to see the risks of climate change. In contrast, people with a "hierarchical" and "individualistic" mindset respect leaders of industry and don‘t like government interfering in their affairs; they‘re apt to reject warnings about climate change, because they know what accepting them could lead to — some kind of tax or regulation to limit emissions.

    In the U.S., climate change somehow has become an indicator that identifies you as belonging to one or the other of these two antagonistic tribes. When we argue about it, Kahan says, we‘re actually arguing about who we are, what our crowd is. We‘re thinking, People like us believe this. People like that do not believe this. For a hierarchical individualist, Kahan says, it‘s not irrational to reject established climate science: Accepting it wouldn‘t change the world, but it might get him thrown out of his tribe.

    "Take a barber in a rural town in South Carolina," Kahan has written. "Is it a good idea for him to implore his customers to sign a petition urging Congress to take action on climate change? No. If he does, he will find himself out of a job."

    Science appeals to our rational brain, but our beliefs are motivated largely by emotion, and the biggest motivation is remaining tight with our peers. "We‘re all in high school. We‘ve never left high school," says Marcia McNutt, editor of Science magazine. "People still have a need to fit in, and that need to fit in is so strong that local values and local opinions are always trumping science. And they will continue to trump science, especially when there is no clear downside to ignoring science."
ACHENBACH, Joel. ―The Age of Disbelief‖. In: National Geographic, v. 227, n. 3, March 2015, p. 44-45. Adapted.

Glossary
to yield: render; to grasp: compreender; literacy: conhecimento; mind-set: atitude, inclinação; crowd: grupo; to fit in: encaixar-se; to trump: vencer, superar; downside: aspecto negativo.