Socioeconomic Correlates of Anti-Science Attitudes in the US (original) (raw)
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2018
The purpose of this study was to investigate an unexplored factor as to why some Republicans and conservatives have less trust in science and academia than those on the political left. Twitter accounts for 25 elite American universities were examined for political and religious sentiment and then compared to results from 25 lower ranked schools. The aim was to examine the extent universities post politically liberal or anti-Christian messaging through Twitter. Results suggest elite universities promote more liberal messages than conservative or Republican messages and more liberal messages than lower ranked schools. Overall, the sample of schools made few tweets containing pro-Christianity messaging despite some of the schools having strong connections to Christian denominations or having been founded as religious institutions to train Christian clergy. The findings add additional insight as to why discussions on scientific issues may be influenced by political partisanship.
Scientific Progress, Risk and Development: Explaining Attitudes Toward Science Cross-Nationally
Declining public confidence in science is a concern in the U.S. and Europe, but it is unclear what predicts confidence in science in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. In this paper, we examine how development and “risk society” shape individual attitudes toward science across 47 diverse countries, using four theoretically-driven measures of risk society. We find that people in affluent societies have lower support for science than those in less affluent societies. Specifically, individuals holding post-materialist attitudes and living in countries with greater human and economic development (measured by higher internet access and tertiary enrollment, and lower infant mortality) have lower confidence in future-oriented science. We conclude that the scientific gains that are brought by affluence are accompanied by heightened fears of human-made risks.
The Social Anatomy of Climate Change Denial in the United States
Using Twitter data, this study evaluates and maps climate change denialism across the United States. We estimate that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in climate change. This denialism highest in the central and southern U.S. However, it also persists in clusters within states where belief in climate change is high. Political affiliation was the strongest determinant, followed by level of education, COVID-19 vaccination rates, carbon intensity of the regional economy, and income. A coordinated social media network in the Twittersphere uses periodic events, such as cold weather and climate conferences, to sow disbelief about climate change and science in general. Donald Trump was the most influential, followed by conservative media outlets, and right-wing activists. As a form of knowledge vulnerability, this denialism renders communities unprepared to take steps to increase resilience. We recommend that social media companies flag accounts that spread climate misinformation and init...
Media and Communication, 2020
Online video has become a relevant tool to disseminate scientific information to the public. However, in this arena, science coexists with non-scientific or pseudoscientific beliefs that can influence people's knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Our research sets out to find empirical evidence of the representation of pro-science, anti-science and neutral stances in on-line videos. From a search on Google videos, we conducted content analysis of a sample of videos about climate change, vaccines and nanotechnology (n = 826). Results indicate that a search through Google videos provides a relatively small representation of videos with an anti-science stance, which can be regarded as positive, given the high potential influence of this search engine in spreading scientific information among the public. Our research also provides empirical evidence of the fact that an anti-science stance is more frequent in user-generated content than in videos disseminated by other types of producers.
2021
U.S.-based research suggests conservatism is linked with less concern about contracting coronavirus and less preventative behaviors to avoid infection. Here, we investigate whether these tendencies are partly attributable to distrust in scientific information, and evaluate whether they generalize outside the U.S., using public data and recruited representative samples across four studies (Ntotal=37,790). In Studies 1–3, we examine these relationships in the U.S., yielding converging evidence for a sequential indirect effect of conservatism on compliance through scientific (dis)trust and infection concern. In Study 4, we compare these relationships across 19 distinct countries, finding that they are strongest in North America, extend to support for lockdown restrictions, and that the indirect effects do not fully appear in any other country in our sample other than Indonesia. These effects suggest that rather than a general distrust in science, whether or not conservatism predicts co...