TY - JOUR
T1 - Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics
AU - Drummond, Caitlin
AU - Fischhoff, Baruch
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. C.D. is supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE-1252522. This research is supported, in part, by the NSF under Grant NCSE-1537364 and Grant SES-0949710 to the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making and by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/9/5
Y1 - 2017/9/5
N2 - Although Americans generally hold science in high regard and respect its findings, for some contested issues, such as the existence of anthropogenic climate change, public opinion is polarized along religious and political lines. We ask whether individuals with more general education and greater science knowledge, measured in terms of science education and science literacy, display more (or less) polarized beliefs on several such issues. We report secondary analyses of a nationally representative dataset (the General Social Survey), examining the predictors of beliefs regarding six potentially controversial issues. We find that beliefs are correlated with both political and religious identity for stem cell research, the Big Bang, and human evolution, and with political identity alone on climate change. Individuals with greater education, science education, and science literacy display more polarized beliefs on these issues. We find little evidence of political or religious polarization regarding nanotechnology and genetically modified foods. On all six topics, people who trust the scientific enterprise more are also more likely to accept its findings. We discuss the causal mechanisms that might underlie the correlation between education and identity-based polarization.
AB - Although Americans generally hold science in high regard and respect its findings, for some contested issues, such as the existence of anthropogenic climate change, public opinion is polarized along religious and political lines. We ask whether individuals with more general education and greater science knowledge, measured in terms of science education and science literacy, display more (or less) polarized beliefs on several such issues. We report secondary analyses of a nationally representative dataset (the General Social Survey), examining the predictors of beliefs regarding six potentially controversial issues. We find that beliefs are correlated with both political and religious identity for stem cell research, the Big Bang, and human evolution, and with political identity alone on climate change. Individuals with greater education, science education, and science literacy display more polarized beliefs on these issues. We find little evidence of political or religious polarization regarding nanotechnology and genetically modified foods. On all six topics, people who trust the scientific enterprise more are also more likely to accept its findings. We discuss the causal mechanisms that might underlie the correlation between education and identity-based polarization.
KW - Polarization
KW - Science communication
KW - Science education
KW - Science literacy
KW - Trust
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029231758&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85029231758&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1704882114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1704882114
M3 - Article
C2 - 28827344
AN - SCOPUS:85029231758
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 114
SP - 9587
EP - 9592
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 36
ER -