Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?

[caraher]

122. It's called motivated reasoning

It seems plausible that these people are not reasonable, or scientifically illiterate. Research bears out neither conclusion. Instead, it's worth remembering that we are social animals, and having a secure place in our social order is no trifling matter. So when a scientific finding threatens that order, or one's place within it, at best there is a dilemma - and often the individual's calculation (conscious or not) will fall on the side of maintaining that order.

Research on science literacy and beliefs about climate change, for instance, shows that if you look at Democrats, increased science literacy correlates with stronger beliefs in the threat of human-caused climate change, while for Republicans the opposite is true - science literacy actually increases polarization, rather than acceptance of the science. It seems likely this is because the more science-literate Republicans are also more adept at employing that literacy in the service of convenient self-deception. They can pick at the evidence, convince themselves of alternative explanations, etc.

Yale researcher Anthony Leiserowitz has done a lot of fascinating work on this problem in the context of climate change. Most logical-sounding, simple explanations of the rejection of science actually do not survive scientific scrutiny!