An international team of researchers tried to test the hypothesis that the reality as it is reflected in the scientific consensus is not compatible with right-wing theories - mainly libertarian, mainly in the field of the climate crisis but also in other fields
By: Stefan Lewandowski, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol and Klaus Oberauer, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Zurich. Translation: Avi Blizovsky
Summary of the sixth IPCC climate report for decision makers. document
Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and sections of the public long after a consensus has been established in the scientific community. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept the fact that fossil fuel emissions are causing climate change, even though the scientific community reached a consensus that they were causing it decades ago.
Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified people's political worldviews as the primary predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
What explains this tendency to reject science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic features of the scientific enterprise that uniquely challenge people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the connection just the result of conflicting imperatives between the scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any action necessarily involves an intervention in current economic practice.
Comprehensive surveys in the USA
We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that examined the first possibility - that some essential features of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the norms and tacit principles that often guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that humans are not the center of the universe.
The sociologist Robert Merton famously proposed norms for the management of science in 1942. The norm known as "communism" (which differs from the political philosophy of communism) holds that the results of scientific research should be the common characteristic of the scientific community. "Universalism" assumes that knowledge should transcend racial, class, national or political barriers. "Disinterestedness" requires that scientists should conduct research for the benefit of the scientific enterprise and not for personal gain.
These norms do not sit well with currents of standard contemporary conservative thought. Conservatism is usually associated with nationalism and patriotism, at the expense of embracing cooperative internationalism. And the idea of no personal interest but the common good cannot sit well with the conservative emphasis on property rights.
Science has allowed us to explain the world around us, but this may create additional tensions - especially with religious conservatism. The idea that human beings are exceptional is at the base of traditional thoughts in Judaism and Christianity, which sees man as the simago dei, the image of God, clearly separated from beings and nature itself. In this way, it contradicts humanity's deviations from the rest of nature. The result of scientific insights For hundreds of years since the beginning of the scientific revolution, there has been a reduction in the status of humans. We now recognize our planet as a small, insignificant object in a universe filled with a vast number of galaxies, and not at the center of all creation.
Checking the problems
We examined how the two fundamental features of science - its essential norms and its historical influence on the way humans see themselves - might relate to conservative thought and the acceptance of scientific facts in two large-scale studies. Each of them included a representative sample of about 1,000 US residents.
We focused on three scientific topics: climate change, vaccines, and the inheritance of the trait of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political right, allowing us to observe the potential moderating role of other predictors. The last factor was chosen because the belief that external forces such as education can improve people and their circumstances is at the heart of liberalism. Conservatism, on the other hand, is skeptical about this possibility and relies more on the idea that improvement comes from the individual - implying a less important role for the inheritance of intelligence.
The fact that individual differences in intelligence are related to genetic differences, with current estimates of 50%, may therefore be challenging to liberals but may be approved by conservatives.
The two studies differed slightly in how we measured people's political views and support for science norms, but the overall findings were fairly clear. Conservatives were less likely to accept the norms of science, suggesting that the worldviews of some people on the political right may be in fundamental conflict with the scientific enterprise.
Those people who accepted the norms of science were also more likely to support vaccines and the need to fight climate change. This suggests that people who embrace the institution of science as a whole are also more likely to accept specific scientific findings.
Man is not at the center of the universe
We found limited support for the possibility that belief in human uniqueness would make people more skeptical about accepting science. In other words, this feature had little effect on people's attitudes towards science. Therefore, our study provided no evidence to hypothesize that science's long history of displacing humans from the center of the world contributes to human discomfort with science.
Finally, we found no strong evidence that people on the political left are more likely to reject the genetic contribution to individual variation in intelligence. This finding adds to the evidence that it is more difficult to find scientific denial on the left, even on issues where basic aspects of liberal thought - in this case the belief that people can be improved - are in potential conflict with the evidence.
Both studies help explain why conservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not simply dictated by political interests that conflict with a particular body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but seems to represent a deeper tension between conservatism and the spirit in which science is generally conducted.
For an article in The Conversation
More of the topic in Hayadan:
16 תגובות
Again and again I come across this confusion, where they talk about "science", but think about "scientists".
Scientists are human beings. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and they have interests, weaknesses, and errors like any other person. But part of what scientists produce in their lifetime is science.
As a bee produces honey, but the bee is not honey itself, so the scientist produces science, but is not the science itself.
Casting a healthy doubt on the words of the scientists is actually desirable.
So, for example, regarding the third vaccine. Its safety and effectiveness are not science, because they are not the result of scientific research. It is the result of *hypotheses* of scientists, and *persuasion* of governments.
This does not mean that the third vaccine is bad. It may be excellent. But doubting him is not doubting science.
First of all, the names of the authors are listed at the beginning of the article. Secondly - there is no such thing as an excess of faith in science. Regarding the warming. The Um report put an end to this claim that the person is not responsible even though the right's message page still spreads it as a Sinaitic Torah. It explicitly states that humanity is responsible for more than 99% of the warming.
And as for the message page, an interesting article was published in Israel
https://www.haaretz.co.il/nature/climate/.premium-1.10105720
The article is embarrassing to shallow. Not suitable for the science site.
A. There are a lot of assumptions in the article that are not necessarily true. The most embarrassing of them is the attitude regarding the nature of conservative people and the reason why they do not accept the scientific "proofs".
B. Not only is there a common assumption that climate change is caused by human actions, there is also a false claim that there is a consensus on the subject in the scientific community. But that's okay, there used to be a consensus in the scientific community that the world is flat and there was also a consensus that flies are created from rotten meat (spontaneous appearance). So even if there is a scientific consensus (which there isn't), is science always right? Well, obviously not even for the problematic reason that scientists are still human and are also influenced by social and academic moods, funding pressures and autosuggestion. For these reasons, in many subjects throughout history, there was a scientific "consensus" on a certain subject, including an attack of varying degrees of severity on scientists who proved the opposite, until a generation or two passed and new researchers stopped accepting the original assumptions and began to examine the facts.
third. The information in the article (and probably also in the research) lacks a significant aspect - why do liberals tend to easily follow theories that are not well supported by information? Why do liberals tend to believe very easily the new and popular concept and turn it into living law and attack anyone who does not accept it and wants more proof?
If you take the issues examined - climate change is not proven. Not only is it unproven, all the observations built from the theories according to which man has a decisive influence on climate change have failed time and time again. In science such theories would be thrown away and others would replace them. But this is where all the other variables that affect scientists as human beings come into play. That is why scientists who oppose the concept of human influence on climate change (and bring information that actually meets the observations and predictions) are thrown out of US universities, silenced in climate forums and removed from any center of influence? Is the science not strong enough to sustain a proper academic scientific discourse and is it required to silence scientists who think differently?
On the issue of vaccines - science has failed many times in matters of vaccines. People have been harmed by vaccines in the past, people were vaccinated without their knowledge, vaccines were removed from the shelves and inappropriate vaccines were also distributed to the public. In addition to this, there were vaccines that went through an improper approval process, an improper and scientifically unsatisfactory examination process, and there were also vaccine systems that were influenced by the pressures of economic companies and their relationships with politicians and decision makers in government organizations.
I am in favor of vaccines - there is no doubt that vaccines are one of the main things that prevent us from a lot of grief and pain personally and also on a social level when we don't have to see our relatives die of diseases that until recently were very common. But to be in their favor blindly? Well, that's really not scientific behavior. Scientific behavior is to examine each and every vaccine - what is the degree of risk in it? How is it tested? How many people in the world have been vaccinated to date? What is the risk of contracting the disease and developing serious complications?
Accordingly, the new Covid19 vaccines deserve a great degree of suspicion and it makes sense for people to be careful when receiving the vaccine or giving the vaccine to their children. Not only does it make sense - we need to encourage an open discourse on the subject, because in advance the reason people are careful and avoid the vaccine is the aggressive discourse that does not prove credibility.
That is, not only people on the right are in conflict with science, people on the left are also in such a conflict, only the other way around - too much tendency to believe in "science" when it is not yet proven and turn it into a Torah from heaven when it is only an unproven theory.
First of all Yonatan Duby. Besides, he claims that the entire scientific establishment is wrong. He presents no extraordinary evidence but only sentences like this.
nonsense.
The conservative right is not against science, on the contrary, it mobilizes science to prove that global warming is not man-made, not subject to human influence and cannot be changed, in any way.
Search for Prof. Yonatan Rabi on Google and you will see
The writer of the article has included everyone he calls conservatives with all libertarians.
There are many people on the left who refuse to accept science. Anti-vaccination and full of g5 and flat earth conspiracies. Not to mention all those who insist on 72 genders and insist on letting transgender women (who are biologically male with male muscle mass) compete against women in boxing competitions.
Libertarianism is a concept related to personal freedom and human rights. There is no conceptual connection between this and agreement or disagreement with science.
I am a libertarian, a science lover, and a doctoral student at the Technion.
The problem exists on the left and the extreme right. Conservatives do not have a monopoly on this. And now that "Hidan" is engaged in denying information, he joins this group. From my acquaintance with the magazine I see that you belong to an extreme pro-authoritarian faction in politics, much worse than any conservative.
Best regards, Liberal
To this day the warming cult is the only cult that has scientific proof
It's nice that the sect of global warming stirs in the psychology of their opponents instead of scratching a little in their private heads: yes warming or no, such a trend or rather the opposite trend (ice age), yes it is the fault of humanity or regardless - in any case the direction will not be a Sisyphean attempt, not to mention pathetic , not to say that it is useless to "educate" the masses. When will the people of the laboratories and faculties, the pale geeks, finally realize that the world is not their oyster? That the world is not an anthroposophical kindergarten and that they, most certainly, are not the kindergartners of this world.
If the damage created by science is to be solved - it is only by science. If the emission of greenhouse gases is the result of an industry that brings in money - then the solution will be industries that absorb greenhouse gases that bring in - right!! Of money !!
It seems that the author of the article (Lewandowski) came to demonstrate a personal opinion ('liberal', as it were) and not a solid scientific position.
It seems clear that the methodology of the first study is fundamentally flawed. The choice of research fields is biased in advance: "We focused on three scientific topics: climate change, vaccines, and the inheritance of the trait of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political right." That is, the selection of the first two fields pre-orders the requested "find", wonder and wonder.
As expected, the third field of research, quite neutral on the surface, does not yield the desired finding: "We did not find strong evidence that people on the political left are more inclined to reject the genetic contribution to individual changes in intelligence."
The real surprise is later - when research in another field indicates that the bowl is turning on its face: "We found limited support for the possibility that the belief in the uniqueness of man will make people more skeptical in accepting science. "
Despite this, the author of the article allows us to raise the far-fetched and controversial conclusion that "both studies help explain why conservatives are more inclined to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not only dictated by political interests that conflict with a particular body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but seems to represent a deeper tension between conservatism and the spirit in which science is generally conducted.”
What can be concluded from Lewandowski's article above is that it may be that 'conservatives' tend to reject certain "scientific findings" more than 'liberals', but it turns out that such a tendency focuses on faking pseudo-science findings...
Apparently the findings and conclusions are more suitable for the USA, less for Israel
The problem with climate change is a classic and tragic example of "Tragedy of the commons" from game theory. This is a "bug" in the structure of human culture.
explanation:
There are quite a large number of countries in the world. There is no world government that can force decisions on them.
If one country or culture (the Western culture) reduces emissions and suffers damage to its economy (which is sinking anyway)> the competitors (China, India, and the rest of the world) will not join the bandwagon and their economy will become very strong compared to the West. Total global emissions will not be significantly reduced. Thus the star is also destroyed, and the West is also weakened.
Therefore, it is better for the West to ignore climate change and continue to nurture its economy. Trump realized this a long time ago.
The end result, unfortunately, is the continued pollution, warming, and destruction of the ball
It seems to me that in Israel today most of the opponents of vaccinations are from the progressive left and not from the conservative right.
The arguments against vaccination are also taken from the vocabulary of the left: for example, a personal right versus a public duty and more.
The lack of trust in the system and failure to accept authority are also more typical today of the radical left than of the conservative right.
I would appreciate a reference to material errors.
With all due respect to the testers and the conclusions they will come to
It is appropriate to call the child by his name and define those who oppose and reject science
as ignorant...
Interesting and quite predictable.
Is it so hard to do normal proofreading for a translation???
Also wording and Hebrew errors but also essential errors. Too bad