The Motivated Rejection of Science

Layzej writes "New research (PDF) to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found that those who subscribed to one or more conspiracy theories or who strongly supported a free market economy were more likely to reject the findings from climate science as well as other sciences. The researchers, led by UWA School of Psychology Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, found that free-market ideology was an overwhelmingly strong determinant of the rejection of climate science. It also predicted the rejection of the link between tobacco and lung cancer and between HIV and AIDS. Conspiratorial thinking was a lesser but still significant determinant of the rejection of all scientific propositions examined, from climate to lung cancer. Curiously, public response to the paper has provided a perfect real-life illustration of the very cognitive processes at the center of the research."

Comments

Re:Suprising how?

[jmorris42]

> Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science.

Agreed. But when debating the policy implications of AGW a climatoligist is useless. What insight can they offer into whether cap and trade is a good idea? They aren't economists. If the conversation turns to carbon sequestration they aren't the person to ask whether that is feasable. If we want to talk alternative energy they can't provide any insight on that either. You need different scientists and experts to answer those questions. Climatology is a pretty narrow specialty.