Does Scientific Literacy Make People More Ethical?

New submitter alysion writes "Per research published in the online journal PLOS One, psychologists Christine Ma-Kellams of Harvard University and Jim Blascovich of the University of California, Santa Barbara report, 'Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms.' In one of the four supporting experiments, undergraduates considered an account of a date rape and were asked to judge behavior on a scale of 1 to 100. Science types, perhaps not surprisingly, proved to have a better grasp of reality, including the moral kind."

Comments

Should be more careful with the wording

[Anonymous Coward]

The article's title raises the issue of ethics, but the summary talks about moral norms, these are not the same thing. Ethics and morals, while somewhat related, deal with different view points as they relate to behaviour. If we're going to be scientific about judging someone's actions we first have to make sure everyone agrees on the definitions of ethical and moral, something society in general has trouble doing.

scientific literacy along with general education

[etash]

(such as history, sociology etc.) gives the potential to people to truly CHOOSE to be moral* or not. You can't be called a moral guy just because you obey 3 thousand year old myths because you are afraid of the bearded man in the sky. People who "are" good because of their religion are in fact immoral people who just pretend to be good under fear.

* whatever moral means for anyone, since morality/ethics are purely subjective.

correlation != causation

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is very much possible the more ethical types gravitate towards science rather than scientific literacy made them more ethical. Most likely a whole combination of behaviors and attitudes occur together, being ethical, liking science, etc are all possibly triggered by a deeper primary cause. All these attitudes could be just the external symptoms.

Big Surprise!

[Jane Q. Public]

Critical thinking carries over to ethics. Who would have guessed?

(I have to agree with some others here though that "more stringent" ethics are in the eye of the beholder. At least the study shows that some people are thinking about it, rather than getting all their ethics once a week from some guy who dresses funny.)

Re:Of course

[Samantha Wright]

The meaning of their tests is simpler than that, actually. They used no controls. It would be just as valid to say "science makes people think in more absolute terms," which surprises no one, and fits the data perfectly well. Too bad that isn't headline-grabbing, or they might have conducted a responsible study. Whoever reviewed this thing should slap themselves; it's complete garbage.