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The Gap Between What The Public Thinks And What Scientists Know
First time accepted submitter burtosis writes Despite similar views about the overall place of science in America, the general public and scientists often see science-related issues through a different lens, according to a new pair of surveys by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From FiveThirtyEight: "The surveys found broad support for government to spend money on science, but that doesn't mean the public supports the conclusions that scientists draw. The biggest gap between scientists and the public came on issues that may elicit fear: the safety of genetically modified (or GMO) foods (37 percent of the public said GMOs were safe, compared to 88 percent of scientists) and the use of pesticides in agriculture (28 percent of the public said foods grown with pesticides were safe to eat, versus 68 percent of scientists). There was also disagreement over the cause of climate change (50 percent of the public said it is mostly due to human activity, compared to 87 percent of scientists). Here’s a full list, via Pew Research Center, of the scientific issues the survey asked about."
"Scientist" is a woefully ambiguous term. As I scientist, I think GMO food is perfectly safe. I am a nuclear scientist and know little about the GMO process, but that doesn't matter. My opinion does.
That's because the general public get most (all) of their information about science from sources that have a particular goal in mind when it comes to how that information should be interpreted. First a fear is created, because fear sells, and then they offer a politics based (rather than facts based) answer, because relief also sells.
Further, people won't listen to scientists, but they will listen to news anchors and politicians, because fiction is far easier to understand than facts.
Do you mean Bacillus thuringiensis toxin?
You mean the toxin that is classified as organic and can and is sprayed on plants as an organic pesticide?
You know the one where the only way to harm a human with it is to inhale it as a powder and in that form it causes the same damage as inhaling almost any other powder. Even inhaling sugar as a powder is bad for you.
That toxin is COMPLETELY inert inside humans. However insects and some fish can cleave the protein and can then be killed by the toxin.
The organic version is sprayed on plants, washes off and damages local aquatic life. The GMO version does not wash off and has no impact on local aquatic life. The GMO version also concentrates in the parts of the plant we don't eat.
The organic way of using BT toxin is worse in ALL WAYS than the GMO version.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
That's news to me. I didn't think the public could think :P
Pro tip: you're a member of the public.
When talking about the public, you should use the pronoun "we", not "they".
>. Politicians push fear, and then lord their position and power over the people who they nominally serve.
Which one should keep in mind when looking at science. Scientists being paid by a grant from Phillip Morris (tobacco) or All Gore tend to publish conclusions that are likely to get the grant renewed. A lot of people I work with are top experts
in their field, whose jobs are dependant on a federal grant getting renewed. Guess how many of them published information that makes the grantor unhappy last year. Hint - it's a round number.
That's not always correct. Roundup-ready crops sold by Monsanto (for example) are not resistant to pests, they are resistant to herbicides. They let you spray MORE, not less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
GMOs usually need far fewer pesticides sprayed on them, that is pretty much the point of them most of the time.
This depends entirely on the modification. The two most popular GMOs are "roundup ready" and "Bt." Roundup-ready plants are resistant to glyphosate, which allows farmers to use higher amounts of the herbicide. "Bt" plants produce their own insecticide, which allows farmers to reduce their external application of such agents. As glyphosate resistance transfers to weed plants, biotech companies have begun developing resistance to other herbicides: the next step in the evolutionary arms race.
The reason why people don't trust GMO food for instance, is that it's sometimes impossible to undo mistakes that are made. Scientists tend to have tunnel vision and have made mistakes with global impact in the past. So I don't find this gap surprising at all. People are wary because they think scientists want to mess with the planet.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
I think paycheck corruption in science today is even worse, like with the CAGW promoters.
IF that were true, then the climate scientists who know the "truth" would be able to get all the grants they want from the fossil fuel industry and "clean up" or least get a paycheck.
See, if global warming were in fact a hoax or even over-blown, the oil, gas, and coal industries would be handing out grants like candy with their unlimited money. I wold expect to see the battles like the cigarette industry put up.
But they are not. They only thing they have is press releases and propaganda - usually attacking AGW on political grounds (like increased taxes or some other nonsense.)
Which tells me that there is nothing there scientifically for them.
The evidence is conclusive: human caused global warming is fact.
I notice that you don't balance how many times scientists have been wrong against how many times they've been right. What do you suppose a scientist's wrong:right ratio is as compared to a non-scientist's?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"Scientist" is a woefully ambiguous term. As I scientist, I think GMO food is perfectly safe. I am a nuclear scientist and know little about the GMO process, but that doesn't matter. My opinion does.
Good point. The glaring assertion that the sanctity of scientific authority would carry forth across disciplines, and that those in different branches of science carry more weight than say --- a layman who has put effort to research a specific subject --- is dubious.
One might even say this tabloid appeal to authority is religious... but I would not grace it like that. I have too much respect for my religious friends. I may not share their faith but I can easily see that they deliberately and carefully choose their sources of information (such as the Bible, ancient text and modern sermons) and consider the messenger with each message. They would not inherently revere a reverend with 'priest' rubber-stamped on the forehead any more than we should defer to the results of a poll whose categories are drawn from the presence or absence of a University degree in fields the pollsters considered to be 'sciency'.
Whatever the criteria for being one, scientists are part of the demographic 'public' in the real world.
There is also the fact that people who have read a fair amount in certain fields may understand the questions in a poll but because of their background they may have different perceptions as to the meaning. For example, when I saw the article "Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA"... I did NOT spot it a mile off as a malicious trip-wire question to expose duh-idiots (which it apparently was). I recalled the recent scientific controversy over whether microRNA uptake in digestion might change gene expression in a harmful way, and whether any specific GMO food (by virtue of its narrow genetic origins) might, as an unintended consequence, be able to deliver such a payload. It was all over the news in the US a few years ago and the 'public' had every right to be concerned. Though the science is pretty well settled (see this excellent article) it turns out that the hysteria was fed partly by a failure of the scientific process, among other things. Years ago when the microRNA article was published it was refuted, too casually, even though its implications if true may be dire. Our DNA mechanisms are well-adapted to deal with these fragments and they are indeed very prevalent. This was never explained well enough to the public, who were thinking in terms of a new type of man-made 'contaminant' that had suddenly appeared in the food supply.
It is the "4 out of 5 dentists surveyed recommend Trident Sugarless Gum for their patients who chew gum" phenomenon, where the fifth dentist's opinion does not fit the message and is not even revealed. Could the fifth dentist have known or glimpsed something that would have blown all the others away, convinced them or shamed them? (the survey was actually 1,700 dentists).
If you show most anyone -- including 'scientists' --- a list of major Yellowstone eruptions over time and point out that it has been ~640,000 years since the last, and asked the question "Would you say that an eruption is overdue?" they will tend to say YES. They may even sense it is a trick question. But a geologist would shout "NO!!" and if another Geologist says yes, they would form a mob with pitchforks-mob and march to the door. Geologists are aware of the fuzziness of geologic time scales but above all, their too-casual answers have been used to dupe-scare people.
These polls have been taken before. And the tendency is to perceive them as a sort of exposé of how stupid the 'public' is. But for a few of
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Exactly this.
What's funny is that when Climate Change Skeptics, the Koch Brothers, funded their own study and planted an outspoken critic of climate change science as the director of the research, that skeptic ended up becoming a believer and published an Op-Ed in the NYT explaining how wrong he had been to not accept the science.
But somehow people still find a way to rationalize it all away as just the invention of a bunch of wealthy limousine-riding scientists keeping down those poor, defenseless oil companies.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
You sez:
I would also like us to use more nuclear power. My views on nuclear power are less informed than my knowledge of GMO is. However, my views on nuclear power are still FAR more informed than the average person
1. How do you know your view is "FAR more informed than the average person"?
2. You said you were "FAR more informed", so ...
2a. Who was the one informed you? 2b. And how do you know what you have been informed is correct?
I don't know about the education system where the GP lived, but generally those becoming well educated and capable in a specialist subject tend to be better educated and more capable than average in other fields. I am a nuclear engineer but did not even specialise in it until my third job. So I would claim similarly to the GP that (1) I am much more informed on subjects outside nuclear engineering, both in science and the humanities, than the average person. That is simply because I had a liberal education to a significantly further level than the average person. Even to be accepted on my course to study engineering I had also to have studied (and passed the exams in) sciences other than maths and physics, foreign languages (plural), English to the same level as someone entering a university course in it, and certain other humanities subjects. (2a & b) At that time I was taught these other subjects at a good school, and that knowledge had been confirmed by what I have seen and heard ever since.
Also a factor is the inherent tendency of scientists (in the broadest sense to include engineers) to find out about and question things, leading to more and more knowledge being acquired through life, knowledge which tends to be missed by the average person who is more likely to spend as much free time as possible being entertained.
I disagree with the headline here. The presumption is that the public merely thinks, but may be wrong, and scientists actually know facts.
Everyone listens to those whom they respect. Some are taught to respect firebrand preachers; some believe any idiot with a PhD. Some look for truth in Biblical quotes, but can't read; others believe in scientific method, but couldn't explain scientific method if you gave them a cheat sheet.
Example: Is the world flat or round? Well, people we respect say that it is round. But how many average citizens have a clue to the evidence?
Sound thinking there. The GMO crops "raison d'etre" is to sell more weedkiller, eh? So farmers willingly buy this more expensive GMO crop JUST so they can buy more weedkiller? Yeah, that makes sense. Or maybe Monsanto is making this GMO crop JUST so it can sell more glyphosphate, which has no patent protection and is dirt cheap? Yeah, that makes sense. And of course, before GMO crops they weren't spraying pesticides everywhere, right? And those pesticides could never have affected insect populations, right? And, oh yeah, Monsanto destroyed every food crop except their own, right?