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Pew Survey Documents Gaps Between Public and Scientists
PvtVoid writes: A new Pew Research Study documents an alarming gap between public perception of scientific issues and the opinions of the scientists themselves, as measured by a poll of AAAS scientists. Even worse, the gap is partisan, with clear differences between Republicans and Democrats, and between conservatives and liberals. For example, while 98% of AAAS members agree with the statement that "Human beings and other living things have evolved over time", only 21% of conservatives agree, compared with 54% of liberals. Global warming, similarly, shows an ideological gap: 98% of AAAS scientists agreed with the statement that "the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity", compared with 21% of conservatives and 54% of liberals. Encouragingly, almost everybody thinks childhood vaccines should be required (86% of AAAS members, 65% of conservatives, and 74% of liberals.) Go here for an interactive view of the data.
The question of anthropomorphic global warming and evolution can be studied and understood on a factual basis as can whether vaccines help. Whether vaccines should be required is not a question for science to answer. The summary conflates matters of fact and matters of judgement.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Isn't that kind of the point of living in a free country? We're all entitled to our own beliefs. Why is it "alarming" or "even worse" that one group doesn't agree with another on a particular topic?
It's hard to trust anyone who's work is disseminated by the government or media today.
That's an assertion that's hard to challenge in the libertarian atmosphere of slashdot.
Research and reports are spun mercilessly for the gain of whoever needs it.
Indeed, it's always wise to track down the actual original data, and actually look at the data and see what we know, and how well we know it, rather than to trust the media interpretations.
It may not be scientist's fault but when you hear something like "the sky is falling" and then hear it refuted over and over, one starts to take things with a grain of salt.
The media does like to run doom and destruction stories-- they are more of a story than talking about things like "slow increase in temperature over a time scale of decades."
Take, for example, Global Cooling back in the 1970's.
OK, let's take it for an example. There was never a scientific consensus about global cooling in the 1970s. The American Meteorological Society did a review, trying to look for the origin of that. http://journals.ametsoc.org/do... They summarize: "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.
That was refuted with Global Warming in the 2000's
It was not really "refuted" per se, since it was never a scientific consensus in the first place.
and now it's simply Global Climate Change which seems to be a catch-all.
"Global Climate Change" was the term coined by the (first) Bush administration.
I don't deny GCC but I certainly want to see the data.
Excellent! That's the difference between deniers and skeptics: deniers will make any possible excuse to avoid looking at data. As it turns out, there are literally terabytes of data.
I will suggest starting with the Working Group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change, which summarizes what is known and how we know it. I'm most familiar with the 4th report (www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html), from 2007, but you might want to go directly to the more recent update, the 5th: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...
From there, dive into the data from whichever source you prefer-- I'd suggest possibly the Berkeley Earth data, which does an interesting job of comparing alternative hypotheses against the temperature data: http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...
What's the old adage that Regan grabbed from the Russian's; "Trust but Verify" I think was it.
Excellent. Much better than the denier's motto: "Never trust, never verify, never look at the facts."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
There is a huge group of people who's opinion is based on what the party says, I am a loyal Democrat/Republican so my stance will match what they say. There is no attention of the detail of the message nor any attempt to challenge the notion brought up. So the Democrats say Global Warming is a problem, people will blindly follow. If the Democrats say GMO foods are bad, they will blindly follow. Intelligence isn't the issue, it is just the current polarized nature of the two party system which will normally make one side right and the other wrong (assuming one side is right)
Now the Democrats vs Government view on funding. Democrats prefer more of a blanket funding in scientists, So Scientists who are funded via the Democrats policies have invested interests in that party, so they are making a living off of researching climate science due to Democrats funding, so they will be friendly to that party, and in turn that party will listen to their studies. The Republicans will more likely fund Military or Energy science. Where there is less science and more engineering. Thus you will find a lot more Right winged engineers. As their main means of living is due to Republican policy. So the Republicans will more likely push ideas of a new Military Technology or Energy Extraction technology.
It is interesting on how your political views change depending on where you are living and who is controlling your purse strings.
Now they are crazies on both sides. You got the Leftist hippie type who wants to change everything to match their utopian vision where everyone is all happy because they follow one idea of a perfect life. Then you got the Far Right densest who thinks we should go back to the "Leave it to Beaver" life style, that he fondly remembers as a child (too young to realize the pressures of the world). These guys can often get into the House or Representatives thus get enough media attention to direct "The I have to do what the party says" people.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
That is the clear intention of the article summary, because it highlights only those issues where Democrats are more likely to agree with scientists than Republicans. A more honest summary would have also brought attention to the subjects where Democrats differ from scientists: nuclear power, pesticide use in foods and animal research, for example.