Study: Conservatives' trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s

[OKIsItJustMe]

[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif]Public release date: 29-Mar-2012

Contact: Daniel Fowler
[e-mail]
202-527-7885
American Sociological Association

[font size=5]Study: Conservatives' trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s[/font]

[font size=4]Trust in science has also declined among people who frequently attend church[/font]

[font size=3]WASHINGTON, DC, March 26, 2012 — While trust in science remained stable among people who self-identified as moderates and liberals in the United States between 1974 and 2010, trust in science fell among self-identified conservatives by more than 25 percent during the same period, according to new research from Gordon Gauchat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

"You can see this distrust in science among conservatives reflected in the current Republican primary campaign," said Gauchat, whose study appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. "When people want to define themselves as conservatives relative to moderates and liberals, you often hear them raising questions about the validity of global warming and evolution and talking about how 'intellectual elites' and scientists don't necessarily have the whole truth."

Relying on data from the 1974-2010 waves of the nationally representative General Social Survey, the study found that people who self-identified as conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to self-identified moderates and liberals, and ended the period with the lowest.

…

"This study shows that the public trust in science has not declined since the mid-1970s except among self-identified conservatives and among those who frequently attend church," Gauchat said. "It also provides evidence that, in the United States, there is a tension between religion and science in some contexts. This tension is evident in public controversies such as that over the teaching of evolution."

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Maybe the root of the distrust is akin to why some people just don't like math:

They don't understand it and don't believe that they are capable of understanding it.

[longship]

6. As a former math teacher I agree

But much of the blame for the abysmal math literacy of the US public can be layed in the hands of the educators. Yes, I am assuming part of the blame myself.

But it is a fact that teaching is a very difficult profession and I don't know that the education schools are doing much to alleviate the problems inherent in the profession to which they are putatively training. It might take a kind of revolution of some sort to sort this out. As an educator myself, I confess that I am a bit baffled.

However, there is one thing we can do. That is to support math and science education, research, and development. The only cure for ignorance is education and flawed as it is, we need to support the system we have while we also encourage innovation to fix things that are not working.

I don't think this is one of the Republican party's planks.

[zipplewrath]

8. Only a very little bit

Don't take too much blame. The primary problem with math literacy is the societal acceptance of it. People will "hide" reading illiteracy, and being "well spoken" is still considered an asset. But being "bad at math" is something we're willing to joke about. Worse, we're willing to poke fun at those who are "good at math". Watch alot of current television and it is filled with characters who accel at math and science, and are portrayed as some "oddball" character. Bones, Big Bang, and others practically make a plot line out of poking fun at anyone with real skills.

The ONLY thing I'd really say about educators is to not participate in the "your bad at math" explanation. I've never met ANYONE who was truly "bad at math". Okay, yes, some are better than others, especially at any given moment (grade). But I'm an engineer and there were a couple of times in my education where I struggle for long periods of time with some aspect until I grasped it. I've spoke to alot of my peers and they all admit to at least ONE period in which they thought they'd hit some sort of wall. But once you get past it, you're off and runniing again.

Because I'm an engineer, alot of parents ask me to "help" their kids who struggle at one point or another. Every single time I'm told "Jonny just isn't very good at math". And yet what I find EVERY SINGLE TIME is that Jonny is just fine at math. His problem is that he has some misconception about the particular aspect he is currently studying and it is bringing him to a complete stop. I find what his misconception is, fix it, and they are off and running.

Teachers are overburdened far too often so I can understand they don't necessarily have all the time they need to do this kind of searching. So I'm not bragging or blaming. I'd just beg teachers to basically never tell a parent, much less a child, that they're not good at math. Just admit that it appears he has something blocking his understanding and we just haven't found it yet. (Of course a big part may be merely that the kid has lost all motivation to even try).

We teach reading and writing and every single student is expected to accel at it to a relatively high degree. And no one is running around making fun of the kids that do well in British Literature classes. But a kid that struggles with Algebra is just "bad at math" and therefore will be steered away from physics classes. But let him be good at math, and he's a nerd.

[eridani]

13. That cultural attitude is a real problem

Can't find a link now, but a number of years ago, US and Japanese parents were asked what the most important factor was for succeeding in math class. The US parents said being mathematically gifted. The Japanese parents said study and hard work.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Part of it is the overall approach to math.

It isn't presented as user-friendly, that is, that anyone can learn how to do it. It's problem-solving with numbers. Once you "get" math, you gain the ability to use logic, extrapolate, calculate, etc. in non-math problems as you know the formulas.

[rfranklin]

2. Conservatives are in death struggle against reality and logic...

They cannot agree with facts and science because their core beliefs are so often challenged if not demolished by rational thought.

[izquierdista]

5. It's a pity they aren't losing faster

What with their denial of global warming, they may take the rest of us down with them.

[Ian David]

3. Maybe if the scientists hadn't made all those robots...

http://www.digyourowngrave.com/saturday-night-live-old-glory-robot-insurance/

[CBGLuthier]

4. Eppur si muove

400 years later and the same old shit.

[HereSince1628]

7. Galileo wasn't even suggesting man was wrecking the solar system

he was just challenging a position of religion.

Now there is environmental science arguing that pillaging and despoiling the commons, a system that the economic system is based on, is dangerous to life on this orb.

OF COURSE there is an attempt to discredit science and to move the arguments into political realms where the status of scientific analysis is reduced to 'an opinion' and thereby made equal to rightwing economic ideology.

[Warpy]

10. The 70s were when holy rollerism started to take over

in the heartland thanks to televangelism and the backlash against all the social changes in the 60s that didn't really affect much of the heartland.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. That's because they don't like anything that can throw facts that will get in the way

of their stoopid ambitions.

[SpankMe]

12. Here's an MSNBC story on the subject.

Why conservatives don't believe in the science of why they don't believe in science:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10911111-study-tracks-how-conservatives-lost-their-faith-in-science

[Posteritatis]

14. Probably true, though I think both ends of the spectrum can be pretty dumb on science now. (nt)

[Odin2005]

15. I bet its the same for Liberals.

Look at how many woo-woos, anti-vax nuts, and "alternative medicine" shills post here.