TY - JOUR
T1 - Predictors of public attitudes toward controversial science 1979–1990
AU - Drummond, Caitlin
AU - Fischhoff, Baruch
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant SES-0949710, to the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making, and by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Science and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Grant # M14-0138:1).
Funding Information:
We used a nationally representative survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, to assess the ideological, educational, and demographic factors related to Americans’ attitudes toward controversial science in the years 1979–1990. Despite variation in how factors and attitudes were measured, the issue-level relationships between these attitudes and various predictors were remarkably stable across years. As in recent surveys, we find that some of those attitudes are correlated with political or religious identity, or both ( Table 7 , Columns 1 and 2). We observed little evidence for the interactions between political and religious identity and education/knowledge observed in more recent studies ( Table 7 , Column 3); those interactions that we did observe were associated with small effect sizes.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Recent research has suggested that individuals with greater science literacy and education hold more polarized views on religiously and politically polarized scientific topics, such as human evolution and climate change (Drummond and Fischhoff 2017). We ask whether such a pattern is observed in public attitudes toward scientific controversies of a previous era. In secondary analyses of a major national survey, we examine social and individual factors associated with attitudes toward scientific controversies in the period 1979–1990. Our source is the National Science Foundation’s nationally representative Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology, which asked about public attitudes toward nuclear power, food additives, genetic engineering, space exploration, human evolution, the Big Bang, and human/dinosaur co-occurrence. Despite some inconsistency in the measurement of key variables, the data reveal consistent relationships within topics and across survey-years: political ideology predicted polarization of attitudes toward nuclear power, while religiosity predicted polarization of attitudes toward genetic engineering, space exploration, human evolution, and the Big Bang. Unlike results from more recent surveys, respondents with more education and greater scientific knowledge were no more polarized by politics or religion, with the possible exception of attitudes toward human evolution. Our findings suggest the importance of historical context in interpreting public responses to science and technology issues.
AB - Recent research has suggested that individuals with greater science literacy and education hold more polarized views on religiously and politically polarized scientific topics, such as human evolution and climate change (Drummond and Fischhoff 2017). We ask whether such a pattern is observed in public attitudes toward scientific controversies of a previous era. In secondary analyses of a major national survey, we examine social and individual factors associated with attitudes toward scientific controversies in the period 1979–1990. Our source is the National Science Foundation’s nationally representative Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology, which asked about public attitudes toward nuclear power, food additives, genetic engineering, space exploration, human evolution, the Big Bang, and human/dinosaur co-occurrence. Despite some inconsistency in the measurement of key variables, the data reveal consistent relationships within topics and across survey-years: political ideology predicted polarization of attitudes toward nuclear power, while religiosity predicted polarization of attitudes toward genetic engineering, space exploration, human evolution, and the Big Bang. Unlike results from more recent surveys, respondents with more education and greater scientific knowledge were no more polarized by politics or religion, with the possible exception of attitudes toward human evolution. Our findings suggest the importance of historical context in interpreting public responses to science and technology issues.
KW - Scientific controversies
KW - science communication
KW - science literacy
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U2 - 10.1080/13669877.2019.1646313
DO - 10.1080/13669877.2019.1646313
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070884389
SN - 1366-9877
VL - 23
SP - 1318
EP - 1335
JO - Journal of Risk Research
JF - Journal of Risk Research
IS - 10
ER -