NASA faked the moon landing--therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: an anatomy of the motivated rejection of science
- PMID: 23531484
- DOI: 10.1177/0956797612457686
NASA faked the moon landing--therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: an anatomy of the motivated rejection of science
Abstract
Although nearly all domain experts agree that carbon dioxide emissions are altering the world's climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Internet blogs have become a platform for denial of climate change, and bloggers have taken a prominent role in questioning climate science. We report a survey of climate-blog visitors to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Our findings parallel those of previous work and show that endorsement of free-market economics predicted rejection of climate science. Endorsement of free markets also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer. We additionally show that, above and beyond endorsement of free markets, endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) predicted rejection of climate science as well as other scientific findings. Our results provide empirical support for previous suggestions that conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science. Acceptance of science, by contrast, was strongly associated with the perception of a consensus among scientists.
Keywords: climate science; policymaking; scientific communication.
Comment in
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The robust relationship between conspiracism and denial of (climate) science.Psychol Sci. 2015 May;26(5):667-70. doi: 10.1177/0956797614568432. Epub 2015 Mar 26. Psychol Sci. 2015. PMID: 25814501 No abstract available.
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Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.Psychol Sci. 2015 May;26(5):664-6. doi: 10.1177/0956797614566469. Epub 2015 Mar 26. Psychol Sci. 2015. PMID: 25814502 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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