Knowledge about the nature of science increases public acceptance of science regardless of identity factors

Abstract

While people’s views about science are related to identity factors (e.g. political orientation) and to knowledge of scientific theories, knowledge about how science works in general also plays an important role. To test this claim, we administered two detailed assessments about the practices of science to a demographically representative sample of the US public ( N = 1500), along with questions about the acceptance of evolution, climate change, and vaccines. Participants’ political and religious views predicted their acceptance of scientific claims, as in prior work. But a greater knowledge of the nature of science and a more mature view of how to mitigate scientific disagreements each related positively to acceptance. Importantly, the positive effect of scientific thinking on acceptance held regardless of participants’ political ideology or religiosity. Increased attention to developing people’s knowledge of how science works could thus help to combat resistance to scientific claims across the political and religious spectrum.

How a few poorly designed COVID-19 studies may have contributed to misinformation in Brazil: the case for evidence-based communication of science

“…Additionally, there has been accumulating evidence that it is the knowledge of how science works and not the access to scientific facts and consensuses that is associated with persuasion and long-lasting behaviour change in polarised contexts. 49 The case for evidence-based communication of science In the past three decades, media studies have established framing as a set of phenomena in which the journalistic coverage reduces some elements of the perceived reality. Then, the coverage arranges the remaining essential items into a coherent narrative that promotes an interpretation anchored on plausibility.…”

A comparative study of the acceptance and understanding of evolution between China and the US

“…Prior work has also suggested that general science knowledge and reasoning skills, understanding of the nature of scientific theories, and accepting good scientific evidence as a criterion for belief all relate positively to acceptance of evolution (Weisberg et al, 2018(Weisberg et al, , 2021. The fact that the Chinese sample has a higher mean score on general science knowledge and reasoning skills, a better understanding of the nature of scientific theories, a higher mean agreement with accepting good scientific evidence as a criterion for belief, and a lower mean agreement with accepting gut feeling as a criterion for belief may also partly explain the higher acceptance level among the Chinese respondents compared with the US sample.…”

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