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Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Conservative Distrust of Science

Author:     SCOTT JASCHIK
Source:     Inside Higher Ed
Publication Date:     March 29, 2012 - 3:00am
Link: Conservative Distrust of Science
Stephan:   Here one can see the footprints of the rising trend of Willful Ignorance. What I think this article misses is the rise of fear, and fundamentalist Christianity. In the late 70s I was living in Egypt, doing a project there, and was introduced to an Imam who asked me how we analysed the remote viewing data that was leading our archaeological fieldwork. As we spoke I realized he didn't really understand long division. When I asked him a question to test this idea without embarrassing him he, I think, surmised my real purpose and said he had no need to know such things since everything that was of any importance was in the Qur'an. A decade late I had a similar experience in Islamabad. Shortly after I came back from Pakistan I was asked to debate a Creationist and an Atheist -- as sort of a mid-position, I guess -- the spiritual but not religious view. On this occasion once again, after the event I was talking with the Creationist preacher, who told me that I was a slave of science, everything important was in the Bible. Different religions same attitude. This is exactly the process by which humanity lost most of its classical knowledge and went into the Dark Ages.

Just over 34 percent of conservatives had confidence in science as an institution in 2010, representing a long-term decline from 48 percent in 1974, according to a paper being published today in American Sociological Review.

That represents a dramatic shift for conservatives, who in 1974 were more likely than liberals or moderates (all categories based on self-identification) to express confidence in science. While the confidence levels of other groups in science have been relatively stable, the conservative drop now means that group is the least likely to have confidence in science.

Gordon Gauchat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of the paper, said that the findings are significant for scientists and universities, which seek public support for research and for the research universities where so much science takes place. This year’s presidential election — and in particular the skepticism of Republican candidates about climate change, despite a wide scientific consensus that climate change is real – point to the impact of this shift, he said.

And notably, he suggests that it may be issues like climate change — science that has the potential to lead to government regulation — that may have more of […]

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