JUNE 2012
Conventional Wisdom Flawed Logic By Roberta Kwok
Sam Byrer Peter Pentony Trusted Advisors Experienced Trial Lawyers
Personal Injury Wrongful Death Commercial Litigation
202 West Liberty Street Charles Town (304) 724-7228
www.jeffcoattys.com
Thai Nail Spa 304-839-1297 June Specials
thainailspa1@comcast.net SPA PEDICURE
with Thai massage $45.00
Now Open Upstairs at Head Hunters Hair and Day Spa in Ranson
212 West 3rd Ave Ranson Va 25438 GENERAL DENTISTRY FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY
Paul F. Davis, DDS 304.876.3791
Conveniently Located in the Historic Shepherdstown Train Station
The idea seems intuitive: If
people just had a better grasp of science, they would agree that climate change poses a se- rious risk to society. But that assumption doesn’t hold up, re- searchers have reported in Na- ture Climate Change. Instead of making people more concerned about the issue, scientific lit- eracy makes them more polar- ized.
The team evaluated two competing explanations for why some members of the public are unfazed by climate change. One possible reason is that people don’t have enough scientific knowledge, or they tend to make quick judgments
instead of using analytical rea- soning. Another hypothesis is that people stick to opinions that align with their social groups’ values. To distinguish between
these explanations, the au- thors asked 1,540 adults in the United States how serious a risk climate change presented. The team also evaluated the respondents’ scientific literacy and gave them math problems to test their “numeracy,” or ability to process quantitative data.
The higher the person’s sci-
entific literacy and math skills, the lower he or she scored the risk of climate change, the re- searchers found. But people who valued an egalitarian, communitarian society rated the climate change risk higher than those who valued a hier- archical society and individual- ism.
Within each cultural group, scientific knowledge simply made a person more entrenched in that group’s beliefs. Egalitar- ian communitarians with high science literacy and math skills rated climate change as a more serious concern than their
peers did, while hierarchical individualists with those skills rated climate change as a less serious concern than others in their group. In other words, “polariza-
tion actually becomes larger, not smaller, as science literacy and numeracy increase,” the authors write. The team found a similar pattern when they polled people about the risks of nuclear power. Instead of lead- ing disparate groups toward a consensus, science and math skills give people “a greater facility to discover and use—or explain away—evidence relat- ing to their groups’ positions.” What does this mean for sci-
ence communication efforts? Offering clear explanations of scientific data isn’t enough, the team says. Communicators also need to present information and policy options in a way that doesn’t clash with their listen- ers’ values. Reprinted from Conservation Magazine. Source: Kahan, D.M. et al. 2012. The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Na- ture Climate Change doi: 10.1038/ nclimate1547.
20
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32