No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Endorsement of scientific norms among non-scientists: The role of science news consumption, political ideology, and science field
Abstract
Public discussions of controversial science fields like COVID-19 or climate science increasingly address inner-scientific structures and the norms guiding the scientific system—aspects that are normally discussed within the scientific community. However, not much is known about the endorsement of scientific norms by non-scientists and how those endorsements differ between controversial und uncontroversial science fields. We conducted a cross-sectional national survey in Germany ( N = 1007) to capture the public endorsement of scientific norms and explored the role of the science field, political ideology, and science news consumption. Results suggest that the endorsement of scientific norms is significantly higher in controversial fields than in less controversial fields. More left-leaning political ideology is connected to higher levels of norm endorsement; science news consumption is partly associated with lower scientific norm endorsement. We discuss our findings regarding their implications for the public’s image and understanding of controversial science fields.
Hybrid media systems have reconfigured online journalism and mass communication such that people can engage more easily in multi-directional discourse about the norms of science. We investigate this reconfiguration with a mixed-methods study of the X page of “Retraction Watch,” which produces hybrid “watchdog science journalism” on violations of scientific norms. Results show that Retraction Watch’s X is not necessarily an inclusive forum for open debate about scientific norms. We also find that Retraction Watch prioritizes aspects that may not resonate with its audience. This has implications for how science communicators and journalists approach (hybrid) debate about scientific norms.
This study investigates public perceptions of trustworthiness and authenticity regarding scientists engaged in controversial and less controversial fields with a cross-sectional survey of a German sample (“N” = 1007). Results indicate that scientists in controversial fields like COVID-19 or climate change are perceived as less trustworthy and authentic compared to scientists in less controversial fields or scientists without specification of their field. Additionally, we found that science-related media consumption shaped people´s trustworthiness and authenticity perceptions towards scientists. Our analysis points out how public perceptions of scientists vary if these scientists research controversial areas, actively participating in public (and media) life.
While populist citizens’ opposition to political elites has been intensively researched, populist criticism of other societal institutions, such as science, has only recently attracted public and scholarly attention. Political and science populism can both be understood as a set of ideas that revolve around an antagonism between a virtuous common people and an evil elite. However, political populism focuses on political power claims and challenges the political elites, whereas science populism addresses truth claims and criticizes the academic elites. Hence, conceptually, both populism variants pit the people against an elite – but they rely on different conceptualizations of the people and the elites, their authority claims, and the alleged (il)legitimacy of these claims. Yet, it remains unclear how distinct these two populism variants are empirically. We address this gap by comparing established scales for measuring individual attitudes towards both variants and provide three take aways: We recommend that scholars should (1) theorize and test the overlaps of the two populism variants, (2) acknowledge their differences and model these accordingly, and (3) consider which variant is better suited for predicting other attitudes or behaviours. Considering these takeaways would allow public opinion research to provide more fine-grained insights into the intricacies of populist attitudes within contemporary societies and challenges.
Although adherence to Mertonian values of science (i.e., communism, universalism, organized skepticism, disinterestedness) is desired and promoted in academia, such adherence can cause friction with the normative structures and practices of Open Science. Mertonian values and Open Science practices aim to improve the conduct and communication of research and are promoted by institutional actors. However, Mertonian values remain mostly idealistic and contextualized in local and disciplinary cultures and Open Science practices rely heavily on third-party resources and technology that are not equally accessible to all parties. Furthermore, although still popular, Mertonian values were developed in a different institutional and political context. In this article, we argue that new normative structures for science need to look beyond nostalgia and consider aspirations and outcomes of Open Science practices. To contribute to such a vision, we explore the intersection of several Open Science practices with Mertonian values to flesh out challenges involved in upholding these values. We demonstrate that this intersection becomes complicated when the interests of numerous groups collide and contrast. Acknowledging and exploring such tensions informs our understanding of researchers' behavior and supports efforts that seek to improve researchers' interactions with other normative structures such as research ethics and integrity frameworks.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a question seldom addressed in a straightforward manner by political theorists: whether populism is intrinsically anti-science. This article identifies three different ways in which populist actors worldwide have grounded their scepticism, distrust, or hostility to scientific inputs, to the extent that they are relevant for political action: (1) they raise a moral objection against scientists who have been allegedly corrupted by foreign interests, turning them into enemies of the people; (2) they present a democratic objection against the technocratic claim that scientific experts should rule regardless of the popular will; and (3) they employ an epistemic argument against scientific reasoning, which is said to be inferior to common-sense and folk wisdom, and antithetical to the immediateness of political action. While these objections have been wielded in a selective and unsystematic way, they all speak to the core feature of populism, which is the people versus elites divide: the moral objection targets scientists as members of an elite in cahoots with alien powers; the democratic objection targets an unelected elite that seeks to undermine the people’s rule; the epistemic objection questions that the standard to validate knowledge-claims is a complex and detached-from-ordinary-experience rationality.
Despite decades of concerted efforts to communicate to the public on important scientific issues pertaining to the environment and public health, gaps between public acceptance and the scientific consensus on these issues remain stubborn. One strategy for dealing with this shortcoming has been to focus on the existence of scientific consensus on the relevant matters. Recent science communication research has added support to this general idea, though the interpretation of these studies and their generalizability remains a matter of contention. In this paper, we describe results of a qualitative interview study on different models of scientific consensus and the relationship between such models and trust of science, finding that familiarity with scientific consensus is rarer than might be expected. These results suggest that consensus messaging strategies may not be effective.
One of the recent “crises” experienced by science is associated with a decline in its public support. We conducted two factorial surveys among university students aiming at broadening our understanding of the information cues influencing the wider publics' judgments of science. We found that sociological and criminological research results are perceived as less plausible compared to neuroscientific and physiological research, but as more plausible than results from genetics. In contrast with the previous data on the importance of funding and institutional prestige cues as the indirect indicators of the research quality among academic experts, we discovered the absence of any effects of funding or institutional prestige for the selected type of general audience.
Merton envisioned his norms of science at a time when peer-reviewed journals controlled scientific communication. Technologies for sharing and finding content have since divorced the certification and amplification of science, generating systemic vulnerabilities. Certified amplification – a new Mertonian-styled norm – enjoins their recoupling and introduces a taxonomy of strategies adopted by institutions to close the certification-amplification gap, including the proportioning of the one to the other. Examples illustrating each taxonomic type collectively paint a picture of an ethos employing a rich range of certification and amplification techniques and emerging in a decentralized fashion across heterogeneous objects, communication modalities, and institutions.
Public resentment toward scientific institutions, scholars, and their expertise challenges the status of science in society in many countries worldwide. It is thus essential to examine the global prevalence of such resentment—and the potential of legacy media to temper it, thanks to their ability to cultivate positive views of science, educate citizens, and connect publics to scientific discourse. However, existing research has mostly surveyed Western populations, focused on pro-science rather than anti-science views, rarely studied the role of media use, and often ignored country characteristics that may interact with media use. This secondary analysis addresses these caveats, drawing on the 2017–2020 wave of the World Values Survey (N = 70,867 in 49 countries) and three relevant country-level indicators (freedom of the press, populism, uncertainty avoidance). Findings indicate that anti-science attitudes vary substantially across countries and are more prevalent in many Latin American nations. Results of Bayesian multilevel regressions show that frequent use of newspapers, TV, and radio indeed alleviates anti-science attitudes in some countries—but fosters them in others, particularly in those where populist rhetoric is more prevalent in public discourse, potentially because such rhetoric often challenges science and academic expertise. These findings call for further comparative research on global reservations against science and reflections about their repercussions on the science-society nexus.
Scientists (and science as a whole) provide evidence and advice for societal problem solving and collective decision-making. For this advice to be heard, the public must be willing to trust science, where “trust” means that one can confidently expect science to provide reliable knowledge and evidence, even if one’s understanding of science is bounded. According to the sociological and psychological literature, citizens’ basic attitudes toward, experiences with, and perceived trustworthiness of the trustee serve as antecedents of trust. From this, we developed a model for the public’s trust in science, and we tested this model in a nationally representative survey in Switzerland (N = 1,050). The analysis reveals that trust in science was best predicted by positivistic attitudes toward science (β = 0.33) and to a lesser extent by trustworthiness assessments of scientists (β = 0.24). Experiences with science did not predict trust in science (β = 0.07). These results suggest that stable basic attitudes toward science and its role in society are grounds on which trust in science can be built.
The analysis of factor structures is one of the most critical psychometric applications. Frequently, variables (i.e., items or indicators) resulting from questionnaires using ordinal items with 2–7 categories are used. There are plenty of articles that recommend treating ordinal variables in a factor analysis by default as ordinal and not as continuous imposing a multivariate normal distribution assumption. In this article, we exhibit that the reasoning behind such suggestions is flawed. In our view, findings from simulation studies cannot tell about the right modeling strategy of ordinal variables in factor analysis. Moreover, it is argued that ordinal factor models impose a normality assumption for underlying continuous variables, which might also often be incorrect in empirical applications. However, researchers seldom opt for more flexible modeling strategies that involve correctly specified distributions. Finally, the consequences of modeling choices for validity, reliability, measurement invariance, handling of missing data, and the assessment of global model fit are discussed.
This article provides a framework for analysing changes and continuities in science communication. The field is challenged by three contexts: (1) ‘post-normal situations’ of coping with uncertainties, value questions, an urgency to take action, and associated political pressures; (2) a dramatically changing media environment, and (3) a polarizing discourse culture. We refine the concept of post-normal science to make it more applicable to analyse public science communication in an era of digital media networks. Focussing on changes in the interactions between scientists and journalists, we identify two ideal types: normal and post-normal science communication, and conclude that the boundaries of science and journalism are blurring and under renegotiation. Scientists and journalists develop new shared role models, norms, and practices. Both groups are increasingly acting as advocates for common goods that emphasize the emerging norms of post-normal science communication: transparency, interpretation, advocacy and participation.
The presence of news factors in journalistic products has been abundantly researched, but investigations into their actual impact on the news production process are scarce. This study provides a large-scale analysis of why news factors matter: Whether, how, and which news factors affect the prominence of news items and does this differ per outlet type? A manual content analysis of print, online, and television news demonstrates that a larger total number of news factors in a story positively predict an item’s length and likelihood of front-page publication or likelihood of being a newscast’s opening item. News factors ‘conflict’ and ‘eliteness’ have the strongest impact, mixed evidence was found for ‘proximity’ and ‘personification’, whereas relationships with ‘negativity’, ‘influence and relevance’, and ‘continuity’ were mostly insignificant. Fewer differences than expected emerged between outlet types (popular vs quality press). Especially for television news, outlet type (public vs commercial broadcaster) hardly mattered.
Scholars have not examined public views of scientific motivations directly, despite scientific authority implications. A US representative sample rated 11 motivations both descriptively (they do motivate scientists’ work) and normatively (they should motivate scientists) for scientists employed by federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Descriptive and normative ratings fell into extrinsic (money, fame, power, being liked, helping employer) and intrinsic (do good science, enjoy challenge, helping society and others) motivation factors; being independent and gaining respect were outliers. People saw intrinsic motivations as more common, but wanted intrinsic motivations to dominate extrinsic ones even more. Despite a few differences for extrinsic-motivation ratings, the lay public tended to see scientific work as similarly motivated regardless of the employer. Variance in perceived science motivations was explained by scientific beliefs (positivism, credibility) and knowledge (of facts and scientific reasoning), complemented by political ideology and religiosity.
The growing importance of social media for getting science news has raised questions about whether these online platforms foster or hinder public trust in science. Employing multilevel modeling, this study leverages a 20-country survey to examine the relationship between social media news use and trust in science. Results show a positive relationship between these variables across countries. Moreover, the between-country variation in this relationship is related to two cultural characteristics of a country, individualism/collectivism and power distance.
Der Buchdruck ermöglichte die Ausdifferenzierung eines modernen Wissenschaftssystems, das in kognitiver Hinsicht auf Offenheit orientiert ist. Die Mertonschen Normen können als Selbstreflexion dieser Orientierung an Offenheit interpretiert werden. An ihnen wird sichtbar, dass sich die zeitliche und sachliche Offenheit der Wissenschaft paradoxerweise durch ihre soziale Schließung als Profession vollzieht. Diese Professionsgrenze wissenschaftlicher Praxis wird durch Open Science in Frage gestellt.
The norms and values of Post-Normal Science (PNS) are instrumental in guiding science advice practices. In this article, we report work in progress to systematically investigate the norms and values of PNS through a structured review. An archive of 397 documents was collected, including documents that contribute to the endeavour of ameliorating science advice practices from a PNS perspective. Action and structure-oriented viewpoints are used as complementing perspectives in the analysis of the ethos of PNS. From the action-perspective we study how prototypes of norms and values are reflected upon in negotiations of normative issues relating to science advice. From the structural perspective we study how interrelated prototypes of norms and values are presupposed in prescriptions, proscriptions, and goals for science advice practices. Through this analysis we identify a plurality of interrelated prototypes of norms and values. Finally, we propose an acronym that integrates the analysed plurality of norms and values. As a mnemonic and communicative devise we call this ethos TRUST (Transparency, Robustness, Uncertainty management, Sustainability, and Transdisciplinarity) and propose TRUST as a nexus for future reflective negotiations of ambivalences in post-normal practices of science advice.
On climate change and other topics, conservatives have taken positions at odds with a strong scientific consensus. Claims that this indicates a broad conservative distrust of science have been countered by assertions that while conservatives might oppose the scientific consensus on climate change or evolution, liberals oppose scientists on some other domains such as vaccines. Evidence for disproportionately liberal bias against science on vaccines has been largely anecdotal, however. Here, we test this proposition of opposite biases using 2014 survey data from Oregon and New Hampshire. Across vaccine as well as climate change questions on each of these two surveys, we find that Democrats are most likely to say they trust scientists for information, and Tea Party supporters are least likely, contradicting the proposition of opposite bias. Moreover, partisan divisions tend to widen with education. Theoretical explanations that have been offered for liberal trust or conservative distrust of science in other specific domains such as climate change or environmental protection fit less well with these results on vaccines. Given the much different content of climate change and vaccine issues, the common political pattern appears more consistent with hypotheses of broader ideological divisions on acceptance of science.
Scientific results are always afflicted with some uncertainty, especially where emerging technologies are concerned. While there are normative and practical reasons to call for an open admission of scientific uncertainties, concerns about detrimental effects of such communication on public engagement with science have been raised in the literature. The present study was conducted to investigate how the communication of scientific uncertainty in nanotechnology influences laypeople’s interest in science and new technologies, beliefs about the nature of science, and trust in scientists. In a longitudinal field experiment, 945 participants were exposed to six real-world media reports (TV features and newspaper articles) on nanotechnology. Contrary to our expectations, the communication of scientific uncertainties was unable to change general beliefs about the nature of science. However, it had no detrimental effect on the trust in scientists, and with respect to interest in science and new technologies, slightly positive effects were observed.
In 1942 Robert K. Merton tried to demonstrate the structure of the normative system of science by specifying the norms that characterized it. The norms were assigned the abbreviation CUDOs: Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized skepticism. Using the results of an on-line survey of climate scientists concerning the norms of science, this paper explores the climate scientists' subscription to these norms. The data suggests that while Merton's CUDOs remain the overall guiding moral principles, they are not fully endorsed or present in the conduct of climate scientists: there is a tendency to withhold results until publication, there is the intention of maintaining property rights, there is external influence defining research and the tendency to assign the significance of authored work according to the status of the author rather than content of the paper. These are contrary to the norms of science as proposed by Robert K. Merton.
In recent years, some scholars, journalists, and science advocates have
promoted broad claims that ‘conservatives distrust science’
or ‘conservatives oppose science’. We argue that such claims
may oversimplify in ways that lead to empirical inaccuracies. The
Anti-Reflexivity Thesis suggests a more nuanced examination of how
political ideology influences views about science. The Anti-Reflexivity
Thesis hypothesizes that some sectors of society mobilize to defend the
industrial capitalist order from the claims of environmentalists and
some environmental scientists that the current economic system causes
serious ecological and public health problems. The Anti-Reflexivity
Thesis expects that conservatives will report significantly less trust
in, and support for, science that identifies environmental and public
health impacts of economic production (i.e., impact science) than
liberals. It also expects that conservatives will report a similar or
greater level of trust in, and support for, science that provides new
inventions or innovations for economic production (i.e., production
science) than liberals. Analyzing data from a recent survey experiment
with 798 adults recruited from the US general public, our results
confirm the expectations of the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis. Conservatives
report less trust in impact scientists but greater trust in production
scientists than their liberal counterparts. We argue that further work
that increases the accuracy and depth of our understanding of the
relationship between political ideology and views about science is
likely crucial for addressing the politicized science-based issues of
our age.
In this article, we use the case of a government scandal in Sweden to develop a theoretical perspective by which to understand the moral nature of political scandals. We draw on insights from Durkheim's sociology of morality and point, inter alia, to the ritual character of scandals. However, in contrast to most Durkheimian readings, the perspective presented does not presume the existence of a moral consensus. The scandal is understood as a confrontation between various systems of norms. Rather than confirming a given moral order, scandals provoke moral positioning and help in clarifying — and dramatizing — lines of difference or conflict. The empirical case studied is a government scandal in Sweden in 2006 (Nannygate) that forced two government ministers to resign after less than 10 days in office when it was revealed that they had not paid their TV licence and, moreover, had bought `black' (untaxed) services. This transgression provoked a massive public reaction at the time.
There is a growing divide in how conservatives and liberals in the USA understand the issue of global warming. Prior research suggests that the American public's reliance on partisan media contributes to this gap. However, researchers have yet to identify intervening variables to explain the relationship between media use and public opinion about global warming. Several studies have shown that trust in scientists is an important heuristic many people use when reporting their opinions on science-related topics. Using within-subject panel data from a nationally representative sample of Americans, this study finds that trust in scientists mediates the effect of news media use on perceptions of global warming. Results demonstrate that conservative media use decreases trust in scientists which, in turn, decreases certainty that global warming is happening. By contrast, use of non-conservative media increases trust in scientists, which, in turn, increases certainty that global warming is happening.
In mid‐November 2009, emails were removed without authorization from a University of East Anglia server and posted to the internet; within 24 h an international scandal was born—alleging fraud by leading climate scientists—which almost immediately became known as climategate. Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred. Despite the exonerations, however, the email controversy has had impacts, both negative and positive. On the negative side, a small minority of the American public and a somewhat larger minority of American TV news professionals—mostly political conservatives—indicated that the controversy made them more certain that climate change is not happening, and undermined their trust in climate scientists. Conservative organizations and politicians continue to cite the controversy in justifying their opposition to government action on climate change. On the positive side, the controversy impressed upon the climate science community the need for improved communication and public engagement efforts, and many individuals and organizations have begun to address these needs. It also reminded the climate science community of the importance of transparency, data availability, and strong quality assurance procedures, stimulating many organizations to review their data management practices. Although it is too soon to gauge the lasting legacy of the controversy, if the climate science community takes it as an opportunity to improve its already high standards of scientific conduct—as well as improve its less well‐developed approach to public engagement—the long‐term prognosis is good. WIREs Clim Change 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcc.168
This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice
A simulation study compared the performance of robust normal theory maximum likelihood (ML) and robust categorical least squares (cat-LS) methodology for estimating confirmatory factor analysis models with ordinal variables. Data were generated from 2 models with 2-7 categories, 4 sample sizes, 2 latent distributions, and 5 patterns of category thresholds. Results revealed that factor loadings and robust standard errors were generally most accurately estimated using cat-LS, especially with fewer than 5 categories; however, factor correlations and model fit were assessed equally well with ML. Cat-LS was found to be more sensitive to sample size and to violations of the assumption of normality of the underlying continuous variables. Normal theory ML was found to be more sensitive to asymmetric category thresholds and was especially biased when estimating large factor loadings. Accordingly, we recommend cat-LS for data sets containing variables with fewer than 5 categories and ML when there are 5 or more categories, sample size is small, and category thresholds are approximately symmetric. With 6-7 categories, results were similar across methods for many conditions; in these cases, either method is acceptable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
"Post-normal science" (PNS) has received much attention in recent years, but like many iconic concepts, it has attracted differing conceptualizations, applications, and implications, ranging from being a "cure-all" for democratic deficit to the key to achieving more sustainable futures. This editorial article introduces a Special Issue that takes stock of research on PNS and critically explores how such research may develop. Through reviewing the history and evolution of PNS, the authors seek to clarify the extant definitions, conceptualizations, and uses of PNS. The authors identify five broad areas of research on, or using, PNS which have developed over four decades. Their analysis suggests that the 1990s represent a symbolic watershed in the use of PNS terminology, when the concept was further developed and applied to highly complicated issues such as climate change. The authors particularly distinguish between uses of PNS as a normative prescription and as a practical method. Through this classification, they set out gaps and research questions arising. They then briefly summarize the Special Issue articles and consider their relationship to each other and the research questions raised by their analysis. They conclude by considering what the articles in this issue suggest for future theory building in PNS and related scholarship.
This article identifies four factors for consideration in norms-based research to enhance the predictive ability of theoretical models. First, it makes the distinction between perceived and collective norms and between descriptive and injunctive norms. Second, the article addresses the role of important moderators in the relationship between descriptive norms and behaviors, including outcome expectations, group identity, and ego involvement. Third, it discusses the role of both interpersonal and mass communication in normative influences. Lastly, it outlines behavioral attributes that determine susceptibility to normative influences, including behavioral ambiguity and the public or private nature of the behavior.
This paper investigates the influence of ideology on trust in scientists. We assume that during a pandemic, ideology is linked to levels of trust in scientists such that those espousing left- (vs. right-) wing beliefs trust the scientific profession more. We posit that the negative perception of scientists, a feature of right-wing narratives in the country of study, underlies this effect. Additionally, we argue that ideology has an indirect impact, via levels of trust in scientists, on beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine policy. To test these hypotheses, we conducted three studies (N = 1,155): one prepandemic study and two studies during a pandemic. The results confirmed the hypotheses; however, we observed varied effects at the outset of the pandemic versus later stages. The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion around the ideological underpinnings of trust in scientists and carry implications for public health measures.
Some scientific propositions are so well established that they are no longer debated by the relevant scientific community, such as the fact that greenhouse gas emissions are altering the Earth's climate. In many cases, such scientifically settled issues are nonetheless rejected by segments of the public. U.S. surveys have repeatedly shown that the rejection of scientific evidence across a broad range of domains is preferentially associated with rightwing or libertarian worldviews, with little evidence for rejection of scientific evidence by people on the political left. We report two preregistered representative surveys (each N > 1000) that (1) sought to explain this apparent political asymmetry and (2) continued the search for the rejection of scientific evidence on the political left. To address the first question, we focused on Merton's classic analysis of the norms of science, such as communism and universalism, which continue to be internalized by the scientific community but which are not readily reconciled with conservative values. Both studies show that people's political worldviews are associated with their attitudes towards those scientific norms, and that those attitudes predict people's acceptance of vaccinations and climate science. The norms of science may thus be in latent conflict with the worldviews of a substantial segment of the public. To address the second question, we examined people's views on the role of inheritance in determining people's intelligence, given that the belief in the power of learning and environmental factors to shape human development is a guiding principle of leftwing thought. We find no association between core measures of political worldviews and people's view of heritability of intelligence, although two subordinate constructs, nationalism and social dominance orientation, were associated with belief in heritability.
In Germany, science popularisation through public talks of scientists, public shows, museums, popular science magazines and even newspapers dates back to the 19th century. The post-war development of science communication in West Germany was characterised by the (modified) adoption of two Anglo- Saxon models: US science journalism leading to professionalisation of science journalism in the 1980s and the British public engagement approach in the second half of the 1990s. In both cases, charitable foundations played a key role. Science journalism in communist East Germany had an ideological mission and was therefore supported by the state but adopted the Western approach after German reunification in 1990. Since the 1960s, universities and other science organisations had already built a capacity for public relations that at first mainly targeted journalistic media but subsequently expanded towards events, face-to-face interactions and citizen science in the context of the new ‘engagement’ paradigm. Since the late 1990s, several interactive science centres that complemented traditional science museums were established. Science organisations, charitable foundations and the government contributed to the creation of a national science communication agency Wissenschaft im Dialog (WiD) that initiates and coordinates many activities. Scientific-technical controversies beginning in the 1970s provided a challenge for science communication. The current government supports public participation in science policy and citizen science.
A review of the events surrounding the Heinsberg Study in Germany and the lessons learned for open science practices and communications.
In debates about policy responses to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), arguers sometimes challenge the credibility of scientists by alleging that those scientists have been tainted by financial and political commitments – in short, that they are Corrupted Scientists. Arguers use this technique to both challenge and support the scientific consensus on AGW. This study undertakes a detailed discourse analysis of 20 U.S. Congressional Hearings to examine how arguers invoke the Corrupted Scientist archetype to make arguments, how others respond, and the implications of both for climate change communication and public perceptions of science and scientists. Although the archetype might help reveal corruption, it could also distort the public’s understanding of scientific disinterestedness by characterizing it as a matter of individual virtue rather than institutional safeguards (e.g. peer review). This distortion of disinterestedness presents three rhetorical challenges for science communicators and others.
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 Drummond, C., and B. Fischhoff. 2017. “Individuals with Greater Science Literacy and Education Have More Polarized Beliefs on Controversial Science Topics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences United States of America 114 (36):9587–9592. doi:10.1073/pnas.1704882114.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 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.
The meaning of objectivity in any specific setting reflects historically situated understandings of both science and self. Recently, various scientific fields have confronted growing mistrust about the replicability of findings, and statistical techniques have been deployed to articulate a “crisis of false positives.” In response, epistemic activists have invoked a decidedly economic understanding of scientists’ selves. This has prompted a scientific social movement of proposed reforms, including regulating disclosure of “backstage” research details and enhancing incentives for replication. We theorize that together, these events represent the emergence of a new formulation of objectivity. Statistical objectivity assesses the integrity of research literatures in the results observed in collections of studies rather than the methodological details of individual studies and thus positions meta-analysis as the ultimate arbiter of scientific objectivity. Statistical objectivity presents a challenge to scientific communities and raises new questions for sociological theory about tensions between quantification and expertise.
Although scientific controversies are resolved when the evidence favours one of the arguments, in fact many of these controversies that were resolved in the scientific field continue to circulate as real controversies in the social sphere and even in political debates. That is the case of the reality of climate change and the unproven connection between vaccines and autism. Such disputes are not purely ‘scientific’, they are formed around and structured by complex social interest. In addition, against the rigour of scientific research, now the Internet allows a wide diffusion of unconfirmed information. In this chapter, we will examine the controversy surrounding online videos. Almost 24% present controversies, mainly on vaccines, followed by climate change. However, nanotechnology has not come to the public agenda as a controversial issue. When scientific issues are presented as controversial, in most cases they do so from a political or social rather than from a scientific frame. User-generated content is most likely to introduce controversy. Future works might consider the relationship between the presence of science on the public agenda and the levels of controversy in online video.
Understanding public distrust of science is both theoretically and practically important. While previous research has focused on the association between political ideology and trust in science, it is at best an inconsistent predictor. This study demonstrates that two dimensions of political ideology—attitudes towards governments and corporations—can more precisely predict trust in science across issues. Using a survey in the United States and Germany on the science of climate change and genetically modified foods, we find that an individual’s trust in science varies across issues and that attitudes towards government and corporations are important predictors of this trust.
How do choices among information sources reinforce political differences on topics such as climate change? Environmental sociologists have observed large-scale and long-term impacts from news media and think-tank reports, while experimental science-communication studies detect more immediate effects from variations in supplied information. Applying generalized structural equation modeling to recent survey data, previous work is extended to show that political ideology, education and their interaction predict news media information choices in much the same way they predict opinions about climate change itself. Consequently, media information sources serve as intervening variables that can reinforce and, through their own independent effects, amplify existing beliefs about climate change. Results provide empirical support for selective exposure and biased assimilation as mechanisms widening political divisions on climate change in the United States. The findings fit with the reinforcing spirals framework suggesting partisan media strengthens climate change beliefs which then influences subsequent use of media.
A ‘heuristic’ is a method or rule for solving problems; in game theory it refers to a method for learning how to play. Such a rule is ‘adaptive’ if it is directed towards higher payoffs and is reasonably simple to implement. This article discusses a variety of such rules and the forms of equilibrium that they implement. It turns out that even sophisticated solution concepts, like subgame perfect equilibrium, can be achieved by relatively simple and intuitive methods.
A notable feature in the public framing of debates involving the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming are appeals to uncritical ‘positivist’ images of the ideal scientific method. Versions of Sir Karl Popper’s philosophy of falsification appear most frequently, featuring in many Web sites and broader media. This use of pop philosophy of science forms part of strategies used by critics, mainly from conservative political backgrounds, to manufacture doubt, by setting unrealistic standards for sound science, in the veracity of science of Anthropogenic Global Warming. It will be shown, nevertheless, that prominent supporters of Anthropogenic Global Warming science also often use similar references to Popper to support their claims. It will also be suggested that this pattern reflects longer traditions of the use of Popperian philosophy of science in controversial settings, particularly in the United States, where appeals to the authority of science to legitimize policy have been most common. It will be concluded that studies of the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming debate would benefit from taking greater interest in questions raised by un-reflexive and politically expedient public understanding(s) of the philosophy of science of both critics and supporters of the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
This paper describes a three and a half year study conducted over the course of the Apollo lunar missions with forty-two of the most prestigious scientists who studied the lunar rocks. The paper supports the Merton-E. Barber concept of sociological ambivalence, that social institutions reflect potentially conflicting sets of norms. The paper offers a set of counter-norms for science, arguing that if the norm of universalism is rooted in the impersonal character of science, an opposing counter-norm is rooted in the personal character of science. The paper also argues that not only is sociological ambivalence a characteristic of science, but it seems necessary for the existence and ultimate rationality of science.
Although modes of interaction between the two continue to evolve, society and science are inextricably linked. Preserving the integrity of science, and by extension society, in the era of Twitter and Facebook represents a significant challenge. The concept of open communication in science is not a new one. Sociologist and scientific historian Robert Merton elegantly chronicled the qualities, or “norms” of science as Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized Scepticism, referred to by the acronym “CUDOS.” Is social networking providing us with more efficient ways of upholding deep-rooted principles, or are we at risk of compromising the integrity of science by bypassing traditional gatekeepers?
This study explores time trends in public trust in science in the United States from 1974 to 2010. More precisely, I test Mooney’s (2005) claim that conservatives in the United States have become increasingly distrustful of science. Using data from the 1974 to 2010 General Social Survey, I examine group differences in trust in science and group-specific change in these attitudes over time. Results show that group differences in trust in science are largely stable over the period, except for respondents identifying as conservative. Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, and ended the period with the lowest. The patterns for science are also unique when compared to public trust in other secular institutions. Results show enduring differences in trust in science by social class, ethnicity, gender, church attendance, and region. I explore the implications of these findings, specifically, the potential for political divisions to emerge over the cultural authority of science and the social role of experts in the formation of public policy.
Science always evolves, responding to its leading challenges as they change through history. After centuries of triumph and
optimism, science is now called on to remedy the pathologies of the global industrial system of which it forms the basis.
Whereas science was previously understood as steadily advancing in the certainty of our knowledge and control of the natural
world, now science is seen as coping with many uncertainties in policy issues of risks and the environment. In response, new
styles of scientific activity are being developed. The reductionist, analytical world-view which divides systems into ever
smaller elements, studied by ever more esoteric specialties, is being replaced by a systemic, synthetic and humanistic approach.
The old dichotomies of facts and values, and of knowledge and ignorance, are being transcended. Natural systems are recognized
as dynamic and complex; those involving interactions with humanity are “emergent,” including properties of reflection and
contradiction. The science appropriate to this new condition will be based on the assumptions of unpredictability, incomplete
control, and a plurality of legitimate perspectives.
Scientists and 'anti-scientists' alike need a more realistic image of science. The traditional mode of research, academic science, is not just a 'method': it is a distinctive culture, whose members win esteem and employment by making public their findings. Fierce competition for credibility is strictly regulated by established practices such as peer review. Highly specialized international communities of independent experts form spontaneously and generate the type of knowledge we call 'scientific' - systematic, theoretical, empirically-tested, quantitative, and so on. Ziman shows that these familiar 'philosophical' features of scientific knowledge are inseparable from the ordinary cognitive capabilities and peculiar social relationships of its producers. This wide-angled close-up of the natural and human sciences recognizes their unique value, whilst revealing the limits of their rationality, reliability, and universal applicability. It also shows how, for better or worse, the new 'post-academic' research culture of teamwork, accountability, etc. is changing these supposedly eternal philosophical characteristics.
Science has recently faced a new challenge in that it must now provide itsbest knowledge to support the urgent policy-making concerning, e.g., risks oftechnology, environmental pollution, or the climate change. However, thisknowledge unfortunately often can host high uncertainties as the naturalsystems are complex. How to proceed when the facts given by the scientists arediverging and uncertain, while the decision-making is urgent? Funtowicz andRavetz (1992, 1993) argue that in this case traditional `Normal' science(described by Kuhn (1970)) becomes inappropriate and that science shouldbecome `Post-Normal' in order to more effectively cope with these contemporaryproblems. The philosophy, or methodology, of Post-Normal Science is brieflyintroduced and its corelation with the climate change issue, specifically withthe compilation process and summary content of the Second Assessment Report(SAR) from the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC, 1996a), is viewed. It seems that climate science around IPPCcan, to a relatively large extent, be characterized as `Post-Normal'.Moreover, results from some related studies indicate that the elements ofPost-Normal Science in the IPCC have enhanced the problem-solving in theclimate change issue.
Data from two national surveys of 4,000 faculty and doctoral students in chemistry, civil engineering, microbiology and sociology indicate that both faculty and students subscribe strongly to traditional norms but are more likely to see alternative counternorms enacted in their departments. They also show significant effects of departmental climate on normative orientations and suggest that many researchers express some degree of ambivalence about traditional norms.