Science beliefs

How the public forms beliefs about scientific claims, what predicts acceptance or rejection of scientific consensus, and the mechanisms underlying anti-science attitudes across topics from climate change to vaccines to evolution.

Key papers

• Pennycook, Bago & McPhetres (2022) — Science beliefs, political ideology, and cognitive sophistication — Tests four competing accounts of science belief formation across diverse topics (climate, evolution, vaccines, GMOs, etc.); finds basic science knowledge and analytic thinking consistently predict pro-science beliefs more than political ideology; cognitive sophistication does not amplify polarization on climate change.
• Tappin, Pennycook & Rand (2021) — Rethinking the link between cognitive sophistication and identity-protective bias in political belief formation — Three experiments showing cognitive sophistication predicts accuracy but not reduced political polarization on science topics; challenges the theory that education amplifies ideological divides.
• Weisberg et al. (2021) — Knowledge about the nature of science increases public acceptance of science regardless of identity factors — Demonstrates that teaching about the scientific method and how science works increases acceptance of controversial findings independent of political identity, supporting knowledge-deficit over identity-protective accounts.
• Weiskrantz et al. (2018) — No Missing Link: Knowledge Predicts Acceptance of Evolution in the United States — Shows that science knowledge is the strongest predictor of evolution acceptance across political ideology.

Related topics

• identity-protective-cognition (mechanism driving belief divergence on some topics)
• anti-science (broader phenomenon of science rejection)
• science-literacy (knowledge and education as predictors of belief)
• motivated-reasoning (psychological mechanism often invoked to explain science attitude gaps)