<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><h2 class="date-header">May 29, 2012</h2>
<h3 class="entry-header">Study rules out stupidity as a cause of disbelief in climate science</h3>
<blockquote><div>And the Yale research published today reveals that if
Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical
reasoning it would still result in a gap between public and scientific
consensus.</div><div>Indeed, as members of the public become more science
literate and numerate, the study found, individuals belonging to
opposing cultural groups become even more divided on the risks that
climate change poses.</div><div>Funded by the National Science Foundation,
the study was conducted by researchers associated with the Cultural
Cognition Project at Yale Law School and involved a nationally
representative sample of 1500 U.S. adults.</div><div>"The aim of the study
was to test two hypotheses," said Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard
Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School and a
member of the study team. "The first attributes political controversy
over climate change to the public's limited ability to comprehend
science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values. The
findings supported the second hypothesis and not the first," he said.</div><div>"Cultural
cognition" is the term used to describe the process by which
individuals' group values shape their perceptions of societal risks. It
refers to the unconscious tendency of people to fit evidence of risk to
positions that predominate in groups to which they belong. </div><div>The
results of the study were consistent with previous studies that show
that individuals with more egalitarian values disagree sharply with
individuals who have more individualistic ones on the risks associated
with nuclear power, gun possession, and the HPV vaccine for school
girls.</div></blockquote>
<div><small>via <a href="http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/44455">www.enn.com</a></small></div></div></body></html>