Science Denial : Home

Recent examples of attacks on science such as climate change denial demonstrate the danger of attacks on science. However, the negative impacts of these attacks must be weighed against other considerations, including the freedom of speech and religious expression, and the assertion that some criticism is healthy for the scientific field. The viewpoints in this volume consider the impacts of attacks on science, whether these attacks can be stopped, and how they can be prevented. Readers will evaluate the role of the internet in propagating and legitimizing these attacks.

With science denial as a rising danger to public health, Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman analyze society's resistance to scientific evidence relating to health and safety, and the tools to combat these tendencies.Why do some parents decide not to vaccinate their children? Why do some people keep guns at home, despite ample evidence that doing so increases the risk of a gun-related injury? And why do people use antibiotics for illnesses that antibiotics cannot possibly alleviate? When it comes to health, manypeople believe that science is wrong, that the evidence is incomplete, and that unidentified hazards lurk everywhere.In Denying to the Grave, Sara Gorman and Jack Gorman explore the psychology of health science denial. Using several examples as case studies, they propose six key principles that may lead people to reject "accepted" health-related wisdom: the charismatic leader; fear of complexity; confirmationbias; fear of corporate and government conspiracies; causality and filling the ignorance gap; and the nature of risk prediction. This fully updated and expanded new edition of Denying to the Grave reviews the most recent research on health science denial, offering a brand new chapter on how thecontemporary "assault on science" waged by certain political administrations has eroded public trust in national health and science agencies, such as CDC, FDA, and EPA. Also new to this edition is a chapter investigating the relationship between health crises and misinformation, and what happens toscience denial amidst a global public health crisis. Finally, the book proposes a novel approach to counteracting misinformation and improving our ability to understand and accept scientific consensus.In an era in which trust in science has become more important, and yet more elusive, than ever before, Denying to the Grave sheds light on why we often choose to ignore scientific evidence, pointing the way toward a new understanding of how science should be conveyed to the public in order to savelives with existing knowledge and technology.

How we arrived in a post-truth era, when "alternative facts" replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world, where "alternative facts" replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of "fake news," from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into "information silos." What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples--claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote--and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism--specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth--in its attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.

How do individuals decide whether to accept human causes of climate change, vaccinate their children, or wear a mask during a pandemic? In Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It, psychologists Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer identify the problem of science denial and offer toolsfor addressing it. The authors focus on key psychological issues such as social identity and reasoning biases that limit a public understanding of science--and describe solutions for individuals, educators, science communicators, and policy makers. For those who wonder why science denial exists andhow to combat it, this book provides crucial insights.

This book reveals how embedded beliefs more so than a lack of scientific knowledge and understanding are creating a cognitive bias toward information that coincides with personal beliefs rather than scientific consensus--and that this anti-science bias exists among liberals as well as conservatives. In 2010, an outbreak of whooping cough in California infected more than 8,000 people, resulting in the hospitalization of more than 800 people and the death of 10 infants. In 2015, an outbreak of the measles in Disneyland infected more than 125 people. Both the whooping cough and the measles are vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) that have been largely nonexistent in the United States for decades. As these cases demonstrate, individuals who prioritize ideology or personal beliefs above scientific consensus can impinge on society at large--and they illustrate how rejecting science has unfortunate results for public health and for the environment. When Ideology Trumps Science examines how proponents of scientific findings and the scientists responsible for conducting and communicating the applicable research to decision makers are encountering direct challenges to scientific consensus. Using examples from high-stakes policy debates centered on hot-button controversies such as climate change, GMO foods, immunization, stem cell research, abstinence-only education, and birth control, authors Wolters and Steel document how the contested nature of contemporary perspectives on science leads to the possibility that policymakers will not take science into account when making decisions that affect the general population. In addition, the book identifies ways in which liberals and conservatives have both contested issues of science when consensus diverges from their ideological positions and values. It is a compelling must-read for public policy students and practitioners. Provides readers with a clear understanding of how ideology and personal values supersede scientific consensus for people across the political spectrum Identifies key indicators of support for or opposition to current science-policy conflicts Explains how disagreement on issues such as climate change and vaccination results in inaction on these policy issues and negatively affects human and environmental health at the local, regional, national, and global levels Offers insights that may serve to break through the barriers of policy inaction caused by disagreement with scientific consensus