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Tales of the tone deaf: Doubt of science authorities as social deviance

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This is becoming an anthology. From Joshua C. Tom at Sociological Perspectives:

Social Origins of Scientific Deviance: Examining Creationism and Global Warming Skepticism

Abstract: Scientific communities maintain respected authority on matters related to the natural world; however, there are instances where significant portions of the population hold beliefs contrary to the scientific consensus. These beliefs have generally been studied as the product of scientific illiteracy. This project reframes the issue as one of social deviance from the consensus of scientific communities. Using young-earth creationism and global warming skepticism as case studies, I suggest that consensus perception in light of public scientific deviance is a valuable dialectical framework, and demonstrate its utility using logistic regression analyses of the 2006 Pew Religion and Public Life Survey. Believing there is no scientific consensus is one of the most important factors in predicting scientifically deviant beliefs, along with political and religious effects, eclipsing education. The inability of consensus perception to explain all variation in scientific deviance lends further credence to the framework, suggesting future directions in the study of this phenomenon. (paywall) More.

Translation from the jargon: The deviants do not accept that Science Has Spoken. They give themselves the right to peacefully hold different opinions from the Consensus.

One may well find that people who live in constitutional democracies assume—for whatever reason—that such peaceful deviance is their right.

One wonders, who and what will Fix that?

By the way, do our news tipsters all just happen to be wandering around in the same park this weekend or is there more of this tone-deaf stuff around nowadays than there used to be?

Hmm. Open a file. Let’s see how long it takes us to gather enough items for an anthology.

See also: Another tale of the tone deaf: Creationism and naturalism are both wrong Well no, there is one important difference.

and

Parents questioning curricula? Must be “anti-science” at work

Comments
Folks, Science advances by warrant, not by conformity to a consensus of the guild in any given day. Nor, can science impose what is self-referentially incoherent by fiat and do anything but in the end undermine its own credit. Haldane:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
KFkairosfocus
July 5, 2017
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>Believing there is no scientific consensus is one of the most important factors in predicting scientifically deviant beliefs Oh I agree that there is a scientific consensus. I just don't agree with it. Ooooooh I'm a deviant! (Sort of like a 60's radical, but I smell better and have shorter hair.) 8-)EDTA
July 3, 2017
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Not really worried about this one. The crazy academics called "sociologists" have been so far off the rails for so many decades that nobody listens to them. Even governments don't hire Sociologists as advisers. I'm more worried when the more fashionable types of crazy academics say this sort of thing.polistra
July 3, 2017
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