At Mind Matters News: Researchers: If we tell folks more about science, they trust less

_{Denyse O'Leary

July 20, 2022

Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science}

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Part 3: The researchers argue that doubts about science arise from conflict with beliefs. The many COVID-19 debacles suggest other causes…

“It may not be researchers’ fault that “the science” was grievously misrepresented by others. But they still have a lot of ground to make up with the thoughtful proportion of the public. And the next insight shared is hardly going to help: “Counterintuitively, increasing someone’s general scientific literacy can actually backfire, because it provides the skill to better bolster their pre-existing beliefs. Increasing scientific reasoning and media literacy skills, prebunking, or inoculating people against misinformation are advised instead, as is framing information in line with what matters to your audience and using relatable personal experiences. – Tessa Koumondoros, “These 4 Factors Can Explain Why So Many People Are Rejecting Science” at Sciencealert (July 16, 2022) The paper requires a fee or subscription.”
This sounds so much like: Don’t rely on telling people how to think about science; try “inoculating people against misinformation” which, in the context, sounds like: Come up with more convincing propaganda.
The trouble is, the COVID pandemic was practically a laboratory experiment in watching claims about science self-destruct. People who noticed probably won’t forget. And their science literacy may well have increased in a way no one anticipated: a much deeper agnosticism about claims made in science’s name.
News, “Researchers: If we tell folks more about science, they trust less” at Mind Matters News (July 20, 2022)

Takehome: Generally, the remedy for loss of trust after widespread failures is reform of the system, not reform of its doubters. Post-COVID, scientists should take heed.

Note: The paper itself, which requires a subscription, is “Why are people antiscience, and what can we do about it?” by Aviva Philipp-Muller, Spike W. S. Lee, and Richard E. Petty, July 12, 2022, PNAS 119 (30) e2120755119 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120755119

Here are Parts 1 and 2:

Why many now reject science… do you really want to know? COVID demonstrated — as nothing else could — that the “science” was all over the map and didn’t help people avoid panic. As the panic receded, the government started setting up a disinformation board to target NON-government sources of panic, thus deepening loss of trust.

and

Researchers: Distrust of science is due to tribal loyalty. In Part 2 of 4, we look at a claim arising from a recent study: We blindly believe those we identify with, ignoring the wisdom of science. There seems to be no recognition that researchers, however fiercely competitive among themselves, also have a tribal loyalty that skews their judgment.

Comments

JH, there is a real world and answers will come to reasonable issues in due time. on moral government as on matters of any hard question, a race of the finite, fallible, morally struggling and too often ill willed, stubborn and quarrelsome will have different opinions. That does not mean there are no objective first duties and principles, nor that there are no knowable, objective moral truths. Such was shown above, just side stepped as usual by the same ones unmoved by the exposure of fatal flaws of evolutionary materialistic scientism, relativism, subjectivism and emotivism. As for debates over thine and mine c C17 - 19, both cultures had flaws. Both, had to be corrected over slavery. That power, fraud or cleverness should be used at will to seize from the other is clearly unsupportable and unsustainable; it creates a war of all against all, undermining civil society; modified only by clans bonding together. So, reforms were indicated and "worked well" is tendentious nonsense intended simply to discredit the despised other. KFkairosfocus_{July 24, 2022
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Seversky
If you cannot derive “ought” from “is” then morality is inevitably subjective, even if your source is God.
Objective moral values begin with an adherence to the truth. This is a value you insist upon and which you expect of others. But more importantly, it is not subjective. It's an objective moral value that cannot be denied or overturned. It comes with its own rewards and punishments.Silver Asiatic_{July 24, 2022
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JH at 58, You belong to a tribal group. That's right. There are certain groups of people that are on pedestals right now because of that group. Indigenous people. Black people. And the most recent addition, Asians, who aren't working out as well as Black people. Indigenous people just popped into existence from nowhere one day? I need to bring that up because in North America, there is some evidence that they migrated to the Continent from Asia. They, being indigenous, means they are pure and not at all like White Europeans. That they had certain concepts of property that differed from Europeans was partly due to their nomadic lives. They were just as intelligent as White Europeans, they just lacked many manufactured items. And what does that have to do with morality? How I handle my personal property is not a moral problem unless I actually steal what is not mine.relatd_{July 24, 2022
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I notice that KF and Relatd are not capable of answering the question I posed at 58. There are examples of two systems that were in existence for centuries with incompatible moral values around personal property. Which one is objectively true? And why? Your refusal to answer speaks volumes.JHolo_{July 24, 2022
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JH at 58, Are you trying to convince yourself? Of what? Whenever anyone tells you that there are moral values and where they come from, you appear to shrug and say or imply that 'I'll just go my merry way' while promoting what I believe you know to be deviant sexual behavior. You can't say no to this and yes to something else.relatd_{July 24, 2022
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JH at 57, Do you - or anyone reading - need the Government involved in every decision you make? I'll answer: NO - rarely. Pornography is always bad. There's no excuse for it. None. I've read about young women who got involved in porn, were badly treated, put on or were already involved with illegal drugs and used and abused. They regretted all of it. Too bad? Right? Young women need guidance - good and rational guidance. Not 'porn is no big deal' or 'just another job.' You know, something to be indifferent about. Those women are our neighbors not individual, impersonal units. They are human beings. If the words dignity and respect mean anything then porn is the exact opposite. It's wrong. Always.relatd_{July 24, 2022
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Seversky at 54, When did you become a Bible scholar? You seem to see only what you want to see. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Where did these "self-evident" truths come from? The Creator mentioned was not space aliens.relatd_{July 24, 2022
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JH at 51, A poor attempt. Really bad. "Man invents himself." He invents his own morality. He invents his body. He invents his identity. 'Today, I am a man, woman, none of the above.' That's your rule? Your standard? The majority is in charge - always. But not because they have "power' - that ugly word, but because they have the truth. There are only so many mix and match combinations of things man can do. No more. Community standards exist. For you to say otherwise ignores that and ignores the truth. In the 1950s and 1960s, those who wanted to have sex with whoever did whatever in private. By the end of the 1960s, the Bad Examples were in our neighborhoods living and behaving badly.relatd_{July 24, 2022
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PPS, I may pick up further points later, such as that the chaotic nature of evils is a sign of that character. For the moment, Vaughn on subjectivism, relativism and emotivism:
Excerpted chapter summary, on Subjectivism, Relativism, and Emotivism, in Doing Ethics 3rd Edn, by Lewis Vaughn, W W Norton, 2012. [Also see here and here.] Clipping: . . . Subjective relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one approves of it. A person’s approval makes the action right. This doctrine (as well as cultural relativism) is in stark contrast to moral objectivism, the view that some moral principles are valid for everyone.. Subjective relativism, though, has some troubling implications. It implies that each person is morally infallible and that individuals can never have a genuine moral disagreement Cultural relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one’s culture approves of it. The argument for this doctrine is based on the diversity of moral judgments among cultures: because people’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture, right and wrong must be relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles. This argument is defective, however, because the diversity of moral views does not imply that morality is relative to cultures. In addition, the alleged diversity of basic moral standards among cultures may be only apparent, not real. Societies whose moral judgments conflict may be differing not over moral principles but over nonmoral facts. Some think that tolerance is entailed by cultural relativism. But there is no necessary connection between tolerance and the doctrine. Indeed, the cultural relativist cannot consistently advocate tolerance while maintaining his relativist standpoint. To advocate tolerance is to advocate an objective moral value. But if tolerance is an objective moral value, then cultural relativism must be false, because it says that there are no objective moral values. Like subjective relativism, cultural relativism has some disturbing consequences. It implies that cultures are morally infallible, that social reformers can never be morally right, that moral disagreements between individuals in the same culture amount to arguments over whether they disagree with their culture, that other cultures cannot be legitimately criticized, and that moral progress is impossible. Emotivism is the view that moral utterances are neither true nor false but are expressions of emotions or attitudes. It leads to the conclusion that people can disagree only in attitude, not in beliefs. People cannot disagree over the moral facts, because there are no moral facts. Emotivism also implies that presenting reasons in support of a moral utterance is a matter of offering nonmoral facts that can influence someone’s attitude. It seems that any nonmoral facts will do, as long as they affect attitudes. Perhaps the most far-reaching implication of emotivism is that nothing is actually good or bad. There simply are no properties of goodness and badness. There is only the expression of favorable or unfavorable emotions or attitudes toward something.
PPPS, on objective, knowable moral truth in general, as a first proof that refutes your assertions, with help of a light dusting of Algebra:
Objective, so know-able moral truth is widely denied in our day, for many it isn't even a remotely plausible possibility. And yet, as we will shortly see, it is undeniably true; as is so for other reasonably identifiable fields of discussion. This marginalisation of moral knowledge, in extreme form, is a key thesis of the nihilism that haunts our civilisation, which we must detect, expose to the light of day, correct and dispel, in defence of civilisation and human dignity. Let a proposition be represented by x M = x is a proposition asserting that some state of affairs regarding right conduct, duty/ought, virtue/honour, good/evil etc (i.e. the subject is morality) is the case [--> truth claim] O = x is objective and generally knowable, being adequately warranted as credibly true [--> notice, generally knowable per adequate warrant, as opposed to widely acknowledged] It is claimed, cultural relativism thesis: S= ~[O*M] = 1
[ NB: Plato, The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC, in the voice of Athenian Stranger: "[Thus, the Sophists and other opinion leaders etc -- c 430 BC on, hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made." This IMPLIES the Cultural Relativism Thesis, by highlighting disputes (among an error-prone and quarrelsome race!), changing/varied opinions, suggesting that dominance of a view in a place/time is a matter of balance of factions/rulings, and denying that there is an intelligible, warranted natural law. Of course, subjectivism then reduces the scale of "community" to one individual. He continues, "These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might . . . " [--> door opened to nihilistic factionalism]]
However, the subject of S is M, it therefore claims to be objectively true, O, and is about M where it forbids O-status to any claim of type-M so, ~[O*M] cannot be true per self referential incoherence [--> reductio ad absurdum] ++++++++++ ~[O*M] = 0 [as self referential and incoherent cf above] ~[~[O*M]] = 1 [the negation is therefore true] __________ O*M = 1 [condensing not of not] where, M [moral truth claim] So too, O [if an AND is true, each sub proposition is separately true] That is, there UNDENIABLY are objective moral truths; and a first, self-evident one is that ~[O*M] is false. The set is non empty, it is not vacuous and we cannot play empty set square of opposition games with it. That’s important.
A first step.kairosfocus_{July 24, 2022
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JH, I hardly need to but note how your no evidence dismissal and assertion that in effect reduction to vicarious prostitution, sex trafficking etc claim that I fail duties to truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence etc. You are willfully blind to pervasive first duties and as a direct result are trapped in selectively hyperskeptical, crooked yardstick thinking. KF PS, not all slave masters were abusive. Not all were white, either. (At emancipation in Jamaica 1/4 of slaves it seems were owned by non white people, as shown from the GBP 20 million govt buyout of the slaves in the Caribbean, to emancipate them.) I hope you see the direct parallel on sex trafficking and for that matter drugs trafficking. What is inherently disordered and corrupt needs to be reformed, regardless of whether some do not experience the full force of said corruption.kairosfocus_{July 24, 2022
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KF: PS, you know that morality is not subjective, which is a self-refuting, incoherent view.
In spite of the fact that there is no evidence that objective moral values exist.
Start with, you deny and disapprove as imagined false, the raising of objective standards.
I have no problem with the raising of subjective values based on objective evidence. There is objective evidence that violence and stealing conflict with the stable functioning of society. Therefore we subjectively raise the standards that violence and stealing are not acceptable. That does not make them objective standards. Perhaps a real world example will help. One of the stereotypes that the early Europeans to North America concluded about the indigenous peoples was that they were thieves. And there was plenty of evidence to support this. But the indigenous people did not have the same concept of personal property that the Europeans had. The indigenous concept worked well in their society and the European concept worked well in their’s. So, which one is objectively correct.JHolo_{July 24, 2022
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KF: JH, you are in denial about what has been going on for decades. Abuse and human trafficking are not freedom, they undermine it.
You are assuming that all women involved in porn have a similar story to LL. This simply is not true. I am sure that many regret their decisions later in life, but that doesn’t mean that they should be banned from making these decisions. There are some decisions I made early in life that I now regret, but part of freedom is the freedom to make bad decisions. It is not the government’s job to protect us from all bad decisions, only to protect us from bad decisions made by others that will harm us or others.JHolo_{July 24, 2022
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PPS, First the imagined conflict is readily resolved by the do no harm to neighbour premise of justice. But secondly, neither is a framing of first moral principles. On its own terms, the Bill of Rights is a yardstick enumeration on what the Federal state must respect, growing in Common Law soil that traces to Alfred's Book of Dooms, which literally begins with a paraphrase of the Decalogue cast in C8 Anglo Saxon terms. So, one of your alleged opponents starts from the premise of the other. Secondly, going to first duties, we may readily recognise that Cicero put his finger on something in identifying what we may summarise as first, pervasive, branch on which we all sit duties. To wit:
1st – to truth, 2nd – to right reason, 3rd – to prudence [including warrant], 4th – to sound conscience, 5th – to neighbour; so also, 6th – to fairness and 7th – to justice [ . . .] xth – etc.
Those who attempt to deny in fact inevitably appeal to what they would overturn. PPPS, of course, duty to neighbour, through do no harm not only leads to fairness and justice, due balance of rights, freedoms, duties, but it is actually stated in the scriptures you would dismiss, that neighbour love, with its do no harm import, undergirds the sorts of specific commands in the decalogue or in the context of Lev 19:9 - 18, lays out yardsticks for community and court. Try "You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind" and "You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor."kairosfocus_{July 24, 2022
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Sev, you forget, there is the possibility of an is that inherently embraces ought. Further to that, we have the evidence of your own attempted objection, that in trying to overturn first duties to truth, right reason, warrant etc, you cannot but appeal to same. That gives us good reason to see that the rational, responsible freedom required for credibility of mind and its products, entails that we can know to self evidence that we are morally governed. This constrains candidate roots of reality as only there can is and ought be bridged. The root, then, will be inherently good and utterly wise as well as powerful source of worlds. KF PS, your disguised admission that you have no appeal beyond opinion on the judicial murder of Milada Horakova or the kidnapping, sexual torture and murder of a child, speaks telling volumes on the bankruptcy of evolutionary materialistic scientism. A view that, indeed, has in it no root level is that inherently embraces ought..kairosfocus_{July 24, 2022
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If you cannot derive "ought" from "is" then morality is inevitably subjective, even if your source is God. That the vast majority of us would find a show trial held to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the murder of a political opponent to be completely immoral or would be appalled at the murder of a child does not make that any the less a collection of individual subjective opinions. What is significant is that the vast majority would agree and that consensus is the foundation of our morals. One problem for the objective moralists is whether the Ten Commandments or the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution is the primary source of morality because they are in conflict in several areas.Seversky_{July 23, 2022
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PS, you know that morality is not subjective, which is a self-refuting, incoherent view. Start with, you deny and disapprove as imagined false, the raising of objective standards. In short, as usual, you cannot but appeal to first duties of reason even as you try to overthrow them; inadvertently revealing their pervasive, first principle character. Go on to the implications of "they are not behaving immorally based on their moral values": were the investigators, prosecutors and judges who framed, put up a show trial and judicially murdered Milada Horakova and others just by their own lights so they were not profoundly and catastrophically unjust? I think the people of the Czech Republic would like to have a word with you. So would the father and family of an eight year old kidnapped, sexually tortured and murdered by a monster.kairosfocus_{July 23, 2022
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JH, you are in denial about what has been going on for decades. Abuse and human trafficking are not freedom, they undermine it. The real story of the woman known as Linda Lovelace is a first point of truth on the matter. KFkairosfocus_{July 23, 2022
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Relatd: Consenting immorality is still immoral.
Since morality is subjective, they are not behaving immorally based on their moral values.JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH at 49, The "gosh, we don't know what it is" approach? Seriously? Not credible. Consenting immorality is still immoral. It lowers community standards.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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KF: Promoters of the notion that sexual exploitation for vicarious prostitution and human trafficking [= sex slavery] are free speech should pay the price of being enablers of destructive abuse.
Where did I suggest that they were? You need to be aware of the true story of the exploited woman known as Linda Lovelace in the 1970’s. KF
I am well aware of it. And, if true, what was done to her was illegal then and is illegal now. But we are talking about consenting adults permitting depictions of their sexual acts (pictures and videos) being distributed to other consenting adults. We are not talking about the morality of this, we are talking about whether or not it is protected by the 1st amendment. Obscenity is not protected by the 1st, but obscenity is a subjective determination. That is why the SCOTUS has had problems applying porn rulings based on this.JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH, twisted silliness. One is not free to shout fire without cause in a crowded theatre, nor to defame [though US law is notoriously bad], or to commit fraud etc etc. Promoters of the notion that sexual exploitation for vicarious prostitution and human trafficking [= sex slavery] are free speech should pay the price of being enablers of destructive abuse. You need to be aware of the true story of the exploited woman known as Linda Lovelace in the 1970's. KF PS, and yet again you are found dragging a thread off track into the sewer. That says something, and enough is enough. PPS, this sounds far too much like pushing party line indoctrination, from OP:
“Counterintuitively, increasing someone’s general scientific literacy can actually backfire, because it provides the skill to better bolster their pre-existing beliefs. [--> which may not fit the approved narrative, often, for cause] Increasing scientific reasoning and media literacy skills, prebunking, or inoculating people against misinformation [--> notice, loaded language, typically used in circumstances where the preferred narrative is lacking in actual warrant] are advised instead, as is framing information [--> = twisting, which eventually exposes one as unreliable or deceitful] in line with what matters to your audience and using relatable personal experiences.
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JH at 46, WE, meaning normal people, did not demand Adult Bookstores in our neighborhoods in the 1970s. After they appeared, we protested. But those involved had the money and lawyers to keep normal people away from their businesses that marketed moral poison. Who made this legal? Freedom? No, not at all. Slavery to the flesh was their purpose.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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Relatd: So, in that context, consent just means permission, again.
Which is the foundation of freedom. Permitting something is not the same as condoning or advocating. We permit white supremists to voice their views. But the vast majority of us do not condone them or advocate for them.JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH at 44, Let's now turn to the "consenting." Normal people did not demand Adult Bookstores in their neighborhoods in the 1970s. Our consent was obviously not required. So, in that context, consent just means permission, again. In the 1950s and 1960s, private sexual activity was never a topic of conversation among normal, moral people. I'm sure it was among those who practiced immoral sexual lifestyles. So, Adult Bookstores were opened everywhere to see how many normal people they could bring in. Sad.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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Relatd: Intrinsic evil.
If consenting adults want to record their sexual acts and distribute them to other consenting adults, what is intrinsically evil about this? It is not my cup of tea, but I don’t see any valid reason to ban it.JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH at 42, Intrinsic evil.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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Relatd: Pornography needs to be banned..
On what grounds?JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH at 40, Back to 'the legal.' I don't live in your worldview. Pornography needs to be banned. Just like my mom and other moms got rid of those Playboys in the 1960s. One moment, that box was there and in the next, it disappeared.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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Relatd@39, then amend your constitution.JHolo_{July 23, 2022
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JH at 38, I believe in censorship. Pornography is not "I know it when I see it," it's an intrinsic evil. What you call truth I call permission. Permission for sexual perverts to run amok. To pollute entire neighborhoods with their filthy lifestyles. To distort, and exploit, the truth about feminine beauty. And those behind this? Nameless, and faceless for the most part. And like cockroaches, they prefer to hide in dark corners. For all reading, let's get a few things straight. Here is how words and terms are changed to make them only seem different from what they really are. Stripper - not Exotic Dancer. Prostitute - not Sex Worker. SLAVERY - not Human Trafficking or Sex Trafficking.relatd_{July 23, 2022
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