Adapting to a Warmer Climate of Scientific Communication

Abstract

In a recent article in Mother Jones, science writer Chris Mooney (2013) noted how climate skeptics and evolution deniers have joined forces. Mooney (2013) laid out a number of hypotheses for this alliance. We argue that it is time evolutionists and climate scientists join forces in promoting the public understanding and acceptance of science. When we talk to evolutionary biologists about the unchanging proportion of the US population that accepts evolution (consistently lower than 50 percent over many decades), we get two basic responses: the deficit model and religious objections. The deficit model presupposes that students simply lack relevant scientific knowledge (i.e., they have a knowledge deficit). If people would just learn more about evolution, as this line of reasoning goes, they would become more accepting of it. It is true that evolution understanding is poor. However, the relationship between knowledge and acceptance is not that straightforward. In his article, Mooney (2013) cited research showing that more knowledge about climate change does not necessarily translate into greater acceptance, and the same is true of evolution (Sinatra et al. 2003). The view that the problem is merely a knowledge deficit is simply incorrect. Much more can and should be done to overcome knowledge deficits, but objections to science cannot be solved by following the recipe just add knowledge. If religious beliefs are standing in the way of closing the knowledge gap, the argument goes, and changing people’s beliefs is outside our purview, we really cannot do much to move the needle of acceptance. However, this creates a tautology: We cannot change beliefs, but beliefs stand in the way of gaining knowledge; knowledge gaps must be overcome to change beliefs, and around and around it goes. Actually, a large number of world religions accept science and scientific views on biological evolution. Many individuals who are on the fence are there because they mistakenly think that they have to become a nonbeliever to accept science. There are many students looking for what Sherry Southerland calls “a place to stand” that allows them to remain a person of faith and still accept the realities of our natural world (see Southerland and Scharmann 2013). Recently, a gathering of over 40 psychologists, science educators, and evolutionary biologists began to explore just what it is about evolution that makes it so vexing to teach and learn (see Rosengren et al. 2012). Briefly, some of the barriers to learning that we uncovered include conflicts with intuitive ideas, difficulty in overcoming misconceptions, the conceptual complexity of the information, challenges to an individual’s identity, and the emotional and motivational hurdles that students must overcome. These challenges are not unique to evolution. And although evolutionary biologists have been struggling to recognize and confront these barriers for nearly 100 years, another group of scientists has begun to tackle them head on with a sense of urgency: climate scientists. It is worth examining these shared challenges in more detail.