Genesis or Evolution of Gender Differences? Worldview-Based Dilemmas in The Processing of Scientific Information.

Stephan Lewandowsky,Jan K Woike,Klaus Oberauer

doi:10.5334/joc.99

Abstract

Some issues that have been settled by the scientific community, such as evolution, the effectiveness of vaccinations, and the role of CO2 emissions in climate change, continue to be rejected by segments of the public. This rejection is typically driven by people’s worldviews, and to date most research has found that conservatives are uniformly more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals across a number of domains. We report a large (N > 1,000) preregistered study that addresses two questions: First, can we find science denial on the left? Endorsement of pseudoscientific complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) has been anecdotally cited as being more consonant with liberals than conservatives. Against this claim, we found more support for CAM among conservatives than liberals. Second, we asked how liberals and conservatives resolve dilemmas in which an issue triggers two opposing facets of their worldviews. We probed attitudes on gender equality and the evolution of sex differences—two constructs that may create conflicts for liberals (who endorse evolution but also equality) and conservatives (who endorse gender differences but are sceptical of evolution). We find that many conservatives reject both gender equality and evolution of sex differences, and instead embrace “naturally occurring” gender differences. Many liberals, by contrast, reject evolved gender differences, as well as naturally occurring gender differences, while nonetheless strongly endorsing evolution.

Highlights

There is no scientific debate about the fact that all species, including humans, evolved by a process of natural selection (Pew Research Center, 2015)
There is no debate in the medical community about the vast improvement to public health that has resulted from widespread childhood vaccinations (Whitney, Zhou, Singleton, & Schuchat, 2014)
Whereas 86% of scientists believe that childhood vaccinations should be mandatory, this view is only shared by 68% of the public (Pew Research Center, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

There is no scientific debate about the fact that all species, including humans, evolved by a process of natural selection (Pew Research Center, 2015). In American participants, the rejection of science is principally associated with rightwing or libertarian worldviews Whether it is climate change (e.g., Hamilton, 2011; Hamilton, Hartter, Lemcke-Stampone, Moore, & Safford, 2015; Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Oberauer, 2013), vaccinations (e.g., Hamilton, Hartter, & Saito, 2015; Kahan, Braman, Cohen, Gastil, & Slovic, 2010; Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Oberauer, 2013), evolution (e.g., Hamilton, 2015; Tom, 2018), genetically-modified organisms (e.g., Hamilton, 2015), or even nuclear energy (e.g., Hamilton, 2015), people on the political left trust scientists more on those issues and tend to accept the pertinent scientific findings more than their counterparts on the political right. D. Miller, Scott, & Okamoto, 2006; Tom, 2018), and via the association between religiosity and rightwing worldviews (Malka, Lelkes, Srivastava, Cohen, & Miller, 2012), this opposition will express itself when worldviews are measured to predict attitudes towards evolution

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion