Is Support for Outlawing Pornography Linked with Ignorance or Denial of Science?

Abstract

Despite the lack of scientific consensus on pornography’s relationship to addiction, sexual functioning, or violence, research has nevertheless documented the increasing deployment of scientific studies to argue that pornography constitutes a “public health crisis” and renew calls for sweeping anti-pornography legislation. This paradoxical situation suggests there may be a disconnect between the public’s actual scientific literacy or their willingness to acknowledge disconfirming scientific findings and their support for outlawing pornography. Data are drawn from the 2006–2014 General Social Surveys (N = 1225) which enable the use of a composite measure of Americans’ scores on a scientific knowledge test. Analyses show a modest, negative association between Americans’ scientific knowledge score and their desire to outlaw pornography. However, when questions are divided into religiously contested science questions and science questions that are not religiously contested, Americans’ scores on religiously contested scientific knowledge are the strongest (negative) predictor of support for outlawing pornography, while scores on uncontested scientific knowledge become non-significant. These findings are robust to controls for sociodemographic, political, and religious characteristics as well as different modeling strategies. Findings of this study suggest that Americans who support outlawing pornography are not necessarily ignorant of science compared with others but are far more likely to deny science that contradicts conservative cultural narratives about humans.