scholarly journals Information Easiness Affects Non-experts’ Evaluation of Scientific Claims About Which They Hold Prior Beliefs

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Scharrer ◽  
Rainer Bromme ◽  
Marc Stadtler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Deep Level ◽  
Text Difficulty ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
Scientific Issue ◽  
Scientific Claims ◽  
Argumentative Texts

Usually, non-experts do not possess sufficient deep-level knowledge to make fully informed evaluations of scientific claims. Instead, they depend on pertinent experts for support. However, previous research has shown that the easiness by which textual information on a scientific issue can be understood seduces non-experts into overlooking their evaluative limitations. The present study examined whether text easiness affects non-experts’ evaluation of scientific claims even if they possess prior beliefs about the accuracy of these claims. Undergraduates who strongly believed that climate change is anthropogenic read argumentative texts that were either easy or difficult to understand and that supported a claim either consistent or inconsistent with their beliefs. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that text easiness affects non-experts’ judgment of scientific claims about which they hold prior beliefs—but only when these claims are in accordance with their beliefs. It seems that both text difficulty and belief inconsistency remind non-experts of their own limitations.

The Fight Against Doubt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín ◽  
Kristen Intemann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Vaccine Safety ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Scientific Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Scientific Claims

Current debates about climate change or vaccine safety provide an alarming illustration of the potential impacts of dissent about scientific claims. False beliefs about evidence and the conclusions that can be drawn from it are commonplace, as is corrosive doubt about the existence of widespread scientific consensus. Deployed aggressively and to political ends, ill-founded dissent can intimidate scientists, stymie research, and lead both the public and policymakers to oppose important policies firmly rooted in science. To criticize dissent is, however, a fraught exercise. Skepticism and fearless debate are key to the scientific process, making it both vital and incredibly difficult to characterize and identify dissent that is problematic in its approach and consequences. Indeed, as de Melo-Martín and Intemann show, the criteria commonly proposed as means of identifying inappropriate dissent are flawed, and the strategies generally recommended to tackle such dissent are not only ineffective but could even make the situation worse. The Fight against Doubt proposes that progress on this front can best be achieved by enhancing the trustworthiness of the scientific community and being more realistic about the limits of science when it comes to policymaking. It shows that a richer understanding is needed of the context in which science operates so as to disarm problematic dissent and those who deploy it in the pursuit of their goals.

Changing minds about climate change: a pervasive role for domain-general metacognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manos Tsakiris ◽  
Neza Vehar ◽  
Stephen M Fleming ◽  
Sophie De Beukelaer ◽  
Max Rollwage
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Negative Evidence ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Face ◽  
Metacognitive Abilities ◽  
Insight Into

Updating one’s beliefs about the causes and effects of climate change is crucial for altering attitudes and behaviours. Importantly, metacognitive abilities - insight into the (in)correctness of one’s beliefs- play a key role in the formation of polarized beliefs. We investigated the role of domain-general and domain-specific metacognition in updating prior beliefs about climate change across the spectrum of climate change scepticism. We also considered the role of how climate science is communicated in the form of textual or visuo-textual presentations. We show that climate change scepticism is associated with differences in domain-general as well as domain-specific metacognitive abilities. Moreover, domain-general metacognitive sensitivity influenced belief updating in an asymmetric way : lower domain-general metacognition decreased the updating of prior beliefs, especially in the face of negative evidence. Our findings highlight the role of metacognitive failures in revising erroneous beliefs about climate change and point to their adverse social effects.

scholarly journals Restructuring of genomic provinces of surface ocean plankton under climate change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Frémont ◽  
Marion Gehlen ◽  
Mathieu Vrac ◽  
Jade Leconte ◽  
Patrick Wincker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Niche Theory ◽  
Surface Ocean ◽  
Warming Scenario ◽  
Scale Modeling ◽  
Scientific Issue ◽  
Physico Chemical ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe impact of climate change on diversity, functioning and biogeography of marine plankton is a major unresolved scientific issue. Here, niche theory is applied on plankton metagenomes sampled during the Tara Oceans expedition to derive pan-ocean geographical structuring in climato-genomic provinces characterized by signature genomes for 6 size fractions, from viruses to meso-zooplankton. Assuming a high warming scenario (RCP8.5), the identified tropical provinces would expand and temperate provinces would shrink. Poleward shifts are projected for 96% of provinces in five major basins leading to their reorganization over ~50% of the surface ocean south of 60°N, of which 3% correspond to novel assemblages of provinces. Sea surface temperature is identified as the main driver and accounts only for ~51 % of the changes followed by phosphate (11%) and salinity (10.3%). These results demonstrate the potential of integration of genomics with physico-chemical data for higher scale modeling and understanding of ocean ecosystems.

The Effect of Textual Proximity on Fourth- and Fifth-Grade LD Students' Metacognitive Awareness and Strategic Comprehension Behavior

1988 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah C. Simmons ◽  
Edward J. Kameenui ◽  
Craig B. Darch
Keyword(s):  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Fifth Grade ◽  
Text Difficulty ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
The Relationship

This investigation examined the relationship between the proximity of critical textual information and selected metacognitive behaviors of elementary-age LD students. Twenty-nine LD students were presented six passages in which information critical to the solution of text-based inferences was either systematically dispersed or centralized within the text. Following a comprehension measure, interrogatory probes were administered to assess three self-reported metacognitive behaviors: (a) awareness of text difficulty, (b) attributions of text difficulty, and (c) strategy usage. Chi-square analyses revealed that textual proximity was independent of LD subjects' ratings and attributions of passage difficulty; however, a significant relationship was found between text proximity and strategy deployment. Subjects who received collapsed versions of passages reported higher percentages of text-based strategies (41%), whereas over 50% of the dispersed condition subjects' responses reflected no strategy use. Analysis of strategy efficacy (i.e., relationship between strategy application and comprehension) further reinforced the significant effect of text proximity on strategy application.

scholarly journals Climate Change and Everyday Life: Repertoires children use to negotiate a socio-scientific issue

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 1491-1509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Byrne ◽  
Malin Ideland ◽  
Claes Malmberg ◽  
Marcus Grace
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Scientific Issue

scholarly journals How reappraisal of new information contributes to optimistic belief updating

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Julia Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Good News ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
New Information ◽  
N 93

People update their beliefs selectively in response to good news and disregard bad news, referred to as the optimism bias. Yet, the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying this asymmetry in belief updating are largely unknown. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that cognitive immunisation against new information contributes to optimistic belief updating (e.g. through questioning the reliability of new information). In each study, participants received new information in relation to their prior beliefs, and we examined the influence of cognitive immunisation on belief updating by using a three-group modulation protocol: In one group, cognitive immunisation against new information was promoted; in another group, cognitive immunisation was inhibited; and a control group received no manipulation. This modulation protocol was applied to beliefs about the self, i.e. performance expectations (Experiment 1&2; N=99 and N=93), and beliefs about climate change (Experiment 3; N=227) as an example of factual beliefs. The results of Experiments 1&2 showed that the cognitive immunisation manipulation had no influence on the update of performance-related expectations. In Experiment 3, we did find significant group differences in belief updating, and this effect interacted with participants’ general attitudes towards climate change: people who were sceptical about man-made climate change lowered their estimates of the projected temperature rise particularly if they perceived scientific information on climate change as being fraught with uncertainty. These findings suggest that the importance of cognitive immunisation in belief updating may depend on the content of beliefs (i.e. self-related vs. factual) and participants’ attitudes to the subject in question.

scholarly journals Contested science: Individuals with higher metacognitive insight into interpretation of evidence are less likely to polarize

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Said ◽  
Helen Fischer ◽  
Gerrit Anders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Signal Detection ◽  
Signal Detection Theory ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Lower Likelihood ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractSocietal polarization over contested science has increased in recent years. To explain this development, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about the science. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition: How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods from Signal Detection Theory, we investigated the importance of metacognitive insight for polarization for the heavily contested topic of climate change, and the less heavily contested topic of nanotechnology. We found that, for climate change (but not for nanotechnology), higher insight into the accuracy of own interpretations of the available scientific evidence related to a lower likelihood of polarization over the science. This finding held irrespective of the direction of the scientific evidence (endorsing or rejecting anthropogenicity of climate change). Furthermore, the polarizing effect of scientific evidence could be traced back to higher metacognitive insight fostering belief-updating in the direction of the evidence at the expense of own, prior beliefs. By demonstrating how metacognition links to polarization, the present research adds to our understanding of the drivers of societal polarization over science.

scholarly journals Contested Science: Individual-level insight into interpretation of evidence explains group- level polarization

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Said ◽  
Helen Fischer ◽  
Gerrit Anders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Insight Into

Societal polarization over contested science has increased in the recent years. To explain thisworrisome trend, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about thescience. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition:How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods from Signal DetectionTheory, we investigated the importance of individual-level metacognitive insight for group-levelpolarization for the heavily contested topic of climate change, and the less heavily contested topicof nanotechnology. We found that, for climate change (but not for nanotechnology), increasedinsight into the accuracy of own interpretations of the available scientific evidence related tolower group-level polarization over the science. This finding held irrespective of the direction ofthe scientific evidence (endorsing or rejecting anthropogenicity of climate change). Furthermore,the polarizing effect of scientific evidence could be traced back to higher metacognitive insightfostering belief-updating in the direction of the evidence at the expense of own, prior beliefs. Bydemonstrating how individual-level metacognition links to group-level polarization, the presentresearch adds to our understanding of the drivers of societal polarization over science.

Climate Change Discourse: Scientific Claims in a Policy Setting

Fachsprache ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 205-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjersti Flottum ◽  
Trine Dahl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Claims ◽  
Policy Setting

scholarly journals COVID-19 Skepticism in Relation to Other Forms of Science Skepticism

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110498
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Scheitle ◽  
Katie E. Corcoran
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Genetically Modified Foods ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Issue ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Media Narratives

Efforts to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have encountered skepticism among the public, but COVID-19 is not the only medical or scientific issue that receives such skepticism. How does COVID-19 skepticism relate to other forms of science skepticism? Using new data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, this study reveals that skepticism toward COVID-19 is similar to patterns of skepticism toward vaccines in general and, more interestingly, skepticism toward climate change. Patterns of skepticism toward evolution and genetically modified foods are more distinct from COVID-19 skepticism. Notably, even after accounting for other forms of science skepticism, political conservatism is significantly associated with greater skepticism toward COVID-19. Finally, contrary to some media narratives, the analysis reveals few racial or ethnic differences in skepticism toward COVID-19, and the differences that do exist indicate less skepticism among Black and Asian individuals relative to White individuals.

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