Scientific information largely ignored when forming opinions about stem cell research
June 6, 2008When forming attitudes about embryonic stem cell research, people are influenced by a number of things. But understanding science plays a negligible role for many people.
That's the surprising finding from a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison communications researchers who have spent the past two years studying public attitudes toward embryonic stem cell research. Reporting in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion, the researchers say that scientific knowledge - for many citizens - has an almost negligible effect on how favorably people regard the field.
"More knowledge is good - everybody is on the same page about that. But will that knowledge necessarily help build support for the science?" says Dietram Scheufele, a UW-Madison professor of life sciences communication and one of the paper's three authors. "The data show that no, it doesn't. It does for some groups, but definitely not for others."
Along with Dominique Brossard, a UW-Madison professor of journalism and mass communication, and graduate student Shirley Ho, Scheufele used national public opinion research to analyze how public attitudes are formed about controversial scientific issues such as nanotechnology and stem cells. What they have found again and again is that knowledge is much less important than other factors, such as religious values or deference to scientific authority.
In the case of stem cells, values turn out to be key, says Scheufele. For respondents who reported that religion played a strong role in their lives, scientific knowledge had no effect on their attitudes toward stem cell research. But for those who claimed to be less religious, understanding the science was linked to more positive views of the research.
"Highly religious audiences are different from less religious audiences. They are looking for different things, bringing different things to the table," explains Scheufele. "It is not about providing religious audiences with more scientific information. In fact, many of them are already highly informed about stem cell research, so more information makes little difference in terms of influencing public support. And that's not good or bad. That's just what the data show."
On the other hand, a value system held by a much smaller portion of the American public works in just the opposite direction. The attitudes of individuals who are deferential to science - who tend to trust scientists and their work - are influenced by their level of scientific understanding.
Overall, says Brossard, "more understanding doesn't always change attitudes. A lot depends on people's values. And those values need to be considered carefully when we communicate with the public about these issues."
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Nov 05, 2009 |
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Why not just say, "Highly religious people are generally immune to, or lacking, logic, rational thinking and most high level brain functions." Why do we base policy on what these people want anymore? Our court system is already becoming faith-based. Can we leave scientists to be scientists and preachers to be preachers? Scientists don't get to stand up in church and argue history during a Genesis sermon, let's keep the thumpers out of the lab.
humanity are only seeing half the equation.
We need to hear the voices of those who value
ethics and morality as well as those based on
science and logic. If we had done so in the
early part of the 20th century the excesses and
ghastly social policies of eugenics would not
have gotten the foothold it did among intellectuals.
But now the world is getting too small to hold all the possible human futures we are considering. So many want the future to belong only to them. But how is this possible in a world of exponentially expanding potential futures?
This is where a new frontier is needed, room for everyone to create their own future just as they want it. Think "space."
Science Counts Negligibly In Attitudes Re ESCR
http://www.physfo...ic=14988&st=225&#entry347112
Why is this a "Surprising finding" ?
http://www.physor...855.html
What does an ethical-moral attitude have to do with science?
We all are products of the "energy constrained in Earth's biosphere". We all are "temporary self-replicable constrained-energy genetic systems that support and maintain Earth's biosphere by maintenance of genes". These are our origin and destiny.
Ethics-morals are human artifacts, components of human culture, which like cultures of ALL organisms is one of our biological attributes. Humans developed ethics-morals as one of their survival means, as guide and rules for inter-humans cooperation, as intra- and inter- organisms cooperation are the base survival format of life starting since and with Earth's primal genes.
Ethics-morals are human phenotypic artifacts. Each human phenotype tends to value its own survival more than that of other human phenotypes. Some of us bear in mind nature's example, the inter-coopperation in our body of 10^13 human cells with 10^14 non-human cells, and hold non-strictly phenotypic attitudes...this is partly the difference between Western and some other cultures...
Ethics-morals are human phenotypic artifacts...to each his own...
Dov Henis
That's a very polite way to describe epic ignorance.
After all, what could be a more magnificent and glorious accomplishment by mother nature/god/the universe/ or whatever you prefer, than to raise man "out of the dust of the earth" through the mysterious and awesome process of evolution?
The point is that the idea of a higher power has been part of humanity for millenia, and if we suddenly take away something for which we are so very adapted (if we even could), it probably would have some serious unintended consequences for society.