Yesterday I had planned to tell you about the paper from the journal Food Policy that I'm going to explain today but I got a bit carried away and had a rant about GMOs instead. Today I promise to stay more focussed.
To business, then. A few months ago researchers from the University of Florida wanted to see how providing scientific information changed people's minds on scientific matters. What they did was take a measure of people's opinions on several topics such as climate change and genetically modified foodstuffs. They were then provided with statements from scientific organisations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Examples of statements used are:
'To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population'
'The scientific evidence is clear: global climate changed caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society'
They then polled them again to see if and how their opinions had changed. On the matter of GMOs at the outset 32% believed that GMOs were safe, 32% were unsure and 36% thought that GMOs were not safe. After providing the information they found that 45% of people now thought GMOs were safe but that 12% more people thought they were not safe.
With regard to climate change 64% believed that humans were responsible for climate change, 18% were not sure and 18% did not think that humans were responsible. After information provision 50% of participants believed more strongly that humans are responsible but 6% went the other way; 44% were unmoved.
Whilst it is positive that people believing in the scientific consensus increased it is certainly disheartening that providing facts can push people further away too; although I'm glad that the positive side of the polarising effect was greater than the negative side. This is all important because it can help us learn about how best to communicate scientific research. I think for too long now science has been pushing the boundaries of knowledge further back but that scientists have failed to bring the public along with them. There will always be contrarians and crackpots, but if we're to show the public the fruit of our scientific labours then we need to get much better at understanding the effect we have on them.
To business, then. A few months ago researchers from the University of Florida wanted to see how providing scientific information changed people's minds on scientific matters. What they did was take a measure of people's opinions on several topics such as climate change and genetically modified foodstuffs. They were then provided with statements from scientific organisations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Examples of statements used are:
'To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population'
'The scientific evidence is clear: global climate changed caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society'
They then polled them again to see if and how their opinions had changed. On the matter of GMOs at the outset 32% believed that GMOs were safe, 32% were unsure and 36% thought that GMOs were not safe. After providing the information they found that 45% of people now thought GMOs were safe but that 12% more people thought they were not safe.
With regard to climate change 64% believed that humans were responsible for climate change, 18% were not sure and 18% did not think that humans were responsible. After information provision 50% of participants believed more strongly that humans are responsible but 6% went the other way; 44% were unmoved.
Whilst it is positive that people believing in the scientific consensus increased it is certainly disheartening that providing facts can push people further away too; although I'm glad that the positive side of the polarising effect was greater than the negative side. This is all important because it can help us learn about how best to communicate scientific research. I think for too long now science has been pushing the boundaries of knowledge further back but that scientists have failed to bring the public along with them. There will always be contrarians and crackpots, but if we're to show the public the fruit of our scientific labours then we need to get much better at understanding the effect we have on them.
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