In the newest issue of SciAm, an article reports that the reason many people resist scientific facts is because they develop assumptions about the physical world at an early age, and that as people obtain new knowledge from others, they judge the claims based on how much they trust the source of the information. Charles Q. Choi (author of the SciAm article) goes on to say "It suggests that science will meet exaggerated resistance in societies where alternative views are championed by trustworthy authorities, such as political or religious figures." The original research was done at Yale and was published in the May 18 edition of Science.
My quesiton is, does it really matter? Those of us teaching in these fields (especially in biology and physics) have already had this notion for quite some time. Does this go on to suggest there may be something that can be done about it? All comments welcome.
2007-07-17
15:11:29
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11 answers
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asked by
the_way_of_the_turtle
6
in
Biology