Public Understanding of Science最新文献

Australian climate policy has been stifled by a network of free-market and extractive industry-advocating actors, yet there is little empirical evidence to show how these actors and information flows behave in online communication spaces during Australian environmental conflicts. Focusing on the UNESCO 2021 'in danger' recommendation for the Great Barrier Reef for 6 weeks, this mixed-methods study of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube uses social network analysis, including cluster analysis and in-depth close reading. We find that a small, yet significant, mix of ideologically aligned partisan actors are fuelling the 'denial machine' in Australia by co-opting a scientific report's findings to argue that the Great Barrier Reef has recovered, and to contest the need for climate action. This article offers insights into the central actors and tactics that could erode public support for Australian climate policy, with similarities to strategies already established in the United States. It also contributes to furthering multi-platform analyses.

Museum educators play an important role in mediating visitors' museum experiences. We investigated the perspectives of science museum educators on the role of touching authentic objects and replicas in visitors' learning experiences during educational activities. We used a mixed-methods approach including surveys with 49 museum educators and interviews with 12 museum educators from several countries in Europe. Our findings indicate the importance of context when presenting museum visitors with objects. Participating museum educators based their choices for including authentic objects or replicas in educational activities more often on narrative and context than on the authenticity status of an object. In addition, educators used various definitions of authenticity, which may hinder the discussion about the topic within the field.

This study examines whether engaging in science work and work that is substantively complex (e.g. requiring independent thought and judgment) is related to interest in science, science knowledge, and confidence in the scientific community in the United States. It also examines whether the conditions of work mediate the relationship between education and these science-related outcomes. Occupation-level data from O*NET are merged with survey data from the General Social Survey. Results indicate that science work is related to interest in science and science knowledge and that work complexity is related to confidence in the scientific community. Results offer only limited evidence of mediation-science work mediates the relationship between educational attainment and science knowledge but not the relationships involving interest or confidence. In sum, results indicate that the conditions of work are associated with science attitudes, and that researchers should examine these connections in future research.

In one exploratory study (N = 985) and one preregistered study (N = 1100), we investigated whether trust in science influences belief change on a medico-scientific issue when laypersons are confronted with scientific evidence. Moreover, we tested whether individuals with high trust in science trust science "blindly," meaning that their trust in a scientific claim's source prevents them from adequately evaluating the claim itself. Participants read eight fictitious studies on the efficacy of acupuncture, which were experimentally manipulated regarding direction (evidence favoring acupuncture vs diverging evidence) and quality (high vs low; only Study 2). Acupuncture-related beliefs were measured before and after reading. Moderator and mediator analyses showed that the magnitude of belief change indeed depends on trust in science. Furthermore, we found that people with high trust in science are better able to evaluate the quality of scientific studies, which, in turn, protects them from being influenced by low-quality evidence.

Three studies of US, Canada, and UK respondents examined pro-vaccine attitudes as predicted by intellectual humility, belief in science, religiosity, and political attitudes. Intellectual humility refers to the capacity to understand limits of one's own beliefs and showed strong relationship to pro-vaccine attitudes across samples. Pro-vaccine attitudes were correlated with intellectual humility and negatively correlated with political conservatism and religiosity. Regression models compared overlapping influences of belief predictors on vaccine attitudes. Across countries, intellectual humility was the most consistent predictor of pro-vaccine attitudes when controlling for other beliefs and thinking styles (political conservatism, belief in science, religiosity). In comparison, political conservatism was a significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in regression models on US and Canadian respondents, and religiosity only held as a predictor in regression models in the US sample. We conclude with a discussion of intellectual humility as a predictor of vaccine attitudes and implications for research and persuasion.

Extraneous neuroscience information improves ratings of scientific explanations, and affects mock juror decisions in many studies, but others have yielded little to no effect. To establish the magnitude of this effect, we conducted a random-effects meta-analysis using 60 experiments from 28 publications. We found a mild but highly significant effect, with substantial heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses revealed that within-subjects studies, where people can compare the same material with and without neuroscience, and those using text, have stronger effects than between-subjects designs, and studies using brain image stimuli. We serendipitously found that effect sizes were stronger on outcomes of evaluating satisfaction or metacomprehension, compared with jury verdicts or assessments of convincingness. In conclusion, there is more than one type of neuroscience explanations effect. Irrelevant neuroscience does have a seductive allure, especially on self-appraised satisfaction and understanding, and when presented as text.

Using the two cases of the Icelandic Health Sector Database and Russian initiatives in biobanking, the article criticizes the view of narratives and imaginaries as a sufficient and unproblematic means of shaping public understanding of genetics and justifying population-wide projects. Narrative representations of national biobanking engage particular imaginaries that are not bound by the universal normative framework of human rights, promote affective thinking, distract the public from recognizing and discussing tangible ethical and socioeconomic issues, and harm trust in science and technology. In the Icelandic case, the presentation of the project in association with national imaginaries concealed its market identity and could lead to the commodification of biodata. In the Russian case, framing in terms of "genetic sovereignty" and "civilizational code" offers pretexts for state securitization. Adherence to normative framework of human rights and public discussion of genetics in an argumentative and factual mode can counter these trends.

Photography plays an important role in science communication. This study investigates the photographic portraits of scientists in the news media in China from 1949 to 2022. The data consist of 1,071 photographs published in People's Daily, the most influential newspaper in China. The photographs are analysed according to a framework based on previous studies on the visual representation of scientists. Analysis shows an overall image of scientists that demonstrates distinctive 'Chinese' features, such as the prominence of group photos and governmental honours. Diachronically, the visual image of scientists evolved from the early farmer scientists acclaimed in midst of political struggle to social elites and stars celebrated as China's hope for indigenous innovation. The study enriches our understanding of the visual representation of scientists in China, and sheds light on the influence of culture, politics and social positioning of science and technology on the image of scientists created by the media.