Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Women are more gullible about climate

From here is this paper:
Contrary to expectations from scientific literacy research, women convey greater assessed scientific knowledge of climate change than do men. Consistent with much existing sociology of science research, women underestimate their climate change knowledge more than do men. Also, women express slightly greater concern about climate change than do men, ...

The main objective of this paper was to employ theoretical insights from relevant literatures in sociology of science and environmental sociology to examine gender differences in public opinion about climate change -— humanity’s most serious and expansive global environmental problem.
The paper is saying women know less about science, and they know that they know less, but they are really smarter because they are more concerned about global warming.

This is one of many recent studies that purports to show how certain people are stupid because they do not accept certain views. In some cases, it is the researchers who are stupid. Here is a report on another such study:
Most surveys of the US public indicate that scientists are popular, trusted figures. The same, however, cannot be said about some of their conclusions, as topics like climate change and evolution remain controversial with many segments of the population. ... The people behind the new study start by asking a pretty obvious question: "Why do members of the public disagree -— sharply and persistently -— about facts on which expert scientists largely agree?"
The story also mentions nuclear power and concealed gun carry.

Maybe it would help if the scientists would stick to science. When they say things like saying that climate change is humanity's most serious problem, they are not making a scientific statement.

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