Belief in free market economics predicts rejection of science
By Eric W. Dolan
20 April 2013
(PsyPost) – A strong belief in a hands off approach to economics is tightly linked to the rejection of scientific facts such as climate change, according to research published in Psychological Science in late March [NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax]. “The conspiracist ideation that all of the world’s scientific academies have conspired together to create a hoax known as global warming has found traction in American mainstream politics,” Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia and his colleagues wrote in their study. In particular, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has alleged that thousands of scientists working independently over decades are actually part of “the greatest hoax” to increase regulation on businesses and individuals. The study of 1,377 people who visited climate change denial blogs found endorsement of laissez-faire free markets predicted the rejection of climate science and other established scientific facts, such as that HIV causes AIDS or that tobacco smoking causes lung cancer. “The pivotal role of personal ideology in the rejection of climate science has been repeatedly demonstrated,” Lewandowsky and his colleagues explained. “We highlighted the magnitude of this effect among climate-science blog denizens, who have a strong interest in the issue, and we additionally showed that endorsement of the free market also predicted the rejection of two other well-established scientific facts.” Those who rejected climate change appeared to be more accepting of conspiracy theories in general. Belief that the moon landing was actually staged on Earth, that the government allowed the 9/11 terrorist attacks occur so they could invade the Middle East, and other conspiracy theories predicted rejection of climate change. “This finding suggests that a general propensity to endorse any of a number of conspiracy theories predisposes people to reject entirely unrelated scientific facts,” Lewandowsky and his colleagues said. The study was co-authored by Klaus Oberauer and Gilles E. Gignac.
Belief in free market economics predicts rejection of science
ABSTRACT: Although nearly all domain experts agree that carbon dioxide emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Internet blogs have become a platform for denial of climate change, and bloggers have taken a prominent role in questioning climate science. We report a survey of climate-blog visitors to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Our findings parallel those of previous work and show that endorsement of free-market economics predicted rejection of climate science. Endorsement of free markets also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer. We additionally show that, above and beyond endorsement of free markets, endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) predicted rejection of climate science as well as other scientific findings. Our results provide empirical support for previous suggestions that conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science. Acceptance of science, by contrast, was strongly associated with the perception of a consensus among scientists.
NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax
A majority of Americans are "very stupid". Ignorant, uneducated, uninterested and incapable of little more then self-awareness and self-interest. You won't find much intelligence.
Personally, I'd rank this deplorable figure at around 65% – 85% of the entire country.
Everything to them revolves around "belief", which can and is easily manipulated, distorted, distended and misrepresented according to individual persuasion and mass manipulation.
Taking advantage of "belief" is corporate Amerika, who is extremely unscrupulous and willing to manipulate anything for a buck.
Even worse, is the U.S. government. As the leading fascists in this kountry, governmental "leaders" will lie, distort, cheat, steal, maim, murder and misrepresent anything and everything to appear to be "doing something" for the ignorant and lazy sheep, who abdicated their rights and freedoms (ie, responsibilities) to the "leaders" long ago, falsely "believing" that this would be easier on them.
Belief has nothing to do with facts or science. Science and facts lay bare "belief" as a false witness to truth. Belief in other words, is dangerous to intelligence, awareness, action and humanities future.
The Dark Ages of Amerika are upon us all because of "belief". We live surrounded by imbeciles and morons, truly ignorant fools who refuse to accept facts, evidence, proof and reason. Instead, they're prefer their false illusions of "belief", a comforting envelope of replete with stupidity and blindness to truth.
All the studies in the world (ie., facts and evidence) won't change this one bit. We already know that the dumbing down of Amerikans is extremely pervasive and nearly all-encompassing now.
Clinging to "belief" is what most of Amerika insists on doing in the face of everything that challenges their illusions, even if this insistence and stupid stubbornness kills them (and it will).
That is actually the only thing left now to look forward to.