This bad news comes at a time when we need an appreciation of science—an understanding of its fundamental role in sound policymaking and the future of the economy—more than ever: to help solve our intertwined climate and energy problems, to bolster our long-term technological competitiveness, and to prepare our society for the coming controversies that research in fields like genetics and neuroscience stands ready to unleash. Instead, the communication gap between scientists and ordinary Americans has brought about (or helped to perpetuate) a number of home-grown anti-science pathologies. A seemingly immovable core of Americans don’t believe in evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, nearly half of us, according to polling data. Americans are also more likely to reject the Big Bang theory than are people from other countries.

Mooney seems to suggest, though, that continued focus on the battle between religion and science, perpetuated both by “New Atheists” and religious fundamentalists, contributes to the widespread rejection of science by broad swaths of the American populace. Such a conclusion is unfortunate insofar as it implies that both sides in this “debate” are culpable in furthering the lack of public understanding and acceptance of key scientific principles. While it is true that being too strident in using scientific fact to upend religious tenets can cause a backlash, it is the willful ignorance and suspension of reason embraced by some religious zealots that perpetuates this divide.

Mooney is right when he calls for improved communication of scientific advances. But what we really need is a better educated electorate, able to critically evaluate conflicting truth claims. With the end of the Bush era, perhaps Americans will once again be prepared to celebrate accomplishment, and intellectualism will be, if not in vogue, subject to a reasonable level of respect and admiration.

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In a recently published study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, authors Jesse Preston and Nicholas Epley demonstrate that when religion and science compete with each other for explanatory space, they also compete for value, in a sort of zero-sum game.

Although science and religion do not always conflict, a frequent source of tension concerns the competition for explanatory space. Religion and science offer different explanations for a wide array of phenomena, including some of the most fundamental human issues (e.g. intelligent design vs. natural selection). This direct opposition may cause the value of religion and science to become inversely related when these explanations are brought into mind. In the present research we investigate whether the evaluation of science and religion may be automatically opposed, such that increasing the perceived value of one as an explanatory system diminished automatic positive evaluations of the other.

In one experiment, participants read passages describing scientific theories involving cosmology (the “Big Bang Theory”) and abiogenesis (the “Primordial Soup Hypothesis”).  Each passage was concluded either with a strong statement, asserting that the theory best accounts for known observations, or a weak statement, claiming that the theory does not account for other data and raises more questions than it answers.  In the strong condition, significantly more respondents showed a positive attitude toward science when compared to God, whereas in the weak condition (where the explanatory value of the scientific theory was called into question), attitudes toward God were more favorable than science. In the other experiment, a reciprocal relationship was found when God was used as a strong explanation, with automatic evaluations of science diminished as evaluations of God were enhanced.

These data suggest that using scientific theories as ultimate explanation can serve as an automatic threat to religious beliefs, and vice versa. Perhaps more important, these findings also indicate that explanatory weakness in one belief system can bolster automatic evaluations of the other. These automatic oppositions emerged despite making no explicit mention of the potentially opposing belief system or to the possible conflict between science and religion.

Although it is somewhat obvious that the “God of the Gaps” is invoked where coherent and understandable scientific explanations do not exist, this study reinforces the idea that NOMA lacks practical applicability. Nature abhors a vacuum, and people seem to have an innate need to fill “explanatory space” with either science or religion. In light of these data, the best strategy with which to see reason and science prevail over irrrational religious belief may lie not in continually attacking  the incredulity of religious explanations, but to ensure that scientific advances are clearly and simply communicated, and that public confidence in the scientific endeavor is increased. As the authors note, “enhancing the apparent explanatory power of scientific explanations may automatically decrease positive evaluations of religion.”

A tip of the hat to The Situationist.

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But a Manhattan Project cannot solve the climate problem. The bomb was developed in secret, with no role for the public. In contrast, reducing [greenhouse gas] emissions requires billions of individuals to cut their carbon footprints by, e.g., buying efficient vehicles, insulating their homes, using public transit, and, crucially, supporting legislation implementing emissions abatement policies. Changes in people’s views and votes create the political support elected leaders require to act on the science. Changes in buying behavior create incentives for businesses to transform their products and operations. The public cannot be ignored.

Addressing the public’s inability to appreciate the urgency of the issue at hand, Sterman has a three part prescription for the scientific community that includes issuing scientific findings and policy recommendations in plain language, finding useful analogies and other cognitive tools to help people to understand the implications of climate policies, and improving the communication of science.

[C]limate scientists should partner with psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists to communicate the science in ways that foster hope and action rather than denial and despair. Doing so does not require scientists to abandon rigor or objectivity. People of good faith can debate the costs and benefits of policies to mitigate the risks of climate change, but policy should not be based on mental models that violate fundamental physical principles.

Matthew Nisbet, commenting on this piece at Framing Science writes:

[T]he problem in waking policymakers and the public up to climate change isn’t an absence of science literacy, as so many scientists (and bloggers) continue to bemoan, but rather simply the nature of human cognition and the realities of our media system.

Unfortunately, though, there is an astounding level of scientific illiteracy in the U.S.A., sustained by a culture of anti-intellectualism and a superficial understanding of the world. The role that can be played by framing science is in demonstrating the relevance of the scientific endeavor beyond the ivory towers of academia. A greater appreciation for the science of climate change can be fostered by discussing it in terms of its public health impacts, economic costs and opportunities, and national security risks. Translating scientific fact into a public call for action will require, too, that this issue be understood in the context of social responsibility and as a cross-generational moral issue. Communicating science, especially when intended as a call to action, requires more than providing a lay abstract  – we must be more effective at answering the “so what?” questions for the public.

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Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and ometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula is quick to point out the idiocy of Palin’s latest pronouncement.

This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.

A quick search of PubMed shows the wealth of research being conducted in Drosophila to improve our understanding of neuroendocrine dysfunction, developmental and genetic abnoralities, cognitive disorders and the biological basis of behavior. Maybe Palin thinks we should rely on intercessory prayer as a replacement for biomedical research, freeing up valuable funds to improve the wardrobe choices of all Americans.

A tip of the hat to Daily Kos. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC has a video rant in which he discusses the inanity of Palin’s position.

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Apparently, such logical errors are not the result of a general cognitive deficit. If that were the case, these same individuals would scarcely be able to dress themselves, and the streets of America would be awash in men and women, only partially clad in their Sunday best, lost en route to the local mega-church. No, if there is a pathology afoot, it is one that selectively diminishes capacity for critical thought in very specific areas – a not very likely prospect.

It could, as has been argued, be a simple matter of willful stupidity – a striving to maintain the bliss of enduring ignorance through acts of self-deception. In fact, Larry Moran, at Sandwalk, has posted a piece with the provocative title “Do Fundamentalist Christians Actively Resist Learning?” This post reiterates the point that there is an inverse correlation between educational attainment and religious fundamentalism, and goes on to puzzle over the “remarkable” phenomenon that a “significant percentage of fundamentalist Protestants can go to college and still reject the basic scientific fact that humans evolved.”

As we’ve seen time and time again on the blogs (and elsewhere), the Christian fundamentalists have erected very strong barriers against learning. It really doesn’t matter how much they are exposed to rational thinking and basic scientific evidence. They still refuse to listen.

But, is it really that fundamentalist Christians are averse to scholarship or somehow unable to comprehend scientific concepts? While that may feed into our idealized view of nontheists as the exclusive members of the community of reason, I don’t think this premise holds up under scrutiny. Too many fundamentalist Christians exhibit other signs of intelligence for this to be the case. And it would be naive to view all Christian theology as simplistic and childish; in fact, Christian apologists have jumped through astoundingly complex theological hoops to support their core beliefs in the face of what others might consider daunting and compelling contrary evidence.

Instead, I suspect that education is not always able to overcome preposterous and unsubstantiated beliefs as a consequence of faith. That is, faith, elevated to the status of virtue. Sola fide, the road to God’s grace. The sort of faith, the defense of which becomes a matter of preserving one’s very soul. Once faith is framed as more virtuous than materialistic scientific evidence, it is no longer amenable to argument, and the glossolalic apples are unable to communicate with the jargon-speaking oranges.

But, of course, faith is not a virtue. To a scientist, faith – holding to views that are unsupported by evidence – is a cardinal sin. And it is this, rather than the content of specific factual disagreements, that warrants our consideration. Faith is anathema to critical thinking, and has fallen into well-deserved disrepute in most spheres of our existence. But when the magisteria of science encroaches into a believer’s essential biblical worldview, faith is touted as the salvation of mankind and presidential candidates.

Rather than framing religious believers – even those holding fundamentalist, literalist views – as incapable of rational thought and as being willfully resistant to enlightenment, we should seek to understand the roots of this faith, and what attributes might make some more susceptible to its grip than others. At the very least, perhaps we can encourage this faith to be relegated to its rightful place, at the alter of the primum movens.

As Richard Dawkins has said:

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

Amen.

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