Author: Nancy Shute / Source: Science News
Scientists and journalists live for facts. Our methods may be very different, but we share a deep belief that by questioning, observing and verifying, we can gain a truer sense of how the world works.
So when people question the scientific consensus on issues such as climate change, vaccine effectiveness or the safety of genetically modified organisms (SN: 2/6/16, p. 22), it’s no surprise that one of the first inclinations of journalists and scientists has been to think, hey, these doubters just don’t know the facts.
Many organizations have launched fact-check operations on the premise that the skeptics are really just suffering from a fact deficit. Give them more data spelling out the correlation between increased carbon emissions and global temperature rise, the thinking goes, and they’ll get it.But there’s considerable evidence that more data isn’t better when it comes to science skeptics (SN Online: 7/28/17). And being bombarded with facts can make people dig in even more. People who feel pressured to change their beliefs are adept at defending them. They also tend to seek out evidence that supports their world view and ignore, devalue or challenge facts that don’t. Emotion trumps fact.
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