Abstract
The need for public understanding of science is especially critical in today’s society when citizens frequently confront complex, conflicting information on challenging topics. This article presents research on challenges for public understanding of science: In addition to increased scientific literacy (knowledge), people may need to shift epistemic cognition (beliefs about the nature of knowledge) and epistemic trust (beliefs about source credibility) to accept scientific perspectives. The article suggests how educators, media specialists, and scientists who communicate about their work might help address these challenges. Educational implications include (a) teach scientific processes, (b) teach for deeper understanding, (c) promote epistemic cognition, and (d) use instructional scaffolds. Policy recommendations include (a) fund educational research on thinking, (b) emphasize how to think over what to think, (c) support malleable psychological skills and dispositions, (d) avoid presenting “balanced perspectives” when there is scientific consensus, and (e) demand more rigorous teacher preparation standards. All these develop an informed citizenry.
Keywords
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Research on challenges for public understanding of science suggests how educators, the media, and scientists might better address the issues.
Key Points
Problems in public understanding of science are not knowledge deficits alone, but also involve understanding the nature of science, scientific literacy, and epistemic cognition (beliefs about scientific knowledge), such as epistemic trust (who is credible).
Educators can promote in students and citizens the competence and dispositions to critically evaluate complex socio-scientific issues.
Education can teach for deep understanding, and use instructional scaffolds to develop critical thinking as a pathway to science understanding and acceptance.
Implications for science communication include pushing back on non-scientific claims and not presenting a “balanced” perspective, when there is overwhelming scientific consensus.
Implications for policy include supporting practice-oriented standards and enhanced teacher preparation.
Introduction
Democracies depend on educated citizens who can make informed decisions that are important to their own lives and others’, and for the good of their health and well-being, their communities, nation, and planet. How do individuals decide whether to vaccinate their children, eat genetically modified foods, accept human causes of climate change, determine whether to take narcotics for pain, or know whether to be concerned about fracking? The need for public understanding of science is especially critical in today’s society when citizens frequently confront complex and conflicting information on challenging topics.
Many U.S. citizens question scientifically supported claims, lack the skills to evaluate what they encounter in various media, and have a poorly informed knowledge of the basic premises of science. For example, although 88% of scientists surveyed think that it is safe to eat genetically modified foods, only 37% of the general public surveyed think that it is safe (Pew Research Center, 2015). Making decisions about such scientific topics requires more than just information. It requires the ability to critically evaluate evidence and explanations, consider the source of the knowledge, appreciate how the information was derived (the methods of science), and have reliable scientific criteria for resolving discrepancies between conflicting scientific points of view. Research on challenges in the public understanding of science (Sinatra, Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014) can illuminate impediments and suggest how educators, media specialists, and scientists who communicate about their work might help address these concerns.
The Value and the Limitations of Scientific Knowledge
One of the first issues raised by those concerned with limitations in the public understanding and acceptance of science is the need for improved scientific literacy. Students in the United States often lag in international comparisons of scientific knowledge, consistently scoring roughly in the middle of the pack on international tests, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Numerous calls seek to strengthen the U.S. science curriculum. For example, the recent Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS; NGSS Lead States, 2013) are research-based K-12 science standards designed for implementation by local educators. Doubtless, increased scientific instruction in K-12 schools would promote a more competent workforce and knowledgeable populace.
In regard to improving the understanding of pressing scientific issues, the picture is more complex: Some studies show that enhancing knowledge improves acceptance of key facts (Ranney & Clark, 2016), while others report conflicting results regarding the relation between knowledge and scientific acceptance. The “knowledge deficit” may be an inadequate explanation and other reasons may explain why individuals fail to understand and accept scientific claims (Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, & Braman, 2011; Sinatra, Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014). Furthermore, in many situations, individuals cannot fully understand the scientific explanation and must rely on experts (Hendriks, Kienhues, & Bromme, 2016). To be clear, strong arguments support improving science education. However, we also need to recognize the limits of a knowledge-deficit view when it comes to many broad, complex issues, given the increasing information and conflicting viewpoints available online.
Enhancing Knowledge Through Brief Interventions
A broad scientific knowledge base has inherent value to guide understanding of scientific claims. In addition, individuals benefit from brief interventions focused on teaching the scientific explanations that underlie specific issues. Ranney and Clark (2016), for example, demonstrated that teaching the mechanism for the greenhouse effect through brief videos prompted significant changes in acceptance of the human role in climate change. Furthermore, unlike other researchers (Kahan et al., 2012), they found no political polarization. In the absence of knowledge, individuals may be torn between competing authorities, and understanding the mechanism that explains a phenomenon can be the tie-breaker in the decision to accept scientific explanations (Ranney & Clark, 2016).
Knowledge interventions could apply to other targeted interventions around similarly vexing issues, although problems of acceptance are not always aligned with the absence of understanding mechanisms. For example, parents may well know how vaccinations work, but decide not to vaccinate their own child based on plausible but erroneous information from non-medical authorities, a mistrust of scientific authorities, a misunderstanding of the individual and societal benefits of such actions (Gesser-Edelsburg, Shir-Raz, & Green, 2016), or because of the values of their cultural community (Kahan et al., 2011). Such issues raise concerns about the limits of the knowledge approach.
Critiques of the Knowledge-Deficit View
Thought leaders, academics, and policy makers who lament the lack of public understanding of science often point to the knowledge-deficit explanation in calling for increased science literacy. However, these “just add knowledge” remedies are now being called into question (Kahan et al., 2011; Sinatra & Danielson, 2014). If just adding knowledge were sufficient, then acceptance of evolution and climate change would show strong correlations with knowledge levels. And yet, this is not consistently the case. Some studies do show that knowledge relates to evolution acceptance (Hofer, Lam, & DeLisi, 2011), whereas others do not (Sinatra, Southerland, McConaughy, & Demastes, 2003). Moreover, acceptance of evolution remains constant across time (Miller, Scott, & Okamoto, 2006). Similarly, acceptance of climate change varies more with weather extremes than knowledge levels. For example, after Hurricane Sandy, acceptance of climate change rose dramatically (Rudman, McLean, & Bunzl, 2013), and after “Snowmageddon” (a 2010 extreme snowfall event in Washington, D.C.), levels of acceptance dropped (Li, Johnson, & Zaval, 2011). Again, whereas studies do show knowledge matters (Ranney & Clark, 2016), this is not a consistent finding.
Moreover, for many issues, a layperson cannot have expert domain knowledge, and even the well-educated likely have a more bounded understanding of science than experts do (Bromme & Goldman, 2014). Accordingly, individuals must make decisions about scientific issues, their health, and other such matters without adequate knowledge. Thus, awareness of their cognitive and psychological processes are critical for educators, media specialists, and policy makers.
Scientific Literacy and the Nature of Science
Scientific literacy is, of course, more than just knowledge of science content. It also includes an understanding of the nature of science, which involves the epistemology of science (the origins, production, and validation of scientific knowledge) and related values and beliefs (Lederman, 2007). As expressed in the NGSS, knowing about science is more than just knowing about disciplinary core ideas but also means understanding the practices of science, the key characteristics of the scientific enterprise, and science as a way of knowing (NGSS Lead States, 2013).
Public misunderstanding of scientific claims links to several key ideas related to the nature of science, particularly the tenet that scientific knowledge is open to revision in the light of new evidence (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Research on epistemic cognition, which we turn to later, helps explain why this premise of science is often misunderstood and how such misconceptions impede acceptance of science.
Uncertainty in Science
One of the fundamental tenets of science is that knowledge is tentative and open to revision. In describing the nature of science, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science outlined four basic beliefs that scientists share: The world is understandable through systematic study, scientific ideas are subject to change, scientific knowledge is durable, and science cannot provide complete answers to all questions (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991). Scientists work toward increasingly accurate approximations to describe phenomenon in the world and revise them as new information becomes available, usually through modification over time.
Yet such ideas can be quite complicated for students and the lay public to understand and apply. An early review of research on the nature of science showed both students and science teachers had misconceptions about these ideas, with many clinging to absolutist ideas about truth and certainty in science (Lederman, 1992). In a qualitative case study of a physical science course, college students showed multiple misconceptions and misleading interpretations of the concept (e.g., that tentativeness is a result of scientific error, en route to certification of knowledge as scientific law; Johnston & Southerland, 2001). In recent research, how the news communicates scientific findings—whether framed positively or negatively, and presenting reliability as weak or strong—can influence perceptions (Kimmerle, Flemming, Feinkohl, & Cress, 2015).
Epistemic Cognition and Science Understanding
In their interpretation of scientific findings, individuals are also influenced by their epistemic cognition or how individuals think and reason about knowledge and knowing (Sinatra, Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014). What individuals believe about knowledge and knowing and how they apply these beliefs in their reasoning are all part of epistemic cognition (Hofer, 2016; Sinatra, 2016). These cognitive processes influence learning and are particularly pertinent in weighing competing truth claims, a situation that occurs not infrequently when individuals consider science and medical decisions, for example, and must decide which authorities to trust. Epistemic cognition operates at both the domain-general and domain-specific level; in other words, individuals have general beliefs about knowledge, as well as beliefs about scientific knowledge (Hofer, 2006; Muis, Bendixen, & Hearle, 2006).
Epistemic beliefs appear multi-dimensional, including the certainty and simplicity of knowledge, and the source and justification for knowing (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997), and these epistemic dimensions may differ by discipline. For example, even during the first year of college, students see knowledge in the natural sciences as more certain and unchanging than in psychology, and they view personal knowledge and firsthand experience as a basis for justification more in psychology than in the natural sciences (Hofer, 2000). Epistemic cognition also broadly includes beliefs about knowledge as well as epistemic aims (goals), values, ideals, and reliable processes (Chinn & Rinehart, 2016).
Furthermore, in the development of epistemic cognition, individuals move from an absolutist stance (knowledge viewed as objective, certain, and true, with a dualistic view that information is either right or wrong), toward a multiplistic stance (knowledge viewed as subjective, based on interpretation and opinion, with no clear criteria for ascertaining the truth value of a claim), and to an evaluativist view (an integration of objectivity and subjectivity, a sense of the relative nature of certainty, a recognition that knowledge is contingent and contextual, with an awareness of criteria for evaluating authority and knowledge claims; Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2000). Although evaluativism (and similarly described higher order epistemic ways of knowing) may be relatively uncommon and correlated with increased education (King & Kitchener, 2002; Kuhn, 1991), doubtless, these capabilities matter to critical thinking skills espoused by educators across all levels, and these habits of mind enhance science understanding.
In scientific understanding, problems arise at both the absolutist and multiplistic levels. Absolutists, favoring certainty, may misinterpret the role of tentativeness in science and question what scientists actually know. They may hear that 97% of climate scientists agree that the causes of current changes are human-induced and decide that scientists have yet to reach consensus, so the knowledge is uncertain. The multiplist, viewing knowledge as extremely tentative and doubting any objective means for evaluating claims, may dismiss scientific claims as simply the opinions of particular scientists, likely to be contradicted by others. This creates considerable challenges for those teaching science and those communicating about science. More care may need to be taken in countering and directly addressing issues of relative certainty, as well as how science is conducted and the use of evidence. Over-schooled in a narrow view of the scientific method, some individuals dismiss those areas of science that draw more on inference from accumulated evidence, rather than controlled lab studies, and so misunderstand the processes by which scientists know about evolution, climate change, planetary motion, and geological ages.
Science communicators may inadvertently play to the public’s confusion about both the changing nature of science and the nature of certainty. Some science reporters have been characterized as creating a bias when they attempt to present “balanced” sides of fairly well-resolved issues, such as global warming (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004), a practice that may foster a sense of uncertainty about whether scientists actually have strong consensus. The media may also contribute to counterproductive debates by giving disproportionate visibility to those with outlier views (e.g., “science denialists”; Boykoff, 2013), and by exploiting the uncertainty of science and manufacturing doubt in the minds of the public (Bolsen & Druckman, 2015). Accordingly, 37% of U.S. adults in a recent survey said that scientists do not agree that the earth is getting warmer due to human activity (Pew Research Center, 2015).
Epistemic Trust in Science
Often people simply cannot have adequate knowledge of complex topics. Individuals may lack the time or interest to understand the details of every scientific issue that requires their judgment. In these cases, issues of epistemic trust arise, as individuals must consider what sources of scientific knowledge are credible and thus rely on others to provide informed, reliable analysis of the scientific information. This process might involve both general heuristics of degree of trust in the scientific community, and trust of one’s doctor, a news source, a teacher, or other such authorities and institutions (Bromme & Goldman, 2014).
For many people, the lack of complete knowledge may not be problematic if they can rely on authorities with valid, substantiated information; the problem arises in making such an assessment accurately. Larger issues arise when scientific trust is eroded (Grasswick, 2010; Nadelson & Hardy, 2015) and then generalizes across scientific issues, as can happen when peer review fails (e.g., when vaccinations were falsely linked to autism), or when medical claims turn out to be harmful (e.g., widely advocated hormone replacement therapy increased the incidence of breast cancer), or when findings are distorted to foster pharmaceutical sales (e.g., the claim that opioids for pain treatment were unlikely to be addictive). Trust is fundamental to the public understanding of science, requiring both dependence on the knowledge of experts and “vigilance toward the risk to be misinformed” (Hendriks et al., 2016).
In a broad set of empirical studies (see Hendriks et al., 2016), trust judgments have been shown to be influenced by a source’s expertise, integrity, and benevolence. Students—and the lay public—need training in the evaluation of scientific expertise and scientific claims. Otherwise, individuals may be poorly equipped to engage in the critical reflexivity that would help them discern why, for example, fossil-fuel industrialists present a more skeptical stance on climate change than do insurance-industry representatives (Grasswick, 2014).
Furthermore, epistemic trust of science may be particularly problematic in marginalized communities (Grasswick, 2010; Schemen, 2001); for example, African Americans learning of the Tuskegee syphilis study may come to view science as an institution not worthy of trust. The scientific community is expected to serve as a filtration system, “sorting through the wealth of research available and scientific knowledge being produced, finding for us both the most sound and the most significant” (Grasswick, 2010, p. 401), as a means of earning and maintaining the trust of the lay public. Moreover, science communicators also need to communicate trustworthiness as well as expertise (Fiske & Dupree, 2014).
Changing Conceptions About Knowledge
Another persistent challenge for the public understanding of science is misconceptions. Individuals often hold ideas about complex socio-scientific topics that conflict with scientific perspectives. Some people believe genetically modified foods are necessarily harmful, or that the Earth is 6,000 years old, or that climate change is caused solely by natural fluctuations in historic temperature patterns. These misconceptions often link to strong negative attitudes and emotions. The challenge of shifting attitudes, emotions, and conceptions is the “hat trick of change,” because promoting all three is both rare and difficult (Sinatra, Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014). However, in a recent study of misconceptions about genetically modified foods (Heddy, Danielson, Sinatra, & Graham, in press), attitudes shifted by ameliorating misconceptions. Moreover, the relationship between reducing misconceptions and changing attitudes was mediated by dampening down negative emotions.
Attitudes, emotions, and conceptions can change, but a fourth type of change may be even more critical. Both students and members of the general public would be more likely to adopt scientific perspectives if they experienced epistemic conceptual change, or changed their understanding of the nature of knowledge and knowing (Sinatra & Chinn, 2011). Others have called this epistemic growth or developing epistemic competence (Murphy & Alexander, 2016). Epistemic conceptual change would need to impact several key aspects of epistemic cognition: critical evaluation of knowledge sources, development of more robust criteria for knowledge justification, shifts in standards for epistemic trust, and new appreciation for scientific uncertainty. Such epistemic conceptual change would include adopting schemas for reliable epistemic practices (Chinn, Rinehart, & Buckland, 2014).
Certain instructional practices encourage students to question not only what they know but how they know it (Lombardi, Nussbaum, & Sinatra, 2016; Lombardi, Sinatra, & Nussbaum, 2013). A model of conceptual change illustrates just such a circumstance (Lombardi et al., 2016): when students must reevaluate their judgment of the plausibility of two competing scientific models. Individuals’ perception of plausibility is a key stumbling block in adopting scientific views of vaccines, climate change, and the age of the Earth. The model of plausibility judgment and conceptual change (PJCC) posits that individuals must make explicit and critical evaluations that compare their own view to new information that they may find to lack plausibility (vaccines are safe, or humans can impact the climate, or the Earth is billions of years old, for example). If they do the cognitive work required to reappraise their judgment of the scientific model, this can promote conceptual change on topics with a “plausibility gap” between what citizens and scientists find plausible (Lombardi et al., 2013, p. 59).
Implications for Educators
Confronting the most vexing problems of our day requires more than increases in knowledge. Solutions to complex, systemic, and multi-faceted problems such as deciding on mitigation strategies to ameliorate human environmental impact require much more than acquiring facts such as the observed sea-level rise in South Florida. These problems require the ability to locate and source information, critically evaluate its veracity and relevance, and resolve competing knowledge claims. The following recommendations follow from our review, recognizing that these problems are too complex to be fully solved by implementing a small set of solutions.
Teach Scientific Processes to Develop Epistemic Competence
Teaching not just the outcomes of science, but reliable scientific processes, is a necessary part of developing epistemic competence. Teaching scientific processes goes beyond explaining how to set up a controlled experiment. Students must explore the epistemic assumptions of different scientific disciplines, so they can appreciate how scientists come to their understandings of a phenomena and why scientists view uncertainty and openness to revision based on new evidence as not flaws but strengths of the enterprise.
Each discipline has it own methods of obtaining, justifying, and adjudicating knowledge. Methods for determining the age of fossils are not the same as those used for determining the impact of clouds on the greenhouse effect. Students should not be expected to accept scientific information at face value, but at the same time, they cannot measure ocean temperatures on their own. They must come to appreciate the process by which scientists make their claims, to be able to accept them.
Teach for Deeper Understanding
Too often instructors in both K-12 and higher education settings avoid teaching about topics in all their complexity. Due to time constraints, instructors may aim to develop students’ mere familiarity with an issue, rather than a full understanding. However, the topics facing society today require deeper understanding. This entails exploring a single issue in depth: tasking students with understanding the issue not as a collection of facts, but as complex and nuanced phenomena. In K-12 settings, this requires pushing bask against fact-based test prep instruction that pressures so many teachers in the current high-stakes testing environment. In higher education, it means moving away from “covering the syllabus” to exploring fewer topics for longer time periods and relinquishing more control to the students for developing and examining their own knowledge.
Teaching for deeper understanding also promotes self-regulated learners who adopt dispositions toward knowledge seeking and questioning. “The pursuit of deep understanding is not something that comes naturally as an expression of normal curiosity. It is an acquired disposition” (Bereiter, 2004, p. 12). As with acquiring any skill, this requires experience and practice.
Promote Epistemic Cognition as a Means for Understanding Science
A deeper understanding of content and a disposition toward critical thinking comes with the development of epistemic cognition (Greene, Sandoval, & Braten, 2016). Evaluating the trustworthiness of knowledge sources, or deciding which of two competing theories is more plausible, requires the deliberate coordination of a number of metacognitive skills and strategies (Sinatra & Taasoobshirazi, 2011). To find out the population of Pasadena, you can just “Google it” and accept that the number that comes up first is probably a pretty good estimate. But, accepting the first answer that pops up on your search engine to the question “Is climate change real?” or “Did dinosaurs coexist with humans?” might not be the best strategy, given the politicization of such topics and the calculated use of search algorithms.
Science as a domain involves particular demands on epistemic thinking (Greene et al., 2016). Evaluating how serious climate change is requires considering who has epistemic authority on the matter and who does or does not warrant epistemic trust (Lombardi, Seyranian, & Sinatra, 2014). Teachers naturally struggle with these complex issues in their classrooms and have to be prepared to address students’ strong views, confusion, or fears about the topic (Lombardi & Sinatra, 2013). Giving students the tools to evaluate evidence, rather than just stating facts, can help tone down negative emotions and promote an appreciation for how scientific decisions are made (Sinatra, Broughton, & Lombardi, 2014).
Use Instructional Scaffolds
More resources can support thinking critically and reflectively about complex topics and problems. Various available instructional scaffolds can provide a structure for classroom activities that support epistemic development. Many involve the opportunity to share and critique ideas with peers. These techniques scaffold critical and collaborative small-group discussions (Latawiec, Anderson, Ma, & Nguyen-Jahiel, 2016; Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessey, & Alexander, 2009) and collaborative argumentation either in person or in online discussion forums (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2007, 2016; Nussbaum & Edwards, 2011).
Others support learners’ engagement with competing explanations or critical evaluation of alternative models. Middle-school students evaluated the scientific model of anthropogenic climate change versus a skeptic model (Lombardi et al., 2013), using a scaffold called the model-evidence-link diagram (MEL; Chinn & Buckland, 2012). The MEL asked students to weigh multiple pieces of evidence against each of the two competing models. Students must decide for themselves, using the weight of the evidence, which model they think is most plausible and accurate. Students who engaged in the MEL activity found the scientific model more plausible, even when retested after a 6-month delay (Lombardi et al., 2013).
Implications for Policy
Shifting toward the recommended practices requires a shift in policy. The following policy recommendations again come with the caveat that the complexities of the problems offer no quick or easy fixes.
Fund Educational Research on Thinking
Research on the public understanding of science has implications for educators and communicators, who can all play a crucial role (Sinatra, Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014). However, funding for educational research has been significantly cut, at the same time that so much more work needs to be done. Current funding goes largely to developing interventions for K-16 literacy and learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is a laudable effort, but much more research needs to investigate how to develop and support thinking, not just learning. Such basic research in the psychological underpinnings of the understanding and acceptance of science seems to have dropped in funding priorities right when most needed.
Support Standards That Emphasize How to Think, Over What to Think
Historically, standards directed the content of curriculum, what students should learn about a domain, and when. Content standards wrestle with issues such as how to spiral a curriculum so that students’ knowledge can build with repeated exposure to more nuanced ideas over time. However, as important as content is, the current standards movements represented by NGSS and Common Core State Standards (CCSS) prioritize the development of thinking. The pace of knowledge growth in the STEM disciplines is so rapid that content elementary students are learning today is likely to be significantly advanced when those students send their own children to school in the future, nor does learning content alone prepare individuals for making decisions about issues as they arise. While content priorities inevitability change, the investment in teaching students how to think critically pays off over time in a citizenry more prepared to deal with future complex issues, whatever those may be.
Support the Development of More Malleable Psychological Skills and Dispositions
Thinking critically is not just about having content knowledge and critical thinking skills. Understanding science involves the disposition to be open to alternative points of view and critically examine competing explanations. A recent push promotes such psychological constructs as “grit,” but other well-grounded, malleable psychological skills and dispositions promise to support critical thinking and scientific reasoning (Credé, Tynan, & Harms, 2016).
One framework for epistemic cognition, grounded in philosophy, includes intellectual dispositions (Chinn et al., 2014). This framework identifies three key components: aims, ideals, and reliable processes. Aims are essentially goals for knowledge, ideals are criteria for evaluating knowledge, and reliable processes can produce justified knowledge. The relevance of this model is postulating a set of “intellectual virtues” or “habits of mind that are conducive to achieving valued epistemic aims” (Chinn & Rinehart, 2016, p. 463). For example, open-mindedness (a disposition from the Big 5) is an intellectual virtue for overcoming misconceptions and acquiring more scientifically justified perspectives. Insufficient research addresses whether these virtues or dispositions can be taught, but this is a promising area for research and practice to explore.
Push Back on the Current Trend of Ignoring Factual Basis of Claims
On television talk shows, in “click-bait” online headlines, and in social media news feeds, scientific claims appear without much context or questioning. The coverage often leads with the phrase “a new study shows” and may present conflicting claims about the benefits and risks of drinking red wine or coffee, or eating chocolate or gluten. This trend undermines public trust in science because individuals may perceive scientific knowledge to be so uncertain that they may follow the recommendation of one talk show host regarding scientific health claims: just pick whatever finding they like and go with that.
In media interviews with experts, non-experts, politicians, and citizens, the interviewer rarely questions the guest’s scientific claims, whether credible or not, giving the audience the perspective that all views on vaccines or climate change are equally well grounded in the scientific literature. This trend is further exacerbated by the mistaken belief noted earlier that a “fair and balanced” portrayal of a controversial topic is achieved by presenting two guests with alternative points of view. However, this leaves the viewing public with the impression that both views are equally likely to be correct, when in fact, the preponderance of evidence may indeed be on one side of the issue.
These practices give the impression of far more uncertainty about issues such as climate change and vaccines than actually exists in the scientific community. Science communicators can raise questions regarding the anomalous results of a single study, push back on “scientific” claims made by those interviewed, and shift away from presenting all opinions as equally valid, acknowledging some perspectives have a greater basis in fact than others.
Demand More Rigorous Teacher Preparation Standards
The well informed high school science teacher not withstanding, on average, teachers know about as much science and accept scientific and non-scientific perspectives at about the same rate as the general public (Losh & Nzekwe, 2011). Even secondary science teachers may not have an undergraduate degree in a domain such as biology or physics; however, elementary teachers seldom do, leading many to conclude that teachers are underprepared to teach science (Schweingruber, Duschl, & Shouse, 2007). Low levels of preparation to teach science are a recipe for the continuing low levels of scientific theory acceptance regarding topics such as evolution. Of course, not all elementary teachers can or should have a degree in the STEM fields, but all students, including pre-service teachers, should be introduced to the values and limits of science and the epistemic competencies to critically evaluate scientific information and foster those same skills and dispositions in their students.
Conclusion
Increased public understanding of science is more critical now than at any other time in our history. Some evidence offers insights into the challenges facing those who wish to shift the trend toward greater scientific appreciation. Research in the psychology of science acceptance and resistance can aid educators, media specialists, scientists, and policy makers to strategically consider solutions that move toward a scientifically literate and informed citizenry, prepared to tackle our most vexing societal challenges.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.