 Is science skepticism really about science?Simon Fuglsang and Lucilla Losi Science and Public Policy, 2024, vol. 51, issue 6, 1133-1142 Abstract: Despite the recent rise in public and academic concern, science skepticism remains ill-defined. This paper sets out to further our understanding of science skepticism and to inform both academic research and policymaking. Departing from a review of the academic literature on conceptualizations of science skepticism, we employ Eurobarometer 2021 data to explore the characteristics of people holding skeptical attitudes concerning climate change and evolution. Replicating prior findings, we observe minor variations across sociodemographic characteristics. Moreover, science skepticism relates to general science attitudes in a nonuniform manner within and across issues, and interest in and engagement with science are nonuniformly related to skepticism. Furthermore, science skepticism is inconsistent in its relationship to both attitudes and relationships with science across contexts. Based on the heterogeneous nature of skepticism(s), we argue that research and policy should be careful in approaching science skepticism as a general negative predisposition toward science. Keywords: science skepticism; antiscience; evolution; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:51:y:2024:i:6:p:1133-1142. Access Statistics for this article Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press |
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