tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post4128811216536631188..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: What people knowDan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-88320968396698973842008-04-08T08:45:00.000-04:002008-04-08T08:45:00.000-04:00Historian of science Naomi Oreskes gave an interes...Historian of science Naomi Oreskes gave an interesting and provocative talk at the Public Policy school yesterday entitled "You <I>can</I> argue with the facts: A political history of climate change." She framed her talk around some poll results from a Yale/Gallup survey on climate change. Fascinatingly, almost all those surveyed believed in global warming, but close to half believed that there was still a great deal of disagreement amongst <I>scientists</I> about whether or not it was happening. Fascinating stuff.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, to connect to your post, a couple of sociology graduate students were discussing the talk and one asked, basically, what level of scientific understanding do we imagine that most adults in the US have? What level do they need to have? She wagered that if you asked most people to rate their scientific knowledge on a scale of 1 to 10, they would place it below a 4, and also, that those who said they were more comfortable would be much more likely to believe in global warming and to (correctly) believe that scientists were not so much in disagreement on the subject. The larger question still remains - how much does the average person need to know? In this case, I think the answer depends on how well the larger institutions designed to know on their behalf (academia, and the government, principally) are functioning (as opposed to being railroaded by big business, which is more or less the story Oreskes tells).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com