{"id":6612,"date":"2015-03-03T10:13:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T15:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?p=6612"},"modified":"2017-02-07T14:51:25","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T19:51:25","slug":"when-science-doesnt-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/2015\/03\/03\/when-science-doesnt-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"When Science Doesn\u2019t Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hagan<\/a>Science matters, says John Hagan. Except when it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Take climate change, he challenges. Despite an ever-growing body of scientific evidence supporting the fact that human activity leads to global warming, the issue remains as polarizing as ever. The U.S. Congress, for example, has been unable to agree upon or pass major legislation to deal with the growing threat to the nation and the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really evolve to be correct or right, we evolved to win,\u201d said Hagan, President of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences<\/a> in Brunswick, Maine. \u201cThe facts really don\u2019t matter. We just want to win. If you ever watch political debates, it\u2019s not about facts. It\u2019s about who\u2019s the most persuasive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hagan was at UMaine\u2019s Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions last week to discuss a matter at the heart of science: the human heart. In a seminar titled \u201cThe Science of When Science Doesn\u2019t Matter (and What to Do About It)\u201d, Hagan presented study after survey after chart showing scientific facts do not move the crowd, especially on hot button issues such as climate change, genetically modified foods and vaccinations, for example.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all attracted to information that reinforces our values and we tend to avoid information that disagrees with our values or threatens something that\u2019s important to us,\u201d Hagan said.<\/p>\n

As a powerful example, Hagan presented a study by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). A survey compared responses from members of the public to those of scientists. The results were consistently lopsided. One of the biggest disparities: the survey found that though 88 percent of scientists polled said they believe genetically modified foods are safe to consume, only 37 percent of public respondents felt the same. On the question of whether climate change is due to human activities, 87 percent of scientists accepted the statement as true while members of the public came in at 50 percent. In other words, half of those surveyed do not believe fossil fuels, aerosols, deforestation, and other causes generally accepted by scientists, are responsible for global warming.<\/p>\n

And lest scientists be exempt from the pull of emotion in the face of research findings, Hagan doesn\u2019t let them off the hook. Belief in a certain set of facts or conclusions can cloud anyone\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deeper we care about something emotionally, the less able we\u2019re to intake new, novel information. Scientists too. We all do it, even those of us who are trained in sciences and think that we don\u2019t do this, we really do this and we don\u2019t know we\u2019re doing this usually,\u201d Hagan said. Story continues here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Science matters, says John Hagan. Except when it doesn\u2019t. Take climate change, he challenges. Despite an ever-growing body of scientific evidence supporting the fact that human activity leads to global warming, the issue remains as polarizing as ever. The U.S. Congress, for example, has been unable to agree upon or pass major legislation to deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":611,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":611,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11626,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612\/revisions\/11626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}