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Genetically Modified Food Opponents Know Less Than They Think, Research Finds

posted by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the Eat-the-fish,-Mr.-Burns dept.

RandomFactor writes:

The University of Colorado Boulder has an article up about a paper [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0520-3] [DX] published Monday in Nature Human Behavior which finds that U.S. adults:

who hold the most extreme views opposing genetically modified (GM) foods think they know most about GM food science, but actually know the least

The paper's key finding is that:

the more strongly people report being opposed to GM foods, the more knowledgeable they think they are on the topic, but the lower they score on an actual knowledge test.

Interestingly the authors found similar results applied to gene therapy, but were unable prove a similar conclusion when they tested against climate change denialism. This leads them to hypothesize that:

the climate change debate has become so politically polarized that people's attitudes depend more on which group they affiliate with than how much they know about the issue.

It might be instructive to run similar studies in a number of areas such as

Vaccinations
Nuclear Power
Homeopathy
...
  
Where would you like to see this study done next?

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:58PM (4 children)

    by Hartree (195) on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:58PM (#787002)

    "Those who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

    (In truth, the more educated I've become the more I realize how little I know.)

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:29PM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:29PM (#787015) Journal

    "Those who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

    Well, given that nobody knows everything, that means that they are a great annoyance to nobody. I think that's acceptable. :-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:02AM

      by driverless (4770) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:02AM (#787147)

      Well, given that nobody knows everything

      I'm pretty sure my wife knows everything, or at least is great at acting as if she does.

  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:57PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:57PM (#787113) Homepage Journal

    Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

    --The Books of Bokonon

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:21PM (#787431)

    I was interviewing with a graduate adviser. He asked what I learned in my undergraduate studies. I said, "honestly, the only thing I think I learned is that I don't know anything about EE."

    His response: "Seems you are ahead of most people."