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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?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:07PM (5 children)
One of the problems here is who defines "correct" information. Some of those with extreme views "know" things that those working in the field don't. Example: Airline professionals largely agree that chemtrails conspiracies are nonsense since they work on the planes and don't see any spray tanks or detect any added chemicals in the fuel.
The chemtrail believers "know" that this is a lie and that those in the airline/aerospace industry are either deceived or part of the plot.
Similarly, the extreme anti-gm types "know" that researchers in the field and those working for agribusiness are blinded by their monetary interests, part of the plot or being deliberately kept in the dark.
So, it depends on who defines "truth" when determining who is best or least informed.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:39PM (2 children)
Also, the important question is not how much one knows, but whether one knows the relevant facts. You don't need to know how exactly a nuclear weapon works, or how to build one, or how they are secured against unauthorized launch, in order to know that exploding one over New York would be pretty destructive.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:44PM (1 child)
Calling the realDonaldTrump - would love to hear about the pros and cons of exploding nukes over New York.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:34AM
While we wait for his elucidation, how about a nice film? Fail Safe [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:14PM (1 child)
Your examples are weird, there is point in putting quotation marks around "truth" when the question is something that can be resolved by e.g. making photos of planes or whatever.
Most questions around GM are not that clear-cut at all. Questions like how sure we can be whether some gene editing might have long-term risks, or how likely the modifications are to spread into non-GM or even wild plants.
Thus it would be nice to see the actual questions and expected answers, it's definitely not unheard of that things disputed among scientists are (intentionally or not) biasing such knowledge checks.
My favourite is always the question "is the sun circling the earth or the earth circling the sun". Well, there is no "true" one, you can set your frame of reference arbitrarily. And you might well want to use the center of the galaxy instead for some calculations. Or some other point.
Only point speaking for one answer over the other is that for simple visualization or coarse, approximate calculations, the sun provides the more suitable point to choose as center.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:49PM
"Your examples are weird"
The plane contrail example was intended to be. By making an outlandish example it draws the point to the type of thinking rather than risking getting hung up on a less whimsical subject that people care more about.