Slater Matthew H, Huxster Joanna K, Scholfield Emily R
Department of Philosophy, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA USA.
Environmental Studies, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL USA.
Erkenntnis. 2022 Jul 18:1-22. doi: 10.1007/s10670-022-00569-z.
Despite decades of concerted efforts to communicate to the public on important scientific issues pertaining to the environment and public health, gaps between public acceptance and the scientific consensus on these issues remain stubborn. One strategy for dealing with this shortcoming has been to focus on the existence of scientific consensus on the relevant matters. Recent science communication research has added support to this general idea, though the interpretation of these studies and their generalizability remains a matter of contention. In this paper, we describe results of a qualitative interview study on different models of scientific consensus and the relationship between such models and trust of science, finding that familiarity with scientific consensus is rarer than might be expected. These results suggest that consensus messaging strategies may not be effective.
尽管数十年来一直在齐心协力向公众宣传与环境和公共卫生相关的重要科学问题，但公众接受度与这些问题上的科学共识之间的差距依然顽固存在。应对这一缺陷的一种策略是关注相关问题上科学共识的存在。近期的科学传播研究为这一总体观点提供了支持，不过对这些研究的解读及其普遍性仍存在争议。在本文中，我们描述了一项关于科学共识不同模式以及此类模式与科学信任之间关系的定性访谈研究结果，发现对科学共识的熟悉程度比预期的要低。这些结果表明，共识信息传递策略可能并不有效。
