Laboratory for Research of Individual Differences, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Public Underst Sci. 2024 Jul;33(5):568-586. doi: 10.1177/09636625231217900. Epub 2023 Dec 31.
Scientism proposes science to be an all-powerful human enterprise, able to answer not only all practical but also philosophical or moral questions. We are taking a psychological approach to scientism, studying uncritical trust in science and uncritical trust in scientists as a part of a unique attitudinal tendency. Our novel measure assesses both kinds of trust through short Thurstone scales allowing us to establish a clear threshold for endorsing scientism, thus effectively delineating it from science enthusiasm, which previous instruments were unable to do. We built and refined a novel scale through five stages in which we consulted relevant literature, experts, and laypeople. We demonstrated that uncritical trust in science and scientists are interrelated, yet distinct constructs. As expected, these two subscales positively correlated with dogmatism, scientific knowledge, and overclaiming, but not with knowledge overestimation. The results suggest the new instrument is reliable, valid, and suitable for the lay public.
科学主义主张科学是一种全能的人类事业，不仅能够回答所有实际问题，还能够回答哲学或道德问题。我们采用心理学方法研究对科学的盲目信任和对科学家的盲目信任，将其视为一种独特的态度倾向的一部分。我们的新测量方法通过简短的瑟斯顿量表来评估这两种信任，使我们能够为认可科学主义建立一个明确的门槛，从而有效地将其与科学热情区分开来，而以前的工具则无法做到这一点。我们通过五个阶段构建和完善了一个新的量表，在这五个阶段中，我们咨询了相关文献、专家和普通大众。我们证明，对科学和科学家的盲目信任是相互关联但又不同的结构。正如预期的那样，这两个分量表与教条主义、科学知识和过度主张呈正相关，但与知识高估无关。研究结果表明，新工具是可靠、有效且适用于普通大众的。
