Clulow Zeynep, Reiner David
Energy Policy Research Group, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2024 Oct 2;19(10):e0310325. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310325. eCollection 2024.
Distrust in science has been linked to scepticism over vaccines and climate change. Using data from nationally representative surveys administered in eight key countries for global efforts to mitigate climate change and COVID-19 (Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Africa, the UK and US), we find that distrust in scientists was an important predictor variable for most sceptics, who were sceptical of one issue but not both, in February 2021, when most countries had experienced their first wave of the pandemic. However, the association was significantly weaker among the segment of hardcore sceptics who were both climate sceptics and antivaxxers. We demonstrate that these individuals tended to possess many of the typical sceptic characteristics such as high distrust in social institutions and rightward political orientation, which are (collectively) suggestive of an underlying sceptic mindset rather than a specific distrust of scientists. Our results suggest that different types of sceptics necessitate different strategies to dispel scepticism.
对科学的不信任与对疫苗和气候变化的怀疑态度有关。利用来自八个关键国家的具有全国代表性的调查数据，这些国家为全球应对气候变化和新冠疫情做出了努力（澳大利亚、巴西、中国、印度、日本、南非、英国和美国），我们发现，在2021年2月，当大多数国家经历了第一波疫情时，对科学家的不信任是大多数怀疑者的一个重要预测变量，这些怀疑者对一个问题持怀疑态度，但对另一个问题不持怀疑态度。然而，在既怀疑气候变化又反对接种疫苗的铁杆怀疑者群体中，这种关联明显较弱。我们证明，这些人往往具有许多典型的怀疑者特征，如对社会机构高度不信任和政治倾向偏右，这些特征（总体上）表明存在一种潜在的怀疑心态，而不是对科学家的特定不信任。我们的结果表明，不同类型的怀疑者需要不同的策略来消除怀疑态度。
