Study Finds 5 Ways Conservative Media Erode Trust In Scientists

[n2doc]

A new study shows five ways conservative media decrease trust in scientists, leading their audience to doubt climate change.

Former Fox News host Glenn Beck once declared "Do I believe scientists? No. They've lied to us about global warming." But the study, by the Yale Project on Climate Communication, concludes that it's actually the other way around: conservative media consumers don't believe in scientists, therefore they don't believe in global warming.

The study suggests that watching and listening to outlets like Fox News and The Rush Limbaugh Show may be one reason that only 19 percent of Republicans agree that human activity is causing global warming, despite the consensus of 97 percent of climate scientists. The Yale researchers depicted five tactics used by conservative media to erode trust in scientists, which Media Matters illustrates with examples.


1. Present Contrarians As "Objective" Experts

Conservative media typically turn to a roster of professional climate change contrarians and portray them as "experts" on the issue. What they don't mention is that most of these climate "experts" don't have a background in climate science and are often on the bankroll of the fossil fuel industry.

A Media Matters study detailed how certain climate contrarians have been given a large platform by the media, particularly Fox News.

For instance, Fox News cut away from President Barack Obama's recent climate change speech to host Chris Horner of the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute -- giving approximately equal time to Horner and the president.

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/05/study-finds-5-ways-conservative-media-erode-tru/195229

[Moostache]

1. I hope they all rot in hell...

Its one thing to be an imbecile in you own home and to abuse your own offspring with idiotic "theories" and pseudo-science; but once you stop impacting only yourself, I think its entirely rational to view you as an imminent threat. I would start by institutionalizing James Inhofe as a clear and present danger to the stability and future of these United States.

[defacto7]

3. Nail on the head! ^this^

[defacto7]

2. K&R

[trotsky]

4. I'll probably get flamed for this, but...

these methods of smearing science and scientists are not unique to the right wing.

I've seen every single one (save #3, but only because "conservative" or "corporate" is used instead of "liberal&quot right here on DU.

[krispos42]

5. Only 5? n/t

[Jim__]

6. Here's a conservative writer who agrees - at least somewhat.

I don't normally agree with Hank Campbell. But I do agree with this article crticizing National Review, If National Review Wants Scientists To Take Conservatives Seriously, Jettison The Discovery Institute. An excerpt:

How would editors at National Review regard the credibility of a controlled market publication that had its economic policy articles written by astrologers using the stars as their evidence?

They might not like it but so what? Can they prove astrologers can't make economic policy? No, it's just flawed logic, sort of like me challenging someone to prove I am not an alien from space. That is the problem with National Review paying someone from the Discovery Institute to spout anti-science nonsense about 35-year-old science under the guise of 'ethics'. Because misunderstanding and logical head-faking is the strategy the Discovery Institute uses to promote doubt about biology in general and evolution in specific.

There is no way to sugar-coat it: The Discovery Institute is in the anti-science business. I have no issue with religion, I can nod my head at the idea of non-overlapping magisteria, I have defended religion and the benefits of a liturgical society probably more than anyone in science media and I recognize that western science would not have survived without religion. But there is no reason National Review should be letting an anti-science fearmonger take up this charge against science yet again. Conservatives claim to be more rational so there is no reason to embrace the irrational Discovery Institute, yet Wesley J. Smith, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism and quasi-philosophical lawyer, is being encouraged to mask his anti-science agenda under the guise of ethics. Subjective, morally relative ethics, the kind of thing National Review founder Bill Buckley criticized in his book "God and Man at Yale".

Basically, Smith hates all in vitro fertilization. Always has, always will, it is a tool of Lucifer or whatever the Discovery Institute thinks about all biology. Going in with such blatant confirmation bias, he then massages data and logic to match his world view - the very thing National Review claims to stand against, when liberals are doing it.

...

[MisterP]

7. it also cheapens any serious talk about money in science:

David F. Noble and Sheldon Rampton can make as many factual exposés and trenchant observations about how Big Oil/Tobacco/Chemical abuses science and scientists to its own ends as they like, but Big Oil also is playing both sides of the fence, pretending that its opponents are the money-mad paid shills: they project what they're doing onto their opponents, clouding the issue for casual observers