When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebola hot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well. …
“Skepticism about science and expertise and authority has a pretty big constituency out there,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. It is not enough for policy makers to be right on the science, he said; they must also find a way to reassure “people who are all too ready to interpret expert opinion as elitist and condescending.”
That sort of view runs across the political spectrum, he said, on issues like the safety of vaccinations, prescription drugs or fluoridated water, and studies have shown that attempts to correct misinformation often end up reinforcing it, instead. But in recent years, that mistrust has been most visible on the right, where many people dismiss scientific consensus on global warming and evolution. CONT.
Richard Pérez-Peña, New York Times