Americans’ views about global warming have held steady in the past year near the high points reached in 2017 and 2018. Currently, about two-thirds acknowledge in various ways that global warming is a real problem. At the same time, less than half express intense concern about the issue, although concern […] Read more »
Statisticians’ Call To Arms: Reject Significance And Embrace Uncertainty!
… Scientists and statisticians are putting forth a bold idea: Ban the very concept of “statistical significance.” We hear that phrase all the time in relation to scientific studies. Critics, who are numerous, say that declaring a result to be statistically significant or not essentially forces complicated questions to be […] Read more »
Looking to the Future, Public Sees an America in Decline on Many Fronts
When Americans peer 30 years into the future, they see a country in decline economically, politically and on the world stage. While a narrow majority of the public (56%) say they are at least somewhat optimistic about America’s future, hope gives way to doubt when the focus turns to specific […] Read more »
Why Good Politics And Good Climate Science Don’t Mix
… Scientists who study the psychology of storytelling and rhetoric say there are several factors that give climate change denialists an advantage in the political marketplace. Simplicity and smoothness of the message is a big part of it, said Eryn Newman, professor of psychology at the Australian National University. In […] Read more »
With Climate Science on the March, an Isolated Trump Hunkers Down
New efforts by President Trump and his staff to question or undermine the established science of climate change have created a widening rift between the White House on one side, and scientific facts, government agencies, and some leading figures in the president’s own party on the other. … Republican pollsters […] Read more »
Darwin in America: The evolution debate in the United States
Almost 160 years after Charles Darwin publicized his groundbreaking theory on the development of life, Americans are still arguing about evolution. In spite of the fact that evolutionary theory is accepted by all but a small number of scientists, it continues to be rejected by many Americans. In fact, about […] Read more »