Trust to science
Wild weather’s side-effect
The tangible evidence of climate change, in the form of extreme weather events, has seen a boost in the public’s trust in science, an Auckland University professor says.
Thirty years ago, some scientists would have struggled to have their climate change work noticed, now it seems more and more people are taking note.
Auckland physics professor Shaun Hendy said people were seeing the evidence of climate change with their own eyes.
‘‘Extreme weather events and the fact that we’re seeing warmer months . . . I think that is reinforcing beliefs that we’re changing the climate.’’
Trust in science would differ for each subject area, but Hendy said when it came to climate change the public belief has been growing. ‘‘There were a lot of people who were sitting on the fence, and the conversation has really changed now.’’
People would align their views with what was convenient for them, Victoria University data science programme director Richard Arnold said at a public seminar earlier this month.
‘‘When we talk to people who are climate change sceptics, they’re discounting the scientific truth because they don’t like the policy implication.’’
It may mean people had to stop driving their cars, and they didn’t want to do that, he said.
‘‘Or my future suddenly seems bleak, and maybe we’re all going to die in a tsunami or from starvation because there’s no food any more. I don’t like those consequences, I don’t want to think about them, I am going to deny the truth.’’
Unwilling to face those consequences, they would deny climate change was happening, he said.
‘‘A common way to attack the truth is to say that the process is flawed, with or without knowing what that process is.’’
‘‘Social media bubbles’’ of misinformation could also spread mistrust in science, he said.
A gap exists between scientists and non scientists, he said. ‘‘If you ask people in the general public what they think science is, you get a variety of answers.’’
Chief science adviser to the prime minister, Professor Juliet Gerrard, said trust in science was an important topic.
‘‘My own view is that scientists need to move away from trying to ‘‘pull rank’’ as experts and learn to listen better to society’s concerns, and position science as ready to help solve society’s problems,’’ Gerrard said.
Science had always supported communities by providing medicine, safe food, clean water and infrastructure, she said. ‘‘We just need to shift the conversation a little, so that we are talking with people, not at people.’’
More and more scientists were doing this, especially emerging scientists, she said. ‘‘I am optimistic that we can maintain and build trust in our scientists.’’
Victoria University PhD candidate John Kerr surveyed 9000 New Zealanders this year and found about 12.7 per cent of respondents – one in eight of us – don’t believe humans are to blame for climate change, and 7.9 per cent said they were unsure.
The survey also studied New Zealanders’ trust in scientists, and Kerr found that they generally place a high level of trust in scientists.
According to his findings, people with less education, or who considered themselves politically conservative or more religious, tended to express less trust in scientists.
A reasonable minority of people, about one in five New Zealanders, expressed some scepticism about science and scientists.
Those people also tended to express less agreement with scientifically supported claims such as humans causing climate change and vaccines preventing disease, Kerr said. ‘‘Most trust scientists and they’re on average held in high regard.’’
However, the survey did not link Kiwis’ trust in science to their climate change beliefs, he said. ‘‘It’s hard to link those two together based on any research that people have done.’’
New Zealand was ‘‘less politicised’’ about science compared to other nations, like the United States, he said.
‘‘In the US, climate change is a very big example ... in the US your views on climate change are very closely tied to your political views.’’
Kerr said it was healthy for a country to have some scepticism when it came to science, not blindly following whatever scientists said. ‘‘We don’t want to 100 per cent trust everything that scientists say ... they’re people just like everyone else and they’ll have biases.’’
‘‘Scientists need to move away from trying to ‘pull rank’ as experts and learn to listen better to society’s concerns.’’ Juliet Gerrard