I was thinking about posting this in the GHG thread, but it seems to me that this topic is sufficiently broad and of general interest to warrant it's own thread.
There's an interesting review of a current paper published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, which examines the strategies people use to cope with conflicts that arise between their beliefs and scientific findings.
There are several common strategies, which will be familiar to anyone who's ever engaged a creationist or climate-change denier, ranging from source derogation to identifying perceived methodological flaws without the necessary data or scientific expertise. But the strategy of primary interest in this paper is called 'scientific impotence', which is the claim that a given belief pertains to a topic outside of the realm of scientific inquiry (e.g. "the climate is too complicated for science to understand it" or "science cannot inform us about human spirituality").
I'm curious about how other ehMaccers perceive the limitations of science, to what extent they feel science conflicts with their beliefs, and how they deal with these conflicts.
Personally, when science conflicts with my beliefs, I change my beliefs, and suffer no cognitive dissonance at all. But I accept that I'm likely a minority in this regard.
There's an interesting review of a current paper published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, which examines the strategies people use to cope with conflicts that arise between their beliefs and scientific findings.
There are several common strategies, which will be familiar to anyone who's ever engaged a creationist or climate-change denier, ranging from source derogation to identifying perceived methodological flaws without the necessary data or scientific expertise. But the strategy of primary interest in this paper is called 'scientific impotence', which is the claim that a given belief pertains to a topic outside of the realm of scientific inquiry (e.g. "the climate is too complicated for science to understand it" or "science cannot inform us about human spirituality").
I'm curious about how other ehMaccers perceive the limitations of science, to what extent they feel science conflicts with their beliefs, and how they deal with these conflicts.
Personally, when science conflicts with my beliefs, I change my beliefs, and suffer no cognitive dissonance at all. But I accept that I'm likely a minority in this regard.