Is political polarization over the reality of climate change, the efficacy of gun control, the safety of nuclear power, and other policy-relevant facts attributable to a simple deficit in public science literacy? Dan Kahan reviews study results showing that polarization on complex factual issues rises in lockstep with culturally diverse citizens' capacity to comprehend scientific evidence generally. The talk also reviews surprising evidence about how curiosity affects polarization.
More information on http://www.tedxvienna.at
Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. His primary research interests (for the moment, anyway) are risk perception, science communication, and the application of decision science to law and policymaking. He is a member of the Cultural Cognition Project, an interdisciplinary team of scholars who use empirical methods to examine the impact of group values on perceptions of risk and related facts. In studies funded by the National Science Foundation, his research has investigated public disagreement over climate change, public reactions to emerging technologies, and conflicting public impressions of scientific consensus.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
