Knowledge is a not a determining factor in forming opinions on science

Moral and political codes have a much greater influence on attitudes regarding scientific and technological questions, according to researcher.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Research that has been conducted in various countries, including Brazil, is faced with the challenge of explaining which factors influence the public’s attitudes, interest and engagement with scientific and technological topics.

This challenge arises because none of the indicators utilized in these studies to determine which factors are most relevant for forming citizens’ interests and attitudes about science and technology, such as income, education, age and schooling, can explain the variability in responses.

“There is another variable that we are not gauging, which determines the type of attitude people have regarding science and technology in general,” said Jury Castelfranchi, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the School of Philosophy, Letters and Humanities (Fafich) at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), during the conference on interpretative and methodological challenges in studying public perceptions of science and technology.

Held on October 26 and 27 at Universidade Estadual de Campinas’ Institute of Language Studies (IEL-Unicamp), the event was part of the program of the 2nd Empírika – Ibero-American Fair of Science, Technology and Innovation.

According to Castelfranchi, one of the factors contributing to the difficulty in determining which process or processes contribute to building public opinion on science and technology is that the research in this area is “based on the largely unfounded hypothesis that the attitudes of people in relation to scientific and technological matters are molded by the knowledge that they have on these themes.”

 Traditionally, according to Castelfranchi, the majority of studies on the factors that lead people to accept or reject the findings of a scientific study or a new technology focus on interviewees’ interest, knowledge or attitudes regarding science and technology, based on the assumption that these three aspects are related.

Thus, people who are uninterested would have a low level of information and would generally tend to have more negative attitudes in relation to science and technology. By stimulating the interest of these people in scientific and technological matters, it should be possible to raise their level of knowledge in these areas and, consequently, to improve their attitudes with regard to science and technology.

However, field studies have shown that these premises are false and that the actual situation is much more complex than that suggested by this model, which has been refuted.

In general, according to the results of recent studies on this subject, the majority of the population has a large interest in science and technology, but this interest does not correspond to the pursuit of information.

“There are groups with low schooling, mainly in developing countries, who do not know about and do not seek information on science but who have very positive attitudes in relation to science and technology,” says Castelfranchi.

“In contrast, some studies suggest that it is not necessarily true that by increasing knowledge, people’s attitudes become more positive. In some cases, it is the opposite; they tend to become more cautious and critical,” he adds.

The paradox of knowledge versus attitudes

According to Castelfranchi, an example that illustrates this apparent contradiction, called the “paradox of knowledge versus attitude,” is the matter of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Europe.

Since 2000, Europe, which is among the areas that invest the most heavily in science and technology, has declared a moratorium on GMO food. This moratorium followed intense debates among different segments of society, both for and against this technology, based on emotional appeals and arguments that are based on economics and politics rather than science.

A study on Europeans’ knowledge and attitudes regarding biotechnological applications, including GM food and vaccines, was conducted in 1998 and replicated in 2010, through the European Community, and indicated that risk was a determining factor in the population’s rejection or acceptance of a new technology.

In many cases, those interviewed responded that some biotech applications were dangerous but were also useful and morally acceptable and should be encouraged. In other cases, research participants indicated that certain biotech applications were not as dangerous but were politically and morally questionable, such as GMOs, which prompted them to reject the technology.

“What prompted the rejection of GMOs in Europe was not the most significant risk factor but political considerations, such as the fact that the technology is controlled by multinationals and is patented and that European countries are against monocultures,” explains Castelfranchi.

In the most recent study, Public Perception of Science and Technology, which was conducted at the end of 2010 by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) with more than 2,000 people from around the country, none of the specific groups from different social or educational levels stated that technologies offered more problems than benefits.

The participants who were most familiar with scientists and research institutions, however, were most likely to declare that scientists could be dangerous because of the knowledge they possess.

“There is no association between a low level of schooling and thinking that science is dangerous. But, in contrast, people with higher educational levels tend to have a more cautious stance in relation to the benefits and problems presented by science and technology,” affirms Castelfranchi.