Reference no: EM133572445

Question: Dan Kahan examined American beliefs about the reality and sources of climate change, to try to determine why liberals had one set of beliefs while conservatives had a different one. What he discovered was that: Both the best informed and the worst informed Americans were overwhelmingly likely to accept the reality of climate change. In between these extremes though, people who were "somewhat" informed and demonstrated "adequate" reasoning skills were likely to reject claims about climate change Political identity (liberal or conservative) almost entirely determined whether or not an individual accepted climate change as real; scientific education had no measurable influence. However, people with strong reasoning skills all accepted the reality of climate change, regardless of what their political identity was. When they knew very little science and had poor reasoning skills, most Americans were quite skeptical about climate change. The more they learned, the more they changed, with the best informed individuals almost all accepting that climate change is real When they know very little science and have poor reasoning skills, there was no division between the beliefs of conservatives and liberals. After that, the more they knew, the more sharply their views diverged