Scientific American has a good rundown of a debate that occurred over climate change, denial, and scientific literacy at the recent AAAS meeting. Essentially, panelists were trying to cope with multi-causal nature of the climate misinformation problem--is it politics, institutionalized denialism, media irresponsibility, scientific illiteracy, poor science education, poor science communication, or what? Here's an excerpt from the SciAm piece:
Poll after poll, and even late night TV talk shows, seem to revel in Americans’ ignorance of basic scientific facts, including the fundamentals of physics and biology. Is this "science information deficit model" then the reason for our failure to accept climate change? Naomi Oreskes, a University of California, San Diego, science historian rejected that hypothesis during one of the sessions on denialism. "It's quite clear there are many highly educated people who do not accept global warming," she said. Still, scientists "must communicate climate science as clearly and effectively ...
