Coronavirus, Public Health Science, politics, and vaccine acceptance

Michael Weisberg, professor and chair of Philosophy in the School of Arts & Sciences, had an idea about the nature of science and its relationship to political affiliation and scientific acceptance. So, with his collaborators, he tested it.

One of those collaborators is Jesse Hamilton, a first-year doctoral student in philosophy. Weisberg and Hamilton explain that previous research showed that knowing facts about science knowledge, such as the relative mass of an electron or the properties of noble gases, does not have a major influence on acceptance of politically controversial scientific theories, including anthropogenic climate change, evolution, and vaccine safety. That research showed that party affiliation was more influential than knowing science facts when it came to a person’s views on these topics.

Read more in Penn Today >>