There is a joke that young people nowadays "choose to burn incense between work and advancement." It's no wonder that the major temples in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou are overcrowded. The Lama Temple in Beijing even encountered restrictions on the number of pilgrims on weekdays, and it even became a "hot search" of the season.However, recent studies have found that young people who like to go to science and technology museums are often also keen on divination and fortune telling, horoscopes, burning incense and worshiping Buddha and other metaphysics.A love of the occult does not seem to prevent them from embracing high technology and expressing a high degree of confidence in science.
The more scientific knowledge you have, the more willing you are to tell fortunes
We designed a set of questionnaires using more than a dozen items to measure people's metaphysical beliefs and metaphysical behaviors. Of course, the metaphysics here is a popular term on the Internet, and it is related to the metaphysics of the Wei and Jin Dynasties with specific directions, but it is not limited to this.
We also used the most commonly used scales to measure scientific literacy, scientific trust, scientific attitude (thinking that science can solve the problems we face or make the world a better place), and the willingness to go to various science popularization venues accordingly. Due to limited funding, the questionnaire was only distributed to 1,000 young people through the platform.
The survey results are surprising. The willingness to go to science popularization venues is significantly related to metaphysical behavior, but it has nothing to do with scientific trust and scientific quality.Relevant data also show that if a person's love for metaphysics really rises to the level of faith and belief, their willingness to go to science popularization venues will also decrease.
In addition, people with higher income and education are more willing to go to science popularization venues. This is completely consistent with common understanding.
The survey and data analysis we conducted cannot reveal a causal relationship, so it cannot show that young people visit science and technology museums because they engage in metaphysical behaviors such as divination, fortune telling, burning incense and worshiping Buddha. It can only show that there is a certain correlation between visiting science and technology museums and various metaphysical behaviors.
This is somewhat consistent with a previous study in Taiwan, my country. A paper published in "Public Understanding of Science" in 2014 showed that the public's grasp of scientific facts in Taiwan is positively correlated with their fortune-telling behavior. In other words, the more scientific knowledge they know, the more willing they are to engage in fortune-telling.
Researchers call this cognitive polyglossia, which means that different types of cognition can coexist and influence each other. In particular, they reminded science communication scholars to rethink the role of science in society and its relationship with other forms of knowledge and beliefs based on a culturally sensitive perspective.
The data itself cannot speak for itself, but based on this culturally sensitive perspective, we prefer to believe that engaging in metaphysical behaviors and visiting science popularization venues can provide a sense of sustenance for the confusion and anxiety of some young people.
When feeling anxious and confused, many people need to find an external authority that can both comfort themselves and explain the world. Like the respect for mysterious destiny represented by fortune telling, science also provides precisely this kind of external authority for worship.
A study by American scholars that included two surveys showed that science not only weakens belief in God through its logical analytical thinking, but also strengthens admiration for God through its respect for authority. Readers who have been to popular science venues will be familiar with this.
Large venues will definitely have displays of aerospace achievements, and small venues will also be filled with portraits of scientific figures looking down at the audience kindly but majestically. These displays, rather than giving us astronomical knowledge, make us more admire the ability that science gives us to go to heaven and earth.
Since in big countries like China and the United States, scientific exhibitions often carry the function of promoting national scientific and technological achievements, this also means that there will be more exhibits in science popularization venues that highlight scientific authority.
That is, at least as far as our data are concerned, science popularization venues may provide young people with an external authority to comfort themselves and explore the meaning of life.
From relying on authority to trusting science
Of course, exploring the meaning of life may be an overly rational statement. In our data, metaphysical beliefs, that is, the belief that divination and fortune-telling can really help us understand destiny, and religious beliefs are significantly negatively correlated with the willingness to go to science popularization venues (the more religious you are and the more you believe in metaphysics, the less likely you are to go to science popularization venues).
In other words, when young people go to science popularization venues, it may be a subconscious behavior like playing with the stars. Anxious and lost young people can not only do some fortune-telling or astrological predictions, but they are also willing to go to science popularization venues to experience the majesty of science.
Our data also shows that attitudes towards science (the belief that science can make the world a better place and that science can solve the problems facing our world) is significantly related to the willingness to visit science popularization venues. This also shows that although this group of young people can tell fortunes, they still believe that science is the solution to making the world a better place.
Nonetheless, there is no correlation between young people's trust in science (the absolute value is very high) and their scientific literacy and their willingness to visit science popularization venues. This is worth thinking about.
As for the former, the different effects of scientific trust and scientific attitude on the willingness to visit science popularization venues seem to indicate that scientific trust is a long-term belief. People will not visit scientific facilities or participate in science popularization activities because they trust science, but they will do so to affirm their attitudes.
There is no special relationship between the level of scientific literacy and the willingness to visit popular science venues, but in contrast to the positive prediction of educational level on willingness to visit, it shows that it is not scientific literacy that makes people get close to science, but it is more likely that the belief in science that education has imposed on us for a long time makes people do so.
For operators of science popularization venues, this finding may tell us that for visitors other than primary and secondary school students and parents with children, who are active or forced and of course the main audience at science popularization venues, they go to science popularization venues not to explore knowledge or improve their own qualities, but to seek the feelings that science brings to them.
Over the years, popular science venues around the world have found that dome theaters or 4D movies are the main reasons to attract people to or extend their stay.
Multiple cognition of scientific quality
Since the birth of the discipline of "science communication", improving scientific literacy has become its main research goal. The scientific literacy scale first developed by American scholar Miller has also been widely used by scientific communities around the world. This scale captures basic scientific knowledge, logical analysis ability, and familiarity with scientific procedures.
As of 2022, our country has used this scale to conduct 12 national citizen science literacy tests. The survey shows that the proportion of Chinese citizens with scientific literacy will reach 12.93% in 2022, an increase of 2.37 percentage points from 10.56% in 2020. Although the absolute value still needs to be improved, previous surveys have shown that the increase is huge. After all, our starting point is very low.
However, more and more findings indicate that the prediction of scientific literacy on people's attitudes and behaviors is actually very diverse.
Scholars have found that mastery of scientific knowledge (as tested using a scale that constitutes scientific literacy) predicts positive attitudes toward science in general, but support for specific scientific issues depends on environmental factors.
For example, on the controversial issue of genetic modification, the public's overall scientific knowledge does not predict their attitude toward genetic modification, and knowledge of genetics only weakly predicts attitudes toward genetic modification.
However, familiarity with scientific procedures (another component of the scientific literacy scale) positively predicts European public attitudes toward GM. This seems to indicate that when people decide on such a controversial issue as genetically modified, they will not use cognitive resources such as knowledge, but will rely more on their own instinctive cognitive habits. Even if scientific knowledge is indeed invoked, it may not necessarily be true knowledge. Research by American scholars in 2019 shows that those who are the most fiercely opposed to genetically modified organisms often believe that they have the highest genetically modified knowledge.
This result also appears in the research conclusions of Chinese researchers. As a highly controversial technology, genetic modification seems to reflect the limited role of scientific literacy in dealing with scientific issues involving serious conflicting emotions and positions. This is confirmed in the study above.
But several studies have shown that scientific knowledge is useful in predicting attitudes toward less controversial technologies, such as nanotechnology. In the United States, where climate change is highly controversial, the level of scientific literacy not only cannot predict recognition of human-caused climate change, but can actually lead to polarized attitudes. That is to say, among people with higher scientific literacy, the proportion of people who strongly agree with and strongly oppose human-caused climate change is greater than the proportion of people with lower scientific literacy.
The research of our science communication team at Soochow University also echoes the findings of these international colleagues. In addition to the above-mentioned study on the willingness to visit science and technology venues, we also found that the public’s scientific literacy has no relationship with their willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, and adopt environmentally friendly and low-carbon behaviors.
on the contrary,People with higher scientific literacy are more opposed to passing vaccine passes during the epidemic.(using vaccination QR codes as permission to enter public places) to promote vaccination. Citizens’ scientific literacy only weakly predicts their resistance to various conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19.
Our research, together with the findings of international colleagues, points to the inadequacy of the missing model that “the higher the scientific quality, the more scientifically rational people will behave.”
The traditional missing model equates scientific literacy with scientific behavior, and therefore equates the purpose of science popularization activities with improving the scientific literacy of citizens (and the scientific literacy that many people understand is actually various scientific knowledge). This ignores the many dimensions of scientific cognition. For example, people with higher scientific literacy may have more opportunities to interact with science. , their compliance with mainstream scientific opinions (such as agreeing with the safety of genetic modification, agreeing with climate change caused by human factors, agreeing with the safety and effectiveness of vaccination, etc.) may be due to their trust in the group of scientists or a stronger sense of dependence on science, rather than scientific quality itself, especially not scientific knowledge, that leads to their opinions and behaviors.
This distinction is important because it shows that behavioral habits or emotional factors, not just the rational cognition brought about by learning scientific knowledge, can also easily make us make scientific decisions or obey scientific authority.
Of course, although so many studies have shown that scientific literacy is not the only panacea for promoting our scientific and healthy behaviors, this does not mean that the existing science popularization work aimed at improving the scientific literacy of citizens is meaningless, but it shows that in the digital era where the Internet makes it more convenient to obtain knowledge, the focus of science popularization work must shift from transmitting knowledge to the public to cultivating people's logical analysis and critical abilities.
Teaching fixed knowledge, especially if it is delivered in a rigid way, is likely to weaken people's critical analytical skills rather than develop them. In addition, science popularization should also pay more attention to cultivating people's affinity for science.
Greater public participation in science in various ways, and greater access of scientists to communities, are one of the necessary conditions for cultivating this sense of intimacy.
Foreign research has actually found that one of the important reasons why the public is willing to visit science and technology venues is that they can see and communicate with scientists. At this point, there is still a lot of work to be done in the domestic science popularization community.
References
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[2]Johnson,K.A.,Moon,J.W.,Okun,M.A.,Scott,M.J.,O'Rourke,H.P.,Hook,J.N.,&Cohen,A.B.(2019).Science,God,andthecosmos:Sciencebotherodes( vialogic)andpromotes(viaawe)beliefinGod.JournalofExperimentalSocialPsychology,84,103826.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103826 ↑
[3]Sturgis,P.,&Allum,N.(2004).ScienceinSociety:Re-EvaluatingtheDeficitModelof