title: Public Reception of Climate Science: Coherence, Reliability, and Independence.
abstract: Possible measures to mitigate climate change require global collective actions whose impacts will be felt by many, if not all. Implementing such actions requires successful communication of the reasons for them, and hence the underlying climate science, to a degree that far exceeds typical scientific issues which do not require large-scale societal response. Empirical studies have identified factors, such as the perceived level of consensus in scientific opinion and the perceived reliability of scientists, that can limit people's trust in science communicators and their subsequent acceptance of climate change claims. Little consideration has been given, however, to recent formal results within philosophy concerning the relationship between truth, the reliability of evidence sources, the coherence of multiple pieces of evidence/testimonies, and the impact of (non-)independence between sources of evidence. This study draws on these results to evaluate exactly what has (and, more important, has not yet) been established in the empirical literature about the factors that bias the public's reception of scientific communications about climate change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London.
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London.
authors.forename: Adam J L
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Cardiff University.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Corner
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D003142:Communication; D032921:Consensus; D005104:Expert Testimony; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010684:Philosophy; D011639:Public Opinion; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012586:Science / Q000379:methods; D060685:Sense of Coherence; D012938:Social Perception; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Bayesian inference; Coherence; Consensus; Source credibility; Testimony