"I don't get them. How can they still think that climate change is not real? Almost every scientists believe it is real and there are a great deal of evidences showing that it is real. Are they dumb or something??"
This is probably something that you've thought before. Not only climate change, there are several other topics that make you ask those questions; evolution, GMO, vaccine, you name it. I had been struggling trying to understand people as well until I read an article about science-communication-measurement problem by Dan M. Kahan.
In "Climate-Science Communication and Measurement Problem," Kahan aims to figure out what cause problem in science-communication measurement. He first discusses evolutionary theory case and then apply the understanding to climate change case.
He conducted a survey, called "ordinary science intelligence," which assesses how good people are at mathematical and scientific reasoning and at questioning their own beliefs, asking 2,000 respondents scientific questions or rate statements related to climate change. Then he analyzed the results based on their ideological identities: Conservative Republican and Liberal Democrat.
What seem problematic for researchers is that, in some question, Liberal Democrat could do far more better than Conservative Republican people (top right). Does that mean one is smarter, one is dumber?
What Kahan found is that people who believe in climate change or biological evolution are not smarter than those who don't. But what polarizes people is their unconsciously attempt to protect their cultural and ideological identities.
Many Conservative Republicans didn't believe that "climate scientists believe that human-caused global warming will result in flooding of many coastal regions" not because they don't know enough climate change science, but because it is not what people in their groups believe. Conservative Republicans don't believe that climate change is the consequence of human activities. Therefore, the questions or statements that refer to human-caused global warming sound threatening for them. So they just said, "nope, I don't believe it."
To avoid controversial survey results and to measure science intelligence more accurately, researchers will need to be more considering in developing survey questions or statements. They need to understand their respondents' beliefs, identities, cultures, etc. and avoid using words that possibly threaten people's beliefs or identities. Researchers need to disentangle people's identities and political ideology from what they just plain know.
