The Age Of Disbelief Analysis

In the March 2015 issue of National Geographic, an article by Joel Achenbach entitled “The Age of Disbelief”, discusses the rise of climate change skepticism, explore the increasing polarization between cynics and advocates, and examines the what is causing reasonable people to distrust reasons. Achenbach, who is a staff writer for left leaning Washington Post and a monthly contributor for National Geographic, points out that the concept of climate change is born out of scientific methods which bear truths that are less than self-evident and can be hard to swallow. These are the same methods that Galileo use to proclaim that earth orbits around the sun and where Darwin proposed that we all evolved from a single celled organism, both of which vehemently opposed …show more content…
He points to a study conducted by Dan Kahan of Yale University wherein 1,540 Americans were asked to rate the threat of of climate change and its correlation with their science literacy. Kahan found out that higher literacy promoted stronger opinions on opposing views thus only promoting polarization on climate change because people are inclined to use their knowledge to reinforce their current beliefs. Consequently, these reinforced world views divide sides into antagonistic tribes. Kahan says that Americans fall into two basic tribes. On one side, there is the “egalitarian” and “communitarian” camp which are suspicious of industry and asks for more government regulation; they are likely the climate change advocates. On the other side are those with a "hierarchical" and "individualistic" mind-set which believes in industry and do not approve of government interference; they tend to be climate change skeptics that sees climate change as way for more taxation or regulation. These two camps which when armed with high science literacy serves only to create a vicious cycle that only widen the current