New APPS

In a series of experiments, the developmental psychologists Paul Harris, Kathleen Corriveau and Melissa Koenig have shown that young children are more confident about the existence of unobservable scientific entities than they are about the existence of unobservable (semi-)religious entities. 5-year-olds in the Boston area, for example, were more sure about the existence of germs and oxygen than they were about the existence of God and Santa Claus. The experimenters were surprised by this finding, and replicated in several settings, including children from religious households in Spain who were sent to religious (Catholic) schools, and children from a Mayan community in Mexico (Santa was replaced by local spirits that people widely express belief in). As I will show below the fold, a plausible explanation for why children are less confident about religious entities is that the testimony to religious entities differs from that of most scientific entities. It that’s true, we need to rethink how to spread and promote the acceptance of “controversial” scientific ideas like climate change, the safety of vaccines, and evolutionary theory. For, as I will argue, some well-meant efforts to promote such ideas may actually backfire and fuel skepticism. 

In a recent unpublished paper that will appear in an edited volume on testimony and children (Einav & Robinson, Children's trust in testimony), Harris and Corriveau suggest an intriguing hypothesis for why children are so confident oxygen exist but have doubts about God. Young children do not see an intrinsic difference between scientific and religious unobservables. Rather, they are very good at detecting consensus and doubts in testimony. When there is a lack of consensus, this raises a red flag, and makes children vigilant. Doubts, even implicitly raised, also increase epistemic vigilance.

Harris provides a nice illustration of a schoolteacher who led her class in prayer in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 “We thank you that we can trust in you that you have this situation under control, even though it seems to us that things are not under control…” – by this prayer, the teacher signals and recognizes doubts “it seems to us that things are not under control…” Importantly, this teacher was teaching in a fundamentalist school, which may contribute to less confidence about God's existence than about the existence of oxygen even in such milieus. Similarly, children hear their parents and others frequently say “I believe in God”, but not “I believe in oxygen”. Even implicit signals of controversy, such as professing that one believes p is true, make children less willing to accept that p is true, or more doubtful about its truth.

If these findings can be generalized, then well-meant efforts to promote scientific literacy might actually backfire. For instance, I recently read an article of someone who said she felt forced to “come out” as a pro-vaccine person (this is also very unfortunate way of phrasing things!) Anyway, when I had my oldest daughter vaccinated – this was years before that debate had become so public – I had no doubt in my mind this was the best thing to do for her. The idea of not having her vaccinated against horrible diseases, one of which my mother nearly died from as a child, was not even a live option. Now for my son, I also chose vaccination, but I felt more self-conscious about it, and found myself thinking when I was present at his vaccinations “vaccines are perfectly safe”. Of course they are! How could I even doubt it?

This generalizes to other forms of pro-science campaigning, including websites like talkorigins.org. These are well-meant efforts, but by explicitly highlighting that there is a controversy (where there shouldn’t be one, but de facto there is), they raise doubts in people’s minds and may paradoxically end up undermining trust. If whole campaign now started saying “Oxygen exists. Oxygen: the facts etc. with lots of links to papers demonstrating its existence, e.g., “Although we can’t directly see oxygen molecules, there is lots of indirect evidence for their existence”, this may raise doubts about their existence.

One might argue that oxygen and things like vaccines, evolution and climate change are different because people already raised doubts about the latter kinds of scientific entities. In the light of this, websites like talkorigins may be a good idea after all. But even so, we should rethink how such campaigns and websites are presented. Perhaps it is better to place more emphasis on the factuality of the claims, not on the controversy (a website like “Why evolution is true”, for instance, implicitly signals by its name alone that some people at least believe it is false). Consensus should also be highlighted, but not in an explicit way, e.g., "while religious fundamentalists believe evolution is false, here’s a long list of scientists who endorse evolution" is probably not very helpful in convincing doubters (who are typically of backgrounds that don’t give them the skills or literacy to understand why the testimony of scientists is so valuable).