Showing papers on "Antiscience published in 2021"
TL;DR: Extremist political groups, especially “extreme” Republicans and conservatives, are increasingly charged with believing misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories to a greater extent as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Extremist political groups, especially “extreme” Republicans and conservatives, are increasingly charged with believing misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories to a greater e...
58 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed a large set of tweets from Twitter related to the pandemic, collected between January and May 2020, and developed methods to classify the ideological alignment of users along the moderacy (hardline vs moderate), political (liberal vs conservative), and science (antiscience vs proscience) dimensions.
Abstract: Background: The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage communities across the United States. Opinion surveys identified the importance of political ideology in shaping perceptions of the pandemic and compliance with preventive measures.
Objective: The aim of this study was to measure political partisanship and antiscience attitudes in the discussions about the pandemic on social media, as well as their geographic and temporal distributions.
Methods: We analyzed a large set of tweets from Twitter related to the pandemic, collected between January and May 2020, and developed methods to classify the ideological alignment of users along the moderacy (hardline vs moderate), political (liberal vs conservative), and science (antiscience vs proscience) dimensions.
Results: We found a significant correlation in polarized views along the science and political dimensions. Moreover, politically moderate users were more aligned with proscience views, while hardline users were more aligned with antiscience views. Contrary to expectations, we did not find that polarization grew over time; instead, we saw increasing activity by moderate proscience users. We also show that antiscience conservatives in the United States tended to tweet from the southern and northwestern states, while antiscience moderates tended to tweet from the western states. The proportion of antiscience conservatives was found to correlate with COVID-19 cases.
Conclusions: Our findings shed light on the multidimensional nature of polarization and the feasibility of tracking polarized opinions about the pandemic across time and space through social media data.
52 citations
TL;DR: Hotez as mentioned in this paper explores the anti-science movement in America, emphasizing our unique historical connections to health and medical freedom, and highlights the importance of public health recommendations in the US.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has been exacerbated in the US by misinformation and disregard for public health recommendations. In this Viewpoint, Peter Hotez explores the anti-science movement in America, emphasizing our unique historical connections to health and medical freedom.
40 citations
TL;DR: The global spread of antiscience beliefs, misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories is posing a threat to the well-being of individuals and societies worldwide as discussed by the authors, and therefore, research on how to counter this threat is needed.
Abstract: The global spread of antiscience beliefs, misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories is posing a threat to the well-being of individuals and societies worldwide. Accordingly, research on wh...
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe an approach to write accessible books based on personal stories as a means to help spread scientific literacy to those who normally do not read science, and describe their approach as a way to encourage people to read science.
1 citations
TL;DR: There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the United States as discussed by the authors, arising from far-right extremists, including some elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets that target prominent biological scientists fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract: There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the United States. It's arising from far-right extremism, including some elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets that target prominent biological scientists fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.