Science denied: Why does doubt persist?

[really?]

Nearby, hominid skulls, ancient tools and maps of early migrations spell out humanity's deep past. Surely, such a mix of strong visuals and clear explanations brings the theory of evolution to life for young minds, right? "You'd be surprised," says a guide who has answered countless questions since the collection, called the Hall of Human Origins, opened two years ago. "I've heard visitors call evolution a secular conspiracy to eliminate God. They tell me that they bring their kids here to show them how ridiculous the other side is." The facts of evolution may be written in stone and bone and DNA, but close to half the American public "accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life," according to the Pew Research Center for People & the Press. Evolution is just one front in a broader conflict between science and individual belief. Climate change is another: according to a 2009 Pew survey, about half of Americans doubt that human activity contributes to global warming, despite strong scientific evidence that it does. Smart and caring parents, swayed by a purported though discredited link between vaccines and autism, are refusing to immunize their children. Other issues are also returning to the hot-button table, among them fluoridation of public drinking water. While doubters of evolution are often linked to the political or religious right, the rejection of science knows no social, economic or ideological bounds.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-science-de ... t.html#jCp

Discuss if you feel like it.

[SydneyPSIder]

Is the relationship between vaccinations and autism in children under 2 really discredited? Somehow I don't think the research has even been done to 'discredit' it, whereas other research away from the big pharma-medical complex suggests there is harm. Pseudoscepticism at work again...

So which part of this set of quotes adulates science and which adulates economics-driven pseudoscience?

[Twain Shakespeare]

[Emily]