reposted from:http://richarddawkins.net/article,1634,n,n

Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

by Yale.edu, Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg

Thanks to Jussi K. Niemelä for the link.

View the full report here:
http://www.yale.edu/langcoglab/papers/bloom&weisberg%20science.pdf

Science 18 May 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5827, pp. 996-997
DOI: 10.1126/science.1133398
Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science
Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg

Resistance to certain scientific ideas derives in large part from assumptions and biases

that can be demonstrated experimentally in young children and that may persist into adulthood. In particular,

both adults and children resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains. Additionally, when learning information from other people, both adults and children are sensitive to the trustworthiness of the source of that information.

Resistance to science, then, is particularly exaggerated in societies where nonscientific ideologies have the advantages of being both grounded in common sense and transmitted by trustworthy sources.

Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

Continue reading:
http://www.yale.edu/langcoglab/papers/bloom&weisberg%20science.pdf