“Science Curiosity” Moves the Goalposts

Social scientists embarrassed at the fact that the most numerate people were unwilling to believe what they were told (which counts as irrationality in SocialScienceWorld) moved the goalposts from numeracy to science curiosity. People with more actual knowledge of science tended to be polarized about such issues as global warming or fracking. On the other hand, people with more “science curiosity” tended to be less polarized, i.e., they were more likely to agree with left-wing propaganda.

The important part is how science curiosity is measured. It's based on “whether people had read books about science, attended science events, or were inclined to read science news over other types of news.” That's a bit ambiguous. The books might include Nuclear Power Killed my Poodle (cited in Science Made Stupid) or Space–Time and Beyond and similarly for the events and the news items. We might be speaking of people who “f*cking love science” but don't know anything about it. Some of the other measures of science curiosity are even worse. People with science curiosity are more likely to watch TV shows about science and read news stories with “Surprising” in the title, i.e., they were more likely to read clickbait.

The clincher is that the article did not mention nuclear energy or GMOs.

I suspect this research simply means there is a correlation between gullibility and television watching.