The irrationality of the public on subjects of global impacts, such as climate change, has been explained using three dominant theories. They are 1) the scientific illiteracy theory, 2) the bounded rationality theory, and 3) the cultural cognition theory. The first assumes that most people lack the science education to understand the complex nature of global warming. The second one goes hand in hand with Kahneman’s definition of system 1 (fast) and system 2 (slow) thinking. The third one concerns the perception of risks and how they fit with an individual’s value systems.
To apply this to climate change: a familiar narrative is that the average public lacks the capacity to comprehend the science behind it and therefore resorts to some form of heuristics to understand, which is often governed by her beliefs. The name associated with this portrayal is the public irrationality thesis (PIT).
Application to climate change
Kahan et al. have applied the theory to testing. Contrary to the expectation, in his first test (N = 1540), he found that increased science literacy and numeracy did not increase the risk perception of climate change; in fact, it slightly decreased!
On the other hand, the study found that an egalitarian individual (communitarian) is more likely to have a higher risk perception of climate than a hierarchical person (individualist). It remained the same or slightly increased with her numeracy. It was striking that the hierarchical individualist did not progress her risk perception as a function of numeracy; instead, it slightly reduced!
Nuclear risk
On the other hand, to answer the question about the impact of nuclear power on human health and safety, both types of individuals showed reduced perceived risks as a function of their literacy.
Beliefs over rationality
Both these data suggest that increasing science education and numeracy is not necessarily to help detach oneself from her beliefs.
