Cultural Beliefs, Not Science Education Split Climate Views

Global warming skeptics are not less educated about science but rather use their knowledge to affirm their predetermined beliefs. The new research says that deniers hold their skeptical views due to “opposing sets of cultural values" that help them make a decision on the hot-button environmental issue.

“The aim of the study was to test two hypotheses,” researchers, who published their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change, said in a statement, according to Death and Taxes. “The first attributes political controversy over climate change to the public’s limited ability to comprehend science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values ... The findings supported the second hypothesis and not the first.”