Climate Change Denial and Beliefs About Science

Social scientists have offered a number of explanations for why Americans commonly

deny that human-caused climate change is real. In this paper, I argue that these explanations

neglect an important group of climate change deniers: those who say they are on the side of

science while also rejecting what they know most climate scientists accept. I then develop a

“nature of science” hypothesis that does account for this group of deniers. According to this

hypothesis, people have serious misconceptions about what scientific inquiry ought to look like.

Their misconceptions interact with partisan biases to produce denial of human-caused climate

change. After I develop this hypothesis, I propose ways of confirming that it is true. Then I

consider its implications for efforts to combat climate change denial, and for other cases of

public rejection of science.

Please contact Michael Miller (mike.miller@utoronto.ca) if you would like a copy of the paper.