Evolution, Climate Change, and Genetic Engineering: The Interrelationship of Contentious Science Topics in Students’ Lives

• In Event: Roundtable Session 129
  In Roundtable Session: Understandings of Evolution––And Other Contentious Topics

Abstract

As part of a larger ethnographic study, college student attitudes toward three potentially contentious science topics were collected; evolution, climate change, and genetic engineering. Building upon previously published work on one of these topics (evolution), this paper expands this research dialogue to examine socio-cultural and socio-psychological factors that mediate student understanding of climate change science along with genetic engineering, and how, if at all, attitudes towards these three topics interrelate. Past a body of survey research disconnected by topic, this research interrelates these topics, grounded in the rich context of students' lives.

Author

• David E. Long, George Mason University