ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some preliminary theoretical and empirical groundwork for the systematic study of opposition to science. It reviews anecdotal and empirical evidence that skepticism and efforts to suppress scientific findings are motivated by concerns about their societal impact. If normal human communication is polite and strategically economical with the truth, science in its ideal form is supposed to be impersonal and mercilessly frank. When people’s concerns about the potential impact of research lead them to cast doubts on its veracity and to support censorship, they are acting as intuitive theologians. Alcohol consumption during pregnancy is controversial topic surrounded by concerns about the impact of the research. Perceptions of impact also appeared to mediate other interesting responses to the alcohol-during-pregnancy studies: people were less likely to interpret the actual effect in causal terms and were more likely to ascribe it to some confound.
