ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how public interest in science changes as the social condition changes and explains how public interest in science interacts with traditional beliefs. The understanding of social context plays an important role in the study of cultural authority of science. It is because societal interest in knowledge of science or paranormal beliefs has special social context. General Linear Models were created to examine the science-paranormal relationship under controlling relevant covariates. There is also the different perspective of the co-existence of knowledges, which suggests that science and paranormal belief empower each other. The thesis of cognitive polyphasia proposes that in any one person's mind, science and other forms of knowledge can coexist as a plurality of modes of thought shared as common sense. The chapter identifies several critical cohorts with unique social-economic developmental characteristics in Taiwan since 1945–2000 based on the study of Hsung, Chang & Lin, within the social change.
