Researchers have long measured people’s thoughts, feelings, and personalities using carefully designed survey questions, which are often given to a relatively small number of volunteers. The proliferation of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, offers alternative measurement approaches: automatic content coding at unprecedented scales and the statistical power to do open-vocabulary explo…
This article discusses methodological challenges of using big data that rely on specific sites and services as their sampling frames, focusing on social network sites in particular. It draws on survey data to show that people do not select into the use of such sites randomly. Instead, use is biased in certain ways yielding samples that limit the generalizability of findings. Results show that a…
Analytic techniques developed for big data have much broader applications in the social sciences, outperforming standard regression models even—or rather especially—in smaller datasets. This article offers an overview of machine learning methods well-suited to social science problems, including decision trees, dimension reduction methods, nearest neighbor algorithms, support vector models, and …
Over the past few years, we have seen the emergence of “big data”: disruptive technologies that have transformed commerce, science, and many aspects of society. Despite the tremendous enthusiasm for big data, there is no shortage of detractors. This article argues that many criticisms stem from a fundamental confusion over goals: whether the desired outcome of big data use is “better science” o…
One of the challenges associated with high-volume, diverse datasets is whether synthesis of open data streams can translate into actionable knowledge. Recognizing that challenge and other issues related to these types of data, the National Institutes of Health developed the Big Data to Knowledge or BD2K initiative. The concept of translating “big data to knowledge” is important to the social an…
Despite the apparent partisan divide over issues such as global warming and hydraulic fracturing, little is known about what shapes citizens’ willingness to accept scientific recommendations on political issues. We examine the extent to which Democrats, Republicans, and independents are likely to defer to scientific expertise in matters of policy. Our study draws on an October 2013 U.S. nationa…
Like lay people, experts vary in their technology optimism or pessimism about scientific endeavors, for reasons that are poorly understood. We explore experts’ technology optimism through a focus on genomics; its novelty, life-and-death implications, complex technology, and broad but as yet unknown societal implications make it an excellent subject for studying views about new knowledge. We use…
The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals rely extensively on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests that a two-channel science communication strategy, combining information content (“Channel 1”) with cultural meanings (“Channel 2”), could promote open-minded assessment of information across diverse communities. We test …
Numerous factors shape citizens’ beliefs about global warming, but there is very little research that compares the views of the public with key actors in the policymaking process. We analyze data from simultaneous and parallel surveys of (1) the U.S. public, (2) scientists who actively publish research on energy technologies in the United States, and (3) congressional policy advisors and find t…
Evolution deniers do not need to establish their own scientific position but merely cast doubt on some aspect of evolution or obtain a small amount of legitimacy for creationism or intelligent design to sow sufficient doubt in the mainstream. This doubt is one of three pillars, along with demands for equal time and the incompatibility of science and religion, that Eugenie Scott has argued defin…
We use an experiment with a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population to examine how political partisans consume and process media reports about nanotechnology—a scientific issue that is unfamiliar to most Americans. We manipulate the extent to which participants receive ideological cues contextualizing a news article, and follow their subsequent information seeking about nanotech…
Health issues are increasingly becoming politicized, but little is known about how politicization takes shape in the news and its effect on the public. We analyze the evolution of politicization in news coverage of two health controversies: the uproar over the 2009 mammography screening guidelines and the 2006–2007 debate over mandating the HPV vaccine as a requirement for middle school–aged gi…
During the George W. Bush administration, intense debate focused on the administration’s interference with the work of government scientists. In this study, analyzing a May/June 2009 survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), we evaluate the factors during this period that influenced scientists’ awareness of political interference and their media outrea…
A great deal of research has been dedicated to understanding the relationship of public preferences to public policy. Much of this literature, though, does not account for risk perception, an important characteristic that affects individuals’ preferences. In terms of policy, those who perceive high risk in association with a particular issue should be more likely to oppose policies that would i…
Advances in neuroscience are beginning to shape law and public policy, giving rise to the field of “neurolaw.” The impact of neuroscientific evidence on how laws are written and interpreted in practice will depend in part on how neurolaw is understood by the public. Drawing on a nationally representative telephone survey experiment, this article presents the first evidence on public approval of…
Despite strong agreement among scientists, public opinion surveys reveal wide partisan disagreement on climate issues in the United States. We suggest that this divide may be exaggerated by questionnaire design variables. Following a brief literature review, we report on a national survey experiment involving U.S. Democrats and Republicans (n = 2,041) (fielded August 25–September 5, 2012) that …
There has been deepening concern about political polarization in public attitudes toward the scientific community. The “intrinsic thesis” attributes this polarization to psychological deficiencies among conservatives as compared to liberals. The “contextual thesis” makes no such claims about inherent psychological differences between conservatives and liberals, but rather points to interacting …
The editors asked for my view on whether, in the current political climate, the recommendations in this volume of The ANNALS are likely to be heeded. The question that precedes this one is whether the volume’s contributors understand why policy-makers make use of science at all. “No” is the obvious answer, though I see this not as a failure particular to their effort but rather as a broader fai…
Since Alan Krueger’s christening of the Great Gatsby curve, there has been increased attention given to the relationship between inequality and intergenerational social mobility in the United States. Studying intergenerational mobility (IGM) requires longitudinal data across large spans of time as well as the ability to follow parents and children over multiple generations. Few longitudinal dat…
In this article I define the main criteria that ought to be considered in evaluating the costs and benefits of various data resources that might be used for a new study of social and economic mobility in the United States. These criteria include population definition and coverage, sample size, topical coverage, temporal issues, spatial issues, sustainability, financial expense, and privacy and …