Why science is revered and rejected

Scientists and their work are often dismissed, ignored, or attacked, yet in general, science is widely trusted and esteemed. This article examines how these seemingly contradictory attitudes coexist: how can science be both revered and rejected? We outline four models of the relationship between the esteem of science and the frequent rejection of scientific claims. First, although attitudes toward science are generally positive, they are not absolute or unanimous. This gives people latitude to reject scientific claims that seem uncongenial to their values, identities, or interests. Second, people may engage in cherry-picking: regardless of their overall attitudes toward science, they can selectively accept congenial claims and reject uncongenial ones. Two further models, less documented in the literature, highlight the role of perceived “scienciness”—the extent to which a claim appears prototypically scientific. In the third model, some claims are met with prejudice because they are less “sciency” than others a priori (e.g., due to their source or underpinning methods). Thus, the esteem of science may do little to discourage their rejection. The fourth model suggests that uncongenial claims are subject to desciencing: in the process of rejecting them, people may strategically downgrade their scienciness (e.g., by consigning them to a marginal subcategory of science). Over time, desciencing may cumulatively alter people's understandings of science itself, leaving future work vulnerable to prejudice. Together, these models may explain how positive views of science can coexist with, facilitate, and themselves be shaped by the rejection of scientific claims.