Evolution acceptance, literacy, and knowledge acquisition among online manosphere communities: an exploratory survey study

Background

Evolutionary scientists have recently expressed concern at the political weaponization of their research findings by online communities of laypeople. This is the case for genetics research among white supremacists, but also of evolutionary psychology among the online antifeminist communities of the “manosphere.” Yet, so far, there has been no empirical assessment of the evolutionary scientific literacy and scientific knowledge acquisition practices of these lay Darwinian aficionados. The present exploratory survey study (n = 148) aimed to start filling this gap by comparing results of English-speaking manosphere respondents on a science literacy questionnaire with those of a Prolific US respondent sample (n = 151).

Results

Manospherians exhibited high educational levels, including scientific higher education, and an almost unanimous acceptance of evolutionary theory. Moreover, they scored much better than a counterpart group of US respondents on the science literacy questionnaire (70.4% vs. 50.5% correct answers), confirming their status as enthusiastic Darwinians. Unsurprisingly, they seek out scientific content at higher rates than other lay publics, including through direct access to peer-reviewed literature. They also tend to share and transmit such scientific content in online discussions and social media posts at much higher rates.

Conclusion

Concerned scientists have been calling for more rigorous empirical and methodological standards to prevent appropriations and distortion by political factions. However, our evidence suggests that laypeople who appropriate research in ways that scientists disapprove of might not necessarily be guided by misunderstanding of the research, but rather by values, ideologies, and agendas. The impact of scientific education and outreach, which is primarily effective at bettering understanding of science, might in that case be limited, and other types of normative, non-epistemic interventions from the scientific community could become necessary.