That’s excellent news that younger republicans are more receptive to science - thanks for raising, I’ll check that out.
The scientific consensus should change your mind if you’re on the fence and scientifically literate - unless you’re a climate scientist on the cutting edge of research and know something that 99% of the other climate scientists have got wrong, but haven’t quite finished convincing them! I think it’s because people misjudge the gap in understanding between a layperson and a climate scientist in ways that almost nobody does in other fields, perhaps because we can all look outside, feel weather and notice difference between seasons. You rarely hear of a layperson disagreeing with experts about microprocessor architecture, consumer electronics, space exploration, air travel, medtech like MRI machines, encryption, GPS - because the gap is understood. Unless you have a very accomplished and relevant history, deferring to scientific consensus is the only educated default.
No, I like to think I also wouldn’t have agreed with consensus on homosexuality’s (remember that I don’t agree with consensus on eating animals, so I agree that blindly following a majority isn’t always the smart move.
However, you’ve fallen into two very specific traps - let me explain:
A) Homosexuality isn’t science, it’s morality - and we’ve seen time and time again that the majority of people often fall on the wrong side of history
B) Science is sometimes wrong, yes. However, we don’t know which as lay people are going to be wrong, so it would be as futile as randomly not trusting science on any of the other topics I mentioned (do you think they are doing MRI machines wrong?). On the contrary, anybody can understand and weigh in on moral topics. However, while you can read some pop science articles and listen to opinions about well-studied scientific topics, but you simply don’t have the extensive background to be informed enough to contribute anything but noise, doubt and misinformation to the conversation.
