General Science Skepticism: Development and Validation of a New Scale

The question why segments of Western populations reject scientific evidence has occupied researchers for some time. While most studies examine reasons for domain-specific science denial (e.g., climate change denial), in this paper we argue that rejecting many scientific facts from different domains is based on a general skepticism towards science. We developed, tested, and validated the General Science Skepticism Scale (GS3) measuring general skepticism toward science within four studies (Ntotal = 3908). The GS3 consists of two closely related factors with high reliability. We provide and replicate evidence for convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity showing that general science skepticism is closely related to variables associated with science and politics (e.g., trust in science, science-related populism, conspiracy mentality, political disenchantment) and continues to positively predict domain-specific science denial when additionally controlled for these variables. The present work contributes to a novel understanding of how general beliefs about science are related to science denial independent of specific domains and provides a measurement tool that can be used in future studies.