The result “blows the lid off of this idea” that such beliefs are held by only a fringe population of individuals who are uninformed or ideologically driven, says David Bersoff, head of research at the Edelman Trust Institute. “This is not like a small problematic group.”
A lot of smart people, scientists even, would be inclined to say “I don’t know if it’s true” with the key word being “know”.
If they’re not familiar with the literature and they’re being exposed to a claim for the very first time, they’d potentially want to consult the research on the matter. (Not “do their own research”, but to look into respectable research done by professionals)
Like all that raw milk stuff? I’ve got no clue what that’s about. And if the claims are like “Raw milk promotes the maintenance of healthy bones and teeth better than homogenized milk” or something, I dunno man. I’ve never heard anything one way or the other. “I don’t know if it’s true”. I might even be leaning towards disbelieving it, but I don’t know.
Yeah, so that accounts for the grey being reasonable (although in some of these a arguably too large, if things are well established and people are unsure that’s because of groups spreading uncertainty)
The article is mostly focused on that red bar though
I’m not sure if 1/4 to 1/3 of people being gullible is staggering to me